NORMAN F BRETT TAIL GUNNER ON ORIGINAL CREW GROUNDED AFTER 7 MISSIONS REPLACED ON THIS MISSION BY JAMES SPEAKMAN

STATEMENT BY SAM TURNER: "I crashed - landed on Lake Constance on 06 Sep 1943 at 1030 hours approximately one and one fourth miles from land The plane remained afloat for about four minutes The life rafts failed to work properly The plane was completely demolished After the plane crashed I saw the ball turret gunner who had been killed by a 20mm shell He was left in the plane On 05 Oct 1943 the plane was raised by the Swiss and the ball turret gunner was removed and buried "

Turner was slightly wounded in the chest by a 20mm fragment He was interned until March 1944 at which time he returned to the U S A

According to Morris Weinberg Joseph Maloney was hit by two 20mm's between the shoulder blades He was buried at Bad Ragaz and later moved to American Cemetery at Musterlingen Switzerland

On this sixteenth mission for the crew Vance Boswell was wounded and his chute torn to pieces

Mission log courtesy of William Freund in 1995 Paul west

Sam Turner Crew

Special Orders March 2 1944

The Special Orders cut in Switzerland on 2 March 1944 designating seven U S Army officers to be exchanged against seven German aviators also interned in Switzerland

1st Lt William Cantwell was a B-17 pilot of the 99th Bomb Group based in Tunisia. His plane was shot down on 1 October 1943 while on a mission to Regensburg, Germany. Only five of his plane’s ten-man crew parachuted out and landed safely in the Alps where they were picked up by Swiss soldiers.

1st Lt Donald Oakes piloted a B-17 of the 100th Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force. He landed at Dubendorf near Zurich on 17 August 1943 while on a mission to Regensburq, Germany.  His was the first B-17 -- though not the first plane -- to land in Switzerland.

1st Lt Martin Andrews piloted a B-17 of the 306th Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force.  He made a forced landing at Magadino, Switzerland while on a mission to Stuttgart on September 6 1943.

1st Lt Alva Geron, piloting a B-24 flying out of Tunisia, was on a mission to Wiener Neustadt, Austria when he was forced to make a landing in a farmer's field at Thurnau, Switzerland on 13 August 1943. His was the first American plane to land in Switzerland.

1st Lt Sam Turner, piloting a B-17 of the 100th Bomb Group of the 8th AF, was on the same mission to Stuttgart as Andrews.  He was forced to ditch in the Lake of Constance where his dead ball turret gunner went down with the plane.

2nd Lt Robert Titus was a navigator of the 95th Bomb Group of the 8th AF.  When his plane went down over France on the 6 September 1943 mission to Stuttgart, he parachuted safely down, evaded capture, and crossed the French-Swiss border.  Because he had walked into Switzerland he was considered an "Evadee " not an "Internee " and could move freely around Switzerland.

2nd Lt Stephen Rapport piloted a B-17 of the 390th Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force. He was on the same mission to Regensburg as Lt Oakes when battle damage forced him to make a crash landing in a farmer's field near Utzendorf, Switzerland.