The history of the Swiss Air Force began in 1914 with the establishment of an ad hoc force consisting of a handful of men in outdated and largely civilian aircraft.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. The Swiss Air Force as an autonomous military service was created in October 1936. After World War II it was renamed the Swiss Air Force and Anti-Aircraft Command (Schweizerische Flugwaffe Kommando der Flieger und Fliegerabwehrtruppen) and in 1996 became a separate service independent from the Army, under its present name Schweizer Luftwaffe.
The mission of the Swiss Air Force historically has been to support ground troops (erdkampf) in repelling invasions of neutral Swiss territory, with a secondary mission of defending the sovereignty of Swiss airspace. During World War II this doctrine was severely tested when Switzerland was literally caught in the middle of an air war and subjected to both attacks and intrusions by aircraft of all combatants. Its inability to prevent such violations of its neutrality led for a period to a complete cessation of air intercepts, followed by a practice of coercing small numbers of intruders to submit to internment.Lombardi, Fiona (2007). The Swiss Air Power: Wherefrom? Whereto?, Zürich University, p.40–41.
At the end of the 1950s, reflecting both the threat of possible invasion by the Soviet Union and the realities of nuclear warfare, Swiss military doctrine changed to that of a dynamic (mobile) defense that included missions for the Swiss Air Force outside of its territory, in order to defeat standoff attacks and nuclear threats, including the possibility of defensive employment of air-delivered nuclear weapons. However the inability to field an air force of sufficient capability to carry out such missions led to a return of traditional doctrine.Lombardi, The Swiss Airpower, p.45.
In 1995 the Swiss abandoned traditional doctrine and implemented a defensive plan that made control of Swiss airspace its highest and main priority. Modernization of the Swiss Air Force to achieve this mission was subject to popular referendums challenging its cost and practice.
Swiss balloon forces
Swiss military aviation began in 1900 with the creation of an observation balloon force. Swiss balloonists were first engaged in combat on 7 October 1918, near the end of World War I, when a German airplane accidentally 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 when developments in aviation made it obsolete.
Heavier-than-air aviation in World War I
Military trials with civilian airplanes were first conducted in 1911, resulting in many crashes that failed to persuade Swiss authorities of the military utility of the airplane. From September 4 to 6, 1911, Failloubaz participated as pilot (his friend Gustave Lecoultre as observer) to an exercise with the 1st Swiss Army Corps and demonstrated the military possibilities of aircraft with his Dufaux 5; the beginning of the military aviation in Switzerland. Only after the Swiss Officers' Society collected approximately 1,723,000 Swiss francs in 1912– a very large sum for the time – in a national fund drive to the create an air force, did the Swiss Federal Council order the establishment of a Fliegerabteilung on 3 August 1914. The government also decreed that only bachelors could become military pilots, to avoid the payment of expensive widow's pensions in the event of casualties.
The outbreak of World War I, in which neutral Switzerland did not take part, and an indifference to air power of the part of the Swiss military establishment prevented the purchase of modern airplanes required to build an effective air force. By the end of 1914, the force consisted of only eight men flying privately owned airplanes, and by July 1916, four pilots had been killed in crashes. Swiss aircraft were armed only with carbines and flechettes, ineffective pointed iron spikes that were to be dropped on ground targets. The nominal commander of the Swiss air arm, cavalry captain Theodor Real, resigned his post in November 1916 when the army refrained from using its rudimentary air force to defend Swiss airspace against frequent German intrusions, even after Porrentruy was accidentally bombed by German aircraft on 11 October 1916.
The first purpose-built military aircraft in the Swiss air force was a Fokker D.II seized after a German pilot made a forced landing in foul weather near Bettlach on 13 October 1916. In June 1917, five Nieuport 23 C.1 fighter planes were acquired from France. Swiss industry manufactured more than 100 Häfeli DH-3 observation aircraft, but efforts to build a Swiss fighter (the Häfeli DH-4) were halted in 1918 because of the prototypes' poor performance. By the end of the war, the Swiss air force had only 62 pilots and 68 aircraft of nine different makes, almost all of which were suitable only for observation missions. Its wartime budget of CHF 15 million amounted to 1.25% of Swiss military expenditures.
Interwar years
With continuing budgetary restraints, the air force remained in an overall state of neglect during the 1920s. 27 Fokker D.VII, 16 Hanriot HD.1, and 15 Nieuport 28 war surplus airplanes were acquired in 1920 (as were 20 Zeppelin C.II reconnaissance biplanes obtained on the postwar black market)Premier meeting aéronautique à Cointrin : une imposante attaque aérienne militaire (1922) but were soon obsolete, and further efforts to develop indigenous aircraft (MA-6, MA-7, and MA-8) were unsuccessful. Seven pilots were killed in 1925 and 1926 before all Swiss military aircraft were equipped with parachutes. By 1929, only 17 of its 213 airplanes were considered fit for service. The air force consisted of 18 aviation companies (Flieger-Kompagnien), three aerial photography platoons and one airfield company. In the decade following World War I, 162 pilots and 165 observers were trained, and the full complement of the air force was 196 officers, 499 NCOs and 2241 enlisted men.Botschaft vom 13. Dezember 1929, p. 581 The only aircraft purchased in any quantity were the Potez XXV, and the Swiss-built Häfeli DH-5.
