Subject: New Story on my Website
From: "Joe Osman"
Date: 2/4/04 8:13 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Geoffrey Perret in his popular history of the Army Air Forces in World War
II - "Winged Victory" mentions several times that entire aircrews talked
openly about landing in Sweden or Switzerland just to get out of the war.
I'm sure there were less "gung ho" squadrons and wings than Art's where they
thought that they could get away with such talk. At the end of the war in
the ETO, there was about a division's worth of deserters in the US Army. I
wonder if some crews actually did desert in this way, and if they did, what
happened to them after the war.

Joe


Go to my website and read "God bless St. Trond".

We always agreed that in case of no good aletrnate landing field if hit ,we
would just head back West and try to get as close to our lines as possible and
make our way back home by what ever means. But as we flew into Germany I always
was plotting emergency fields in case we got hit. Switzerland or Sweden was
never remotely a consideration. I think if any of our crew ever suggested such
a thing, we would have gotten rid of him.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer