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This story appears courtesy of and with thanks to Charles Cassidy and Pat and Chuck Macpuzl

Charles served as a B-17 bombardier with the 8th Air Force during WWII. His bomber was severely damaged during a raid on Munich in July of 1944, and forced to land in Switzerland. Here, in his own words, is the story of his few months as an Internee before escaping:

On July 13, 1944, I was awakened early by someone from 360th Squadron Headquarters telling me that I had been scheduled to go on a bombing mission. At that time, as far as I knew, my own crew (Hector Vitale, pilot) was not scheduled that day. I was also informed that I would be substituting, on a crew strange to me, for a bombardier who turned down the assignment. The flight would take about 9 1/2 hours at high altitude and on oxygen.
I met only the officers of my new crew at the briefing that followed: Lts. Paul Long, pilot; Harold Carlman, co-pilot; Marvin Shaw, navigator. I assumed that the party whose place that I was taking was of Long's crew, but it was something that was never talked about in the months that followed. The bombing target was again Munich in Bavaria, southern Germany. Our group, the 303rd, had already bombed Munich twice that week -- on the eleventh and the twelfth. I had been there with Lt. Vitale's crew on the eleventh.
After fifty one years I don't remember much about the assembly over England, but I suppose, as usual, we climbed through 20,000 feet of clouds where the group assembled as a unit above the clouds.
The flight to the target area at an altitude of between 16,000 and 20,000 feet was ordinary and without opposition except for some bursts of flak when small airfields in France were passed.
As we neared the German border we began to climb. (Official records state that the average altitude of the flight was 23,000 feet; my altimeter showed nearly 30,000 feet at bomb release time).
I think that our group was tail-end Charlie that day, because as we neared the target it appeared to me that the sky became blacker with bursting flak. (Maybe it was imagination). I had a bombsight and put all of the data into it, but there was complete cloud cover and neither the city of Munich nor the target could be seen. The bombs would be dropped when the group's lead aircraft, equipped with Pathfinder equipment released its load. (For those who have no knowledge of U. S. World War II bombing procedure in the European Theater, it was this: Bomb groups flew as a unit with as many aircraft as a group could get in the air. Usually this was in the thirty something range. Aircraft stayed in formation unless something untoward happened. Over the target, the bombardier in the group lead ship, using, usually, the Norden bombsight, salvoed his bomb load at zero hour. All others salvoed their loads when the bombs fell from the lead aircraft. Following this procedure, all bombs would arrive at the target simultaneously and in pattern.)
We made what seemed like an interminably long bomb run, the skies still black with flak, but no enemy fighters.
As we neared what we assumed was the target area, I opened the bomb doors and when the bombs from the lead aircraft went away, I salvoed ours. At that instant our plane lurched and jumped. I looked out and saw that there was a gaping hole in the left wing. I judged that the hole was six feet long and about three feet wide; the smell of gasoline filled the airplane. The top of the left wing was blackened; I supposed that it was from exhaust smoke of the projectile that went through the wing following its explosion. (I think that when the projectile went through the wing causing the gasoline loss, the rapid movement through the air caused total and rapid evaporation of gasoline and total dissipation of the fumes because there was neither explosion nor fire within the aircraft. I do not let my mind dwell on what would have happened had the projectile exploded a tenth of a second sooner).
Because gasoline fumes were still present in the airplane, the bomb bay doors were cranked shut manually to eliminate a possible explosion from an arcing electric motor; nor did we know what other electrical equipment might malfunction. This all took place within seconds after bomb release. Immediately following the bomb release, Lt. Long made a sharp right turn to get out of the German line of anti-aircraft fire and on a heading for England. I think that the inboard engine on the left wing had been feathered; on the turn we lost several hundred feet of altitude. Suddenly we were alone in the sky; our group was gone. As we were lumbering along on a homeward path shortly after the turn, two P-51 Mustangs dropped down from somewhere above. I am happy that they were not ME-l09s because no one had reported seeing them. They turned southwest and waggled their wings. Lt. Long knew immediately what they were signalling and made a correction to the same direction, toward Switzerland. The P-51s stayed with us until we reached the Swiss border where two German built ME-l09s of the Swiss Air Force met us. Whether our fighter pilots had a system for contacting the Swiss, or whether they were patrolling their border, I never found out. Prior to arriving at the Swiss boundary, I had torn the bombing tables into shreds and when we reached Lake Constance, I threw the pieces out. (Tables were used to set bombing information into the bombsight).