The difficulty of maintaining an air force with little funding during a time of rapid technological development was compounded by the Swiss militia system: all but a handful of military personnel were citizen soldiers who served only a few weeks each year following their initial recruitment phase. Military pilot candidates underwent the same recruit training, NCO school and officer candidate school as other Swiss army officers, followed by a pilot school of 173 days, then re-entered civilian life. During his first two years of service, a pilot's training continued with ten logged flight hours per month, and thereafter he was required to fly fifty hours per year at his convenience.Botschaft des Bundesrates an die Bundesversammlung vom 13. Dezember 1929 betreffend die Beschaffung von Flugzeugen, Flugmotoren und anderem Korpsmaterial für die Fliegertruppe , Swiss Federal Journal 1929 vol. 3 p. 577; p. 584 et seq.
However, in 1930 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 Dewoitine D.27 fighters and the manufacture of 40 Dutch (Fokker C.V-E) reconnaissance planes under licence.Botschaft vom 13. Dezember 1929 Although the opposition Social Democratic Party collected 42,000 signatures in a petition opposing the bill, Parliament passed it handily and declined to allow a referendum on the issue, optional at that time for spending bills.
This was the start of a massive armament programme that would consume more than a billion francs over the next ten years, but after Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany, the Social Democrats added their support to the efforts. 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, nearly twice the number necessary for a national popular vote, the federal government offered a referendum proposal in 1939 that was nearly as extensive, which was accepted by a 69 percent majority.
In large part, the money was used to acquire modern aircraft. In 1937 and 1938, Swiss defense officials, including the Commander of the Swiss Air Force and at least two Swiss military pilots, evaluated the Heinkel He 112 and Messerschmitt Bf 109 D/E (Germany), Morane-Saulnier M.S.405/406 (France), Fiat G.50 (Italy), Supermarine Spitfire I (Great Britain) and the Curtiss Hawk 75A-1/P-36 (USA).Georg Hoch, "Messerschmitt Me 109 In Swiss Air Force Service." Atlglen, PA: Schiffer Military History, pp. 27-38 Consequently, the Swiss government attempted to purchase Spitfires, along with a licence to build them in Switzerland, but this transaction did not materialize.Robert Jackson, Spitfire: Life of The Legend. New York: Metro Books, 2010, p. 88. Instead, 90 state-of-the-art Messerschmitt Bf 109D and E fighters were acquired from Germany in 1938 for 36.6 million francs, the last of which were delivered in April 1940, eight months after the outbreak of World War II. However, the need to expand the size of the pilot corps resulted in the acquisition of 146 trainers from Germany, the Bücker Bü 131 basic and Bücker Bü 133 advanced trainers.
In addition, Swiss factories licence-built 82 Morane-Saulnier D-3800 and 207 D-3801 fighters between 1939 and 1945, and manufactured 152 domestically designed C-36 fighter-bombers between 1942 and 1948. Both of these types remained in service well into the 1950s as trainers.
On 19 October 1936, the air arm was reorganised, and renamed the Schweizerische Flugwaffe (Department of Aviation and Anti-Aircraft Defense),Lombardi, The Swiss Airpower, p. 30. becoming an autonomous service under the Swiss Federal Military Department, analogous to the organizational autonomy of the United States Army Air Forces within the U.S. Army. The Bambini-Code was developed from the need to communicate via radio links in bad quality in noisy environments, of the aircraft who were used from the Swiss Air Force before the start of the second world war.
World War II
The Swiss Air Force mobilized on 28 August 1939, three days before Germany attacked Poland and initiated World War II, with 96 fighter and 121 observation aircraft; by some accounts the country possessed only eight antiaircraft searchlights. Of the 21 units of the Swiss Air Force, only three were judged combat-ready and five were not yet equipped with aircraft. The Air Force relied on 40 single-seat interceptors for first-line air defense.Lombardi, The Swiss Airpower, p.33
This deficiency was addressed by procuring further German Bf 109 and French Morane D-3800 fighters. In 1942, the Swiss-built F+W C-36 multipurpose aircraft was introduced into service, and in 1943, Switzerland opened its own aircraft factory, Flugzeugwerk Emmen. Caverns were built in which to shelter aircraft and maintenance personnel from air attack, for example in Alpnach, Meiringen and Turtmann. In 1942–43, an air gunnery range at Ebenfluh-Axalp was opened for training. The Surveillance Squadron (Überwachungsgeschwader) was formed in 1941 and made combat-ready in 1943. A night fighter squadron was formed for evaluation purposes in 1944 and disbanded in 1950.
The role of the Swiss Air Force during World War II went through four distinct phases: