History of the Swiss Air Force

The history of the Swiss Air Force begins in 1914 with the establishment of an ad hoc force consisting of a handful of men in outdated and largely civilian aircraft. It was only in the 1930s that an effective air force was established at great cost, capable of inflicting several embarrassing defeats on the Nazi Luftwaffe in the course of an initially vigorous defence of neutral Swiss airspace.

Swiss balloon forces

Part of a replica of a Swiss Army observation balloon.

The history of Swiss military aviation begins in 1900 with the creation of an observation balloon force. Swiss ballooneers were first engaged in combat on 7 October 1918, near the end of World War I, when a German airplane attacked a Swiss observation balloon stationed close to the German border and killed the observer, Lieutenant Werner Flury. The balloon force was eventually disestablished in 1938 after having been made obsolete by developments in aviation.

Heavier-than-air aviation in World War I

Military trials with civilian airplanes were first conducted in 1911, resulted in numerous crashes and failed to persuade Swiss authorities of the military utility of the airplane. Only after the Swiss Officers' Society managed to collect some 1,723,000 Swiss francs – a very large sum for the time – in a 1912 national fund drive for the creation of an air force, did the Swiss Federal Council order the creation of a Fliegerabteilung on 3 August 1914. The government also decreed that only bachelors could become military pilots, so as to avoid the payment of expensive widow's pensions in the event of casualties.

However, the simultaneous outbreak of World War I (in which neutral Switzerland did not take part) and the indifference of the military establishment prevented the purchase of modern airplanes and the establishment of an effective Swiss air force. By the end of 1914, the force consisted of eight men flying their privately owned civilian airplanes, and by July 1916, four pilots had been killed in crashes. Their commander, cavalry captain Theodor Real, resigned his post in November 1916 after the army refrained from using its rudimentary air force to defend Swiss airspace against frequent German intrusions, even after Porrentruy had been bombed by German aircraft on 11 October 1916. At that time, Swiss aircraft were armed only with carbines and – ineffective – flechettes, pointed iron sticks that were supposed to be dropped on ground targets.

The first purpose-built military aircraft in the Swiss air force was a Fokker D.II taken from a German pilot who had been forced to land near Bettlach on 13 October 1916 because of foul weather. In June 1917, five Nieuport 23 C-1 could be acquired from France. Efforts to design and build a Swiss fighter aircraft (Häfeli DH-4) were halted in 1918 because of the prototypes' poor performance. At the end of World War I, the Swiss air force consisted of 62 pilots and 68 aircraft of nine different makes, almost all of which were only suitable for observation missions. It was allotted a total wartime budget of CHF 15 million, amounting to 1.25% of the overall Swiss military expenditures.

Interwar years

The Swiss-built Häfeli DH-5 reconnaissance aircraft were in service from 1922 to 1940.

The air force remained in an overall state of neglect during the 1920s, owing to severe budgetary constraints. 41 war surplus airplanes (Fokker D.VII, Hanriot, Nieuport Bébé), soon outdated, were acquired in 1920, and efforts to develop indigenous aircraft (MA-6, MA-7, MA-8) went nowhere. It took the death of seven pilots in 1925 and 1926 to equip all aircraft with parachutes. By 1929, only 17 out of 213 airplanes were considered fit for service.

The difficulty of maintaining an air force with little money during a time of rapid technological development was compounded by the Swiss militia system: all but a handful of military personnel were citizen soldiers that served only a few weeks each year following their initial recruitment phase. Aspiring military pilots had to undergo recruit training, NCO school and officer candidate school in sequence just like any other Swiss army officer, before being admitted to pilot school, which lasted 173 days. After graduation, the pilot would re-enter civilian life. During the next 24 months, his training would continue in the course of the ten flight hours he had to log each month, and thereafter he was obliged to fly fifty houry each year at his convenience. By 1929, the air force consisted of 18 aviator companies (Flieger-Kompagnien), three photographer platoons and one airfield company. Since the war, 162 pilots and 165 observers had been trained, and the full complement of the air force was 196 officers, 499 NCOs and 2241 enlisted men.

A Dewoitine D.27 in Swiss service.

It was only in 1930 that the military and civilian leadership decided to establish an effective air force. On 13 December 1929, in what was in retrospect referred to as the "bill to create an air force", the Federal Council asked the Swiss Federal Assembly to approve the spending of 20 million francs for the purchase of 65 French fighters (Dewoitine D.27) and 40 Dutch reconnaissance planes (Fokker C.V-E), to be licence-built in Switzerland. Although the opposition Social Democratic Party collected 42,000 signatures in a petition against the bill, Parliament passed it handily and declined to allow a referendum on the issue (referenda were optional for spending bills at the time). This was the start of a massive armament programme that would consume more than a billion francs over the next ten years. After Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany, these efforts were eventually also championed by the Social Democrats. They also supported Gottlieb Duttweiler's 1938 popular initiative calling for the purchase of a thousand aircraft and the training of three thousand pilots. After 92,000 citizens signed in support of the initiative, almost twice the number then necessary to submit it to a national popular vote, the federal government submitted an almost as extensive proposal of its own to the people, who accepted it with 69 percent in favour in a 1939 referendum.

