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In pics: Historic photos taken by US bombers show changing face of Switzerland

The Swiss government has just published a remarkable archive of historical photos taken from the air which reveal how much the country has changed in the last 70 years.

Published: 22 May 2019 17:23 CEST

In pics: Historic photos taken by US bombers show changing face of Switzerland

A before and after image of Zurich's Kloten Airport. Photo: Swiss Federal Office of Topography

The photos of Switzerland were captured by US bomber pilots in 1946 as part of Operation Casey Jones – a joint US–UK operation to create an aerial map of post-war Europe.

A total of around 4,200 high-quality images were captured during 64 flights from May to September that year after Swiss authorities gave the go-ahead for the flights on the condition that Swiss observers be allowed on board.

The photos have been digitally restored and are now available online at the Swiss Federal Office of Topography website. A clever mapping tool also allows users to compare the unique historical images of what was still a largely agricultural Switzerland with the country of today.

To see the transformation, drag the arrow tool left or right across the screen in the images below:

Zurich's Kloten airport in 1946 and today

Airolo in the canton of Ticino

The Rhine Port in Birsfelden in the canton of Basel–Landschaft

The man made Lac de la Gruyère in canton Fribourg.

Morges in the canton of Vaud

Sion/Sitten in the canton of Valais

Schlieren in the canton of Zurich

Read also: QUIZ: How well do you know these key dates in Swiss history?

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France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

More than 200,000 Algerians fought with the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.

At the end of the war, the French government left the loyalist fighters known as Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises it would look after them.

Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the new authorities took revenge.

Thousands of others who fled to France were held in camps, often with their families, in deplorable conditions that an AFP investigation recently found led to the deaths of dozens of children, most of them babies.

READ ALSO Who are the Harkis and why are they still a sore subject in France?

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of his country for abandoning the Harkis and their families after independence.

The following year, a law was passed to recognise the state’s responsibility for the “indignity of the hosting and living conditions on its territory”, which caused “exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma”, and recognised the right to reparations for those who had lived in 89 of the internment camps.

But following a new report, 45 new sites – including military camps, slums and shacks – were added on Monday to that list of places the Harkis and their relatives were forced to live, the government said.

Now “up to 14,000 (more) people could receive compensation after transiting through one of these structures,” it said, signalling possible reparations for both the Harkis and their descendants.

Secretary of state Patricia Miralles said the decision hoped to “make amends for a new injustice, including in regions where until now the prejudices suffered by the Harkis living there were not recognised”.

Macron has spoken out on a number of France’s unresolved colonial legacies, including nuclear testing in Polynesia, its role in the Rwandan genocide and war crimes in Algeria.

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