Aviation History - January 2016

january 2016 AH 43

OPPOSITE: (ABOVE) U.S. NAVY; (BELOW) U.S. AIR FORCE; ABOVE & RIGHT: SWISS FEDERAL ARCHIVES

O

n November 19, 1946,

a U.S. Army Air Forces

C-53 Skytrooper—the

troop-carrying version

of the cargo-configured

C-47—crash-landed on the

Gauli Glacier, in the Bernese

Alps of central Switzerland.

The twin-engine Douglas

had been flying through bad

weather, already too low

among towering peaks, and

a powerful downslope wind

made the hard, wheels-up

touchdown inevitable. When

the transport was reported

missing, an international full-

court media press began, for

it had been carrying a cargo

of high-ranking officers, one

of them a general, plus two

wives, a 12-year-old daughter

and the pilot’s mother—a

dozen people in all, includ-

ing four crew. Other than a

crewman’s badly fractured

leg, injuries were minor, but

five frigid days and nights at

nearly 11,000 feet in drifting

snow left its occupants near

the edge of survival.

The U.S. Army had mount-

ed a huge but pointless

rescue mission involving two

trainloads of jeeps, tracked

M29 Weasels and 150

mountain troops. The Swiss

pointed out that none of the

vehicles or men would be

of any use in the Alps, and

themselves sent 80 experi-

enced mountaineers toward

the wreck site. It took the

climbers 13 grueling hours

to reach the C-53, and even

the Swiss were of little use by

that time.

Some 100 aircraft includ-

ing B-17s, B-29s and RAF

Lancasters (one of which was

the first to spot the crash

site) had been involved in

the search and subsequent

dropping of survival gear and

food, much of which fell into

ravines or deep snow, but the

actual rescue was performed

by two small, ski-equipped

Swiss army Fieseler Fi-156

Storches. The stalky STOL

planes carried everybody to

safety during deteriorating

weather, in eight flights from

the glacier.

The Swiss had experiment-

ed with skiplanes and snow

operations during WWII, but

this was the first attempt at

actual high-altitude glacier

landings and takeoffs. The

Gauli Glacier crash began

a tradition of Swiss aerial

mountain rescues that con-

tinues to this day.

GAULI GLACIER

swiss specialistS

Mountaineers reach the

downed C-53 before (below)

a ski-equipped Swiss Fi-156

Storch arrives to evacuate

the passengers and crew.