In large part, the money was used to acquire modern aircraft. Most notably, Switzerland bought ninety state-of-the-art Me-109 D and E fighters from Germany in 1938 for 36.6 million francs. The last of these aircraft were delivered in April 1940, eight months after the outbreak of World War II. In addition, Swiss factories licence-built 82 Morane-Saulnier D-3800 (M.S.405) and 207 D-3801 (M.S.406) from 1940 onward, as well as 152 domestically designed C-3603 from 1942 to 1948.

World War II

The Swiss Air Force and the Swiss anti-aircraft troops were mobilized on August 28, 1939, three days before Germany attacked Poland and initiated World War II. They had 86 fighter aircraft and 121 aircraft for observation and ground attack roles; and the country possessed, by some sources, only eight antiaircraft searchlights. Of the 21 aircraft units, only three were judged combat-ready and five did not have any airplanes. This gap was mended by buying further Messerschmitt Bf 109 from Germany, Macchi MC.202 from Italy and French Morane D-3800 (all these types are fighter aircraft). In 1943, Switzerland opened its own aircraft factory (Flugzeugwerk Emmen). In 1942, the Swiss-built F+W C-36 multipurpose aircraft was introduced.

Caverns in which to store aircraft and maintenance personnel were built, for example in Alpnach, Meiringen and Turtmann. In 1942/1943, the gunning range Ebenfluh/Axalp was put in use. The Surveillance Squadron ("Überwachungsgeschwader") was formed in 1941 and was able to perform combat duty in 1943. In 1944, for evaluation purposes, a night squadron was formed and later disbanded in 1950. During the first months of the war, airmen and antiaircraft soldiers were only sporadically used; it was on May 10th, 1940 when Germany commenced the drive into the west when the Swiss army, as a whole, was mobilized a second time. With the begin of this campaign, German warplanes first violated Swiss airspace.

The combat spirit of the Swiss airmen, which had faced the first brunt of fighting in June 1940, was an impressive symbol of the will to resist the Axis forces. In six days of aerial battles, eleven German aircraft were downed, at a cost of three killed Swiss airman and two aircraft. Following these incidents, on June 6th, the chief of the German Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, protested against the attacks, saying that most of their planes were attacked in French airspace and that German planes entered Swiss airspace only by mistake. Germany demanded financial compensation and an apology by the Swiss government. In a second, more pointed demand (June 19th), Germany stated that they view the air battles as a flagrant aggressive act and, if these interceptions continue, Switzerland would face sanctions and retaliation. The day after, General Guisan ordered all units to stop engaging foreign aircraft, and on July 1st, the Federal Council apologized for possible border violations by Swiss pilots, without admitting any. On July 16th, the Government of the Reich declared that the events were settled. Engaging enemy airplanes was forbidden until October 1943.

In September 1944, the last Swiss airman died in combat; he was shot down by an American airplane. During the entire war, 6501 aircraft from Ally and Axis nations violated Swiss airspace, 198 foreign aircraft landed on Swiss soil, and 56 crashed.[1]

Swiss aircraft did also intercept aircraft of the United States which went astray and such whose crew preferred the Swiss internment camps over the German or Italian ones; they were then forced to land on airstrips. When the bombers did not cooperate or even fired at the Swiss, they were shot down.

Repeatedly, bombing of Swiss cities and railway lines happened. American attacks happened mostly at the Swiss frontier, but also cities like Basel (especially the railway yard Wolf, which was used for rail transport to and from Germany), Zurich (prominently the industrial area in Oerlikon), Schaffhausen (April 1st, 1944: old town, railway station and the Neuhausen industrial area were bombed; 40 people killed) and Stein am Rhein (April 22nd, 1945, nine deaths). It is still a matter of debate if these bombings happened by accident or if the Allies wanted to punish Switzerland for their economic and industrial cooperation with Nazi Germany.[2]

Cold War

During World War II, Switzerland struggled with buying and building modern combat aircraft, but soon after the war was able to purchase surplus P-51 Mustangs from the United States. Several other aircraft types followed, including the de Havilland Venom, de Havilland Vampire, and Hawker Hunter. The Messerschmitt Bf 109s were replaced by the P-51 in 1949 which remained operational until 1958. Venoms were in service between 1949 and 1983, and Vampires between 1949 and 1990.

