The rich military tradition of Sweden can be retraced by means of many interesting dedicated collections. Many of them are scattered in the nice southernmost country regions of the Scandinavian peninsula, and make for an interesting detour from the most popular touristic destinations.
As reported in the previous two chapters on the topic (see here and here), the neutrality of Sweden in the major confrontations taking place during the 20th century allowed this northern Country to operate in a unique and original way, especially in terms of military procurement. Besides picking what was actually deemed suitable for their internal needs especially from the West, Sweden managed develop a strong domestic design and manufacturing capability, such to fulfill its own self-defense role in a cost-effective and credible way.
The defense of neutrality was carried out in the air by a strong Air Force, often updated over the years. With the end of communism in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the major threat in the Baltic area came to an end as well, resulting in a major scale-down of this defense force and the disbandment of many military organizations. Correspondingly, memorial museums can be found often close to former airbases. One of them, dedicated to the ‘Scania’ wing F10, in operation since WWII to the early 2000s, is covered in this chapter.
A rather complete collection of aircraft from the entire span of the Cold War can be found in the unusual frame of a private museum, established in the 1960s from the will of the founder to display primarily his own collection of cars. The mix is particularly interesting, witnessing also the close link between Sweden and the vehicle industry of the US, possibly the tightest among all Countries in Europe.
Of course, in the theater of WWII Sweden was politically and geographically in an interesting position as well as later in the Cold War. Its relative proximity to the Third Reich meant it was often overflown by bombers on their way back from missions over mainland Germany. Dogfights and bomber chase missions reached the airspace of Sweden, sometimes ending with either German or Allied aircraft crashing on Swedish territory. An interesting museum covered in this chapter is fully dedicated to the topic.
Photographs in this chapter were taken in the summer of 2024.
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- Ängelholms Flight Museum, Ängelholm
- Museum of Forced Landings, Morup
- Svedino’s Automobile and Aviation Museum, Ugglarp
Sights
Ängelholms Flight Museum, Ängelholm
This nice collection of military aviation can be found on the former premises of the air base of Barkåkra (today Helsingborg airport), which has been the home of the 10th Wing ‘Scania’ (aka. F10 or ‘Ängelholm Wing’) between 1945 until the disbandment of the latter in 2002. Established during WWII, the illustrious history of the F10 wing spanned the entire Cold War, reaching into the 21st century. Correspondingly, the Scania Wing was supplied over the years with a rich inventory of aircraft models, ranging from classic fighters of WWII to the more recent SAAB Viggen and Gripen.
The structure of the exhibition, rather compact in size, is composed of two major areas.
In the first, the history of F10 is retraced especially by means of interesting photographs and memorabilia items. Among the pictures, some portray American bomber crews as well as German fighters landed on Swedish territory, which remained neutral during WWII.
In this area are also a few dioramas and reconstructions of typical military scenes, including a medical room, from the earlier days of operation of the Scania Wing. Everyday items, as well as military training and illustrative material, is presented in display cases.
The second major area is where most hardware of the collection can be found – aircraft, engines, vehicles, and much gear from the days of operation of the F10 wing. Among the earliest models acquired by F10 back in the WWII years was – rather interestingly – an Italian fighter, the Reggiane Re-2000 Falco, a batch of which was obtained from Italy in a supply shortage scenario, where especially the US had halted material export to non-allied countries. Pressed into service with the Air Force of Sweden (and specifically also with the F10 wing) as an interceptor with the locally attributed code of J20, this generally adequate machine was powered by a Piaggio P.XI 14-cylinders radial engine (which according to Roman numbering then often employed in Italy translates into P.11), a 1.040 hp model license-made in Italy, and originally a French design by Gnome-Rhone. A Re-2000 is not on display, but a Piaggio P.XI is! This engine has been quite popular in those years in Sweden, ending up also as an interim power plant for the Swedish own SAAB B17C single-engine light bomber/diver (not to be confounded with the homonym American Flying Fortress).
Close by the P.XI is the oldest aircraft on display belonging to the F10, in the form of a FFVS J22. The company FFVS was actually a Swedish state-managed entity, borne in the years of WWII to cope with the wartime supply requirements on one side and the overbooking of the SAAB plants on the other. Introduced during WWII, this rugged fighter was powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-1830, the ubiquitous Twin Wasp, license-built in Sweden by Svenska Flygmotor. The Scania Wing received the J22 model only in 1945, the last propeller-driven aircraft in its inventory. The exemplar on display looks under maintenance, and is possibly in airworthy conditions.
Next on display is a SAAB J29 Tunnan, with its distinctive barrel-shaped fuselage enshrouding the single, centrifugal flow jet engine. The F10 wing transitioned to jets in 1946 with the early SAAB J21R and the British-supplied DeHavilland DH100 Vampire (named J28R in Sweden). The Tunnan was provided to the F10 wing in 1953, and there it remained until 1963, while more advanced models were becoming available. The engine of the J29 was a DeHavilland Ghost, manufactured under licence in Sweden by Svenska Flygmotor under the name RM2B – an example is on display.
