Switzerland Misfortune Plane Gauligletscher, 1946 (b/w photo)

Soldiers of the US Army, surrounded by onlookers, prepare their meal over a fire, taken on November 22, 1946 at a radio station set up by a detachment of the US Army in the Urbachtal valley near Innertkirchen. In the back there are jeeps and snow cats of the Americans. On 19 November 1946 an American military aircraft, a Douglas C-53 Dakota (military version of the DC-3), crashed onto the Gauligletscher in the Bernese Oberland with twelve persons on board. After locating the plane a few days later, a Swiss rescue team ascends to the crash site on 23 November. After an elaborate rescue operation, all accident victims can be rescued alive and flown into the valley on November 24 by the Swiss military pilots Victor Hug and Pista Hitz with aircraft of the type “Fieseler Storch”