N-20 and P-16

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FFA P-16

The Swiss government experimented in development and production of its own jet fighters, the FFA P-16 and the N-20, but was not satisfied with them, desiring relatively simple aircraft that did not require extensive training and thus could be flown by militia pilots.

Hoping that competition would lead to the development of effective but simple ground attack aircraft, the government asked the Flugzeugwerk Altenrhein (FFA, or "Aircraft Factory Altenrhein") and the Aircraft Factory Emmen to develop jet-propelled fighters. Although the Federal Institute of Technology had a world-reknowned aerodynamics laboratory, both projects ended in fiasco, as a result of which the Hunter was purchased instead and introduced into service in 1958.

Both models were plagued from the onset by inefficient engines, but were capable of the short-distance takeoffs required by the Swiss (330 m for the P-16, calculated 232 m for the N-20). After many wind tunnel and engine tests, but before the N-20 could make its first flight, Federal Councillor Karl Kobelt cancelled the N-20 project in 1953, leading to much resentment of the Emmen engineers towards the government when the FFA project was continued. Eventually, neither of the aircraft came into production, although the wings of the P-16 were later used in the development of the successful Learjet.

The N-20 featured a delta wing with engines mounted inside of the wing, fold-out canard wings to improve its aerodynamics at slow speeds, and a maximum designed airspeed of 1200 km/h, a remarkable velocity for an aircraft of the early 1950's. The FFA P-16 was a twin-engine straight-wing aircraft for which a contract for production of 100 aircraft was awarded in 1958, but after the third crash of a pre-production model, the order was cancelled.

The Mirage affair

The Swiss acquired a single Dassault Mirage IIIC from France for testing in 1961, as a preface to production under license of 100 Dassault Mirage IIIS interceptors, with strengthened wings, airframe, and undercarriage. Avionics would differ as well, with the Thomson-CSF Cyrano II radar replaced by the Hughes Electronics TARAN-18 system, to provide the Mirage IIIS compatibility with the AIM-4 Falcon air-to-air missile. The Mirage IIIS was intended to be operated as an interceptor, ground attack, and reconnaissance aircraft, using wing pods for the photographic mission.

Production of the Mirage IIIS developed into a scandal. Although the Air Force staff wanted to acquire the best available aircraft on the market, neither it nor the Federal Council had issued requirements specifications. Swiss defense doctrine was centered on mobile rather than area defense, a doctrine that required greater numbers of long-range aircraft and tanks in order to combat Soviet troops before they arrived near the Swiss border. The committee on aircraft procurement, which consisted of two military officers and an engineer who was employed by the army, originally proposed "at least 100 Mirages" to be employed in a multi-role capacity.

The parliament first authorized approximately 871 million Swiss Francs to build 100 Mirage IIIS under licence. But this procurement was soon crushed under massive budget overruns and the government asked for an additional 576 million Francs. The cost overruns were the result of fitting U.S. electronics to the aircraft, installing hardpoints for moving the aircraft inside of the caverns by cranes, structural reinforcements for jet-assisted takeoffs, and other extras to improve the off-the-shelf Mirage IIIC. The wish to procure the Mirage IIIS was also boosted by the possibility that the Swiss could acquire aircraft-delivered nuclear weapons, either from France or by producing them themselves.

However, the chief reason for rising costs was the need to develop a separate variant for the photo-reconnaissance mission when the pods proved to seriously degrade its flight characteristics. The differences between the IIIS and the IIIRS (as the reconnaissance version was designated) resulted in only 36 Mirage IIIS fighters and 18 IIIRS reconnaissance aircraft actually built by the Federal Aircraft Factory at Emmen. 12 were allocated to a reconnaissance squadron, three to a training group and the rest to two fighter squadrons. It was found that such a small number was insufficient to provide the multi-role capacity deemed essential for the new doctrine. The Mirage IIIS went into service in 1967, and the IIIRS in 1969.

The lack of financial oversight and the apparent ease with which Federal Councillor Paul Chaudet and Chief of the General Staff Jakob Annasohn chose the Mirage (at the time, the world's fastest jet fighter) led to, for the first time in Swiss history, the formation of a parliamentary fact-finding commission. As a result, parliamentary oversight on military procurements was improved and the military was given the organizational and professional structures to avoid such budget overruns. One Air Force officer had to retire, and Annasohn himself retired voluntarily in the end of 1964, followed by Chaudet who stepped back in 1966. One side-effect of the affair was the creation of a still well-known, derogatory word in the Swiss German dialect: "Miragelöcher", which is a contraction of "Mirage" and "holes" that sounds like "We assholes".

Later Cold War history

Still reeling from the Mirage affair, the Air Force purchased additional, surplus Hawker Hunters from Great Britain in order to improve ground attack capability (the small number of Mirages were reserved for reconnaissance and interceptor roles), and the end of the 1970's saw the introduction of the Northrop F-5 Tiger.