The two ME-109s took us to a landing field at Dubendorf near Zurich. We landed on a seemingly short runway, without flaps, (possibly on only two engines) ran over a ditch at the end of the runway and into a small grain field. Immediately a truck loaded with armed Swiss soldiers was upon us. As we filed out of our B-17, someone on the truck shouted, "Don't burn the airplane!" We did get a chance to look at the airplane before we were taken away. In addition to the large hole in the left wing, there was damage at the end of the right wing and to the rear gunner's area. The aircraft was full of smaller holes. The interning Swiss captain told us that the airplane had over a thousand holes in it. The only wounds suffered: Flak had lacerated the end of one of the engineer's fingers and Lt. Shaw, the navigator, while over the target, had a piece of hot flak lodge in his shirt collar which singed the nape of his neck. Our knees might have weakened when we looked at the B-l7 on the ground, but in the air no one panicked or became excited; everyone took care of assigned jobs and Lts. Long and Carlman did a masterful job of landing the aircraft without flaps, and nearly out of gasoline.
The crew was taken to what appeared to be a permanent military barracks, well built, and if memory serves correctly, of stone. Our escape kits were confiscated; we were fed and allowed to take showers ... in cold water.
I do not recall any interrogation; there were probably some questions asked, but I am certain that the interning army knew where we had been, and it was obvious where we ended up. From Munich to Zurich is a little over one hundred miles and the bomb explosions could be heard from that distance. Later, while in quarantine in Neuchatel canton, we frequently heard the sound of bombings.
The crew was separated within a short time. Long, Carlman, Shaw and I were put on a train destined for Neuchatel in the section of Switzerland bordering France. Arriving there, we were taken by funicula to the top of a heavily wooded mountain.
(A funicula is a cable car used to ascend or descend a slope; there is one cable car moving up over rails as another cable car is descending over the same rails, bypassing each other in the middle of the grade on an oval shaped switch; since they are both hooked to the same cable, they counterbalance each other. At the top is an engine house with a drum and hoisting motor that wraps the cable of the ascending car and unwraps the cable of the one descending. I had never seen one before.
The four of us were guarded by one Swiss soldier named Schell; at the top of the mountain, we were taken to a large chalet style lodge, not far from the funicula. Here we would spend our three week quarantine period. The area, called Chaumont, overlooks the city of Neuchatel and the lake of the same name. It is probably about three thousand feet above the city. There are single lane, unpaved roads snaking through the trees of the heavily wooded mountain. Having complete freedom, we walked the roads frequently. Wild strawberries grew in profusion in the grass on Chaumont. It was here, one day while walking, that I saw my first combined house-barn, a long single story stone building with a gable roof and small windows. At one end of the building was the dwelling; at the other end a double style barn door and a cow's head poking out. I suppose that when the price of fuel is considered, it is not a bad idea to utilize the heat that animals emit. Neuchatel is where the Lake people of pre-history lived.
On Sundays, those of us who wanted to go to church were taken down by funicula to Neuchatel to attend services. On the first Sunday we were in Chaumont, we were taken by the townspeople to a cemetery where a memorial service dedicated to the memory of French people killed by Germans was held. I think this was July 16, l944. Other than that occasion we did not associate with local people. (This service also commemorated Bastille Day which is on July 14th).

Continued.....
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