Featured Switzerland, World War II, US Army Air Force, and The White Tower

James Ramsey Ullman wrote a novel in 1945 called The White Tower. The book was made into a film in 1950 with Glenn Ford, Lloyd Bridges, and Alida Valli.

In the novel which is set around October of 1944, Captain Martin Ordway is a US Army Air Force bomber pilot. His airplane is heavily damaged on a bombing mission over Germany, he orders his crew to bail out (leave the airplane with parachutes) and then he bails out.

The story hinges on two coincidences. First Martin lands in Switzerland and discovers that he has landed near a town, Kandermatt, where his wealthy father had sent him before the war to take mountaineering classes from the Swiss guides. He also encounters Carla, a young Austrian woman who he knew from that period who is now working and living there.

The residents start making arrangements to move Martin to France where he can rejoin his unit.

Before the war Swiss guides had made 40 francs per day guiding climbers but the loss of tourists has closed much of the town. A Swiss franc was worth around US 28 cents then.

A Swiss coin of 1944:


Switzerland 2 francs 1944
Silver, 27.4 mm, 10.0 gm

Swiss guide Andreas, Martin, and Clara start going on small climbs and decide to attempt the "Weissturm", an unclimbed peak. They recruit a British geologist Nicholas and a French refugee Paul who is married to a "trophy wife".

Knowing that they need another experienced climber, they ask the German Hein to join them. Hein is a famous mountain climber having climbed the extremely difficult Eiger. He is also a fanatical Nazi.

On the climb, which takes up most of the book, Hein keeps making derogatory remarks about the others' climbing ability, he says things like "to rest is not to climb", and later his target becomes Martin, "a product of weak democracy".

Further along, the Frenchman gets drunk one night and wanders off to his death and the Englishman becomes ill and the guide decides to help him down the mountain to a safe spot. This leaves Martin, Hein, and Carla.

Hein then takes off by himself to climb the peak and Martin catches up with him. At a dangerous ledge Hein refuses Martin's assistance and falls. Martin collapses and later wakes to find that Andreas and Carla have found him.

The three head back down, pick up the Englishman, and head for Kandermatt. Martin asks Carla to marry him when the war is over and takes off in an arranged flight to France.

I have seen the film several times and bought a used copy of the book in 2010. As what usually happens, the film story is much different from the book.

I became curious about what actually happened to American servicemen who landed or arrived in Switzerland.

These scenes from the 1944 US Army Air Force film "Target for Today" shows that air crew members had to leave their money behind.


Air Force men prepare for a mission


Air Force man turns in his wallet and loose change
The coin on the right is a large British penny.

The reason was to keep information and money out of the hands of the enemy should an airman be captured.

The country was officially neutral during the war and maintained its independence with a large citizen army and by providing goods and services for both the Allies and the Axis (Germany).

Foreign airplane crews who arrived in Switzerland were normally interned which meant that they stayed in Swiss hotels which were paid for by their government's embassies.

However, some servicemen wanted to return to the war and tried various means of escaping from Switzerland. Those caught by the Swiss were placed in a Swiss concentration camp known as Wauwilermoos which was run by Swiss Nazis where the prisoners underwent brutal treatment at the hands of the Swiss and visiting German Gestapo.

I went looking for books on the subject of Swiss neutrality and American airmen and my library was able to order two books.

Switzerland in World War II by Angelo M. Codevilla, published in 2000, was more about banking and modern politics. The author describes the Swiss situation during the war and also attempts by various groups in the 1990's to get money from Swiss banks which they claimed had kept assets of Jewish depositors who did not return from the war.

He mentions that Switzerland had a relative free press and that newspapers would frequently print stories which upset the German government. At one time the Germans even sent a Gestapo official named Gerhardt Trump around to threaten newspaper managers.

However, Mr. Codevilla's book had little about the experiences of American Air Force crews.

Refuge from the Reich: American Airmen and Switzerland During World War II by Stephen Tanner, published in 2000 also, had a lot more information on the subject.

The book described the paperwork processing of airmen (no American women were interned), assignment to hotels, the food provided (lots of cheese), and the life lived by the hotel guests. The men didn't stay in the hotels all the time, they could walk around the town and even up into the mountains provided they returned.

Escapes, successful and not successful were also covered. Two Americans managed to join an Italian army unit and walk out with them. The liberation of France made escapes easier and some Americans were helped by Swiss residents who believed that "my country is neutral but I'm not".

After the war ended there were accusations that Switzerland had been more friendly toward Germany than to the Allies. Accusations included things like buying gold stolen or removed from Nazi concentration camp victims. One accusation is that the Swiss minted gold coins after the war from such stolen gold.


Switzerland 20 Francs 1947
Gold, 21 mm, 6.45 gm

The Swiss have denied such lurid accusations and some believed that the gold coin stories were planted by groups hoping to get money from Swiss banks.

In 1985 the United States military began awarding a Prisoner of War Medal to servicemen and women.


United States Prisoner of War Medal

Some medals were awarded to World War II veterans 40 years after the war ended. World War II awardees had to be prisoners of Germany or Japan.

For many years politicians and lawyers argued over whether prisoners of the Swiss Wauwilermoos concentration camp were eligible for the medal and some ex-prisoners received it and others didn't.

 

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There is also another book well worth reading on the history of Swiss Neutrality : Target Switzerland by Stephen P. Halbrook published by Da Capo Press.

 

Thanks for the write up! Switzerland was in a terrible position and while it is easy for us to criticize them, I think they ultimately chose a route that ensured their survival. Many of their Soldiers were deployed throughout the country during WWII. This matchbox was an effort to raise the spirits of those who could not be with their families.