Close to the tail cone of the Tunnan is also a DeHavilland Goblin engine, originally employed on the Vampire.
The longest-lasting workhorse in F10 service has been the SAAB J35 Draken. An exemplar of the J version, the most updated and last (with the actual modification taking place in the late 1980s), is on display. The distinctive bulge for the IR seeker under the fuselage, appearing from the modern F version on, can be checked out from very close.
Interestingly, the Draken is presented with an exemplar of the Rb-28 missile hanging from an underwing pylon. This is a SAAB-modified version of the US-designed Hughes AIM-4D Falcon, an air-to-air missile conceived as an anti-bomber weapon, but hastily pressed into service against Vietnamese MiGs during the Vietnam war, under the wings of the Phantom, and proving very ineffective in the dogfighting role. For the Soviet bomber interdiction role of the Draken, this missile platform was deemed more effective, and it was retained for service for decades in Sweden.
Other missiles, rockets and guns (including a dismounted Aden 30 mm cannon) pertaining to the warload of the Draken are on display as well, together with an interesting console for missile signal testing.
Ahead of the Draken is a memorial wall, and ahead of it is a Rolls-Royce Avon jet engine, displayed as an instructional cutaway – including both the turbomachinery and the afterburning component. License-built in Sweden by Svenska Flygmotor as RM6C, this was the engine of the Draken.
The F10 wing received the SAAB J37 Viggen only after the collapse of the USSR in 1993, marking the beginning of the last, post-Cold War chapter in the history of the unit. Quite elusive due to its adoption only by Sweden, albeit rather successful in its intended roles, an exemplar of this machine can be found in this collection. Specifically, this is a photo reconnaissance version named SF37. Lacking a radar, this model typically operated on reconnaissance missions in a flight of two, together with a radar-supplied SH37 variant.
The Viggen can be neared and checked out entirely with ease, thanks to its positioning on a pedestal. The photo-reconnaissance payload is on display. Under the left wing is a SAAB Rb-04 anti-ship missile. This Swedish own design was conceived for countering invasion starting from the sea. With a radius of 25 km and active radar homing, its warhead was sufficient for knocking out an enemy cruiser with a single hit.
The collection of the Scania Wing also includes the SAAB SK60 trainer, a successful trainer employed for decades, and inducted into the F10 inventory during the 1990s, when the wing took over the basic training role from the F5 wing. Similarly, an ubiquitous Bell 204 (Hkp 3B according to Swedish naming) can be found on display, as it was employed within the F10 for rescue and logistics/transport duties.
Close to the Viggen are further interesting exhibits. One is on the wartime bases (krigsflygbaser, see this post), with models and original signs from one of them.
Another is about weather forecasting within F10. It includes electronic hardware, an entire room with original consoles, and weather balloons, still today employed to carry atmospheric sounds.
A display is dedicated to pilot’s protection helmets, survival kits and ejection seats. Not only in Sweden, the latter have been in the focus of a major technological development over the years of the Cold War. Ejecting from a fast jet in the 1950s was reportedly a highly-risky business, since even when the maneuver was technically successful – i.e. such to take the pilot out of the aircraft alive – the ejection-induced acceleration alone was more than enough to cause serious injury, usually to the spine. Over the years, multi-stage ejection was implemented, allowing for a more gradual maneuver, which albeit remaining lightning-fast, does not inflict so harsh a treatment to the pilot’s body as in the past.
A top exhibit on display is an original cockpit from a SAAB J35 Draken, employed for training purposes. The cockpit is very well preserved, thoroughly described by explanatory panels nearby, and it can be boarded to give you a feeling of the functionality of the onboard systems, as well as of the ergonomics of the cockpit.
Two more training aircraft are included in the exhibition, a SK61 and SK50, both single-propeller machines employed for basic training.
Additionally, the last type in service with the F10 has been the SAAB JAS39 Gripen (from 1999 until disbandment), which is here represented by means of the first serial production machine of the first version (‘A’). This exemplar was actually never pressed in air force service, but it was employed as a test bed for multiple operations, including test firing of missile ordnance in the early 2000s.
Additional dioramas in this compact but rich collection include op-rooms from various ages.
An interesting exhibit is a relatively well-preserved Rolls-Royce Merlin piston enigine, originally powering a British Avro Lancaster bomber which sank south of Trelleborg in the Baltic Sea, presumably early in 1945 after a bombing run over Germany.
Finally, on the outside it is possible to find a British Bristol Bloodhound Mk II missile. This SAM supplied a squadron of F10 wing, complementing the air defense role in proximity to the airbase.
Getting there and visiting
The name of the museum in the local language is Ängelholms Flygmuseum, which translates into Ängelholm Flight Museum. It is located on the southwestern border of the