07 Mar Liberty Lady Day

The farm is where Ulf’s father was working when the B-17 flew over. The two arrows show possible locations of forest where the crew hid after setting fire to the plane. 7 miles behind the photographer’s back is the Baltic Sea.

Yesterday, March 6th, was Liberty Lady Day in the Allen family.  It has been sixty-seven years since the B-17 Liberty Lady was forced to crash land on the Swedish island of Gotland, just a few hours after flying over the treacherous skies of Nazi Berlin.

I recently “met” a gentleman named Ulf Gahm.  He is editor at Gotlandsguiden (www.gotlandsguiden.se) which is the
biggest and most comprehensive tourist magazine on the island.  Ulf emailed me when he discovered this blog.

His father, now 80 years old, actually saw the plane go down on the field that day and is one of few eyewitness of the event.  He was  thirteen years old and was working at the nearest farm when he heard the plane.  Imagine how loud it must have been!  Just a few seconds later he saw it as it passed right over him.

He and a friend jumped on their bikes and went to the site, barely  half a mile away. The crew had just set the plane on fire (they thought they were in a Nazi controlled country) and were hiding in the woods.

When my son, Johnny, and I travel to Gotland next year, we will be able to talk to Ulf’s father (with an interpretor!) and see the crash site ourselves.

In the meantime, in honor of “Liberty Lady Day,” Ulf sent me this photograph taken yesterday at 3:55 pm, almost exactly 67 years since the Liberty Lady landed on the field.

Ulf wrote that, “This is almost exactly the same view the crew saw just seconds before touchdown.  It’s a big field and probably one of the best choices on the southern part of the island to crash land.  About thirty miles further north they would have reached the town of Visby and its airport, but as we know, they didn’t know where they were.”

Thank you, Ulf.  Looking forward to seeing you in a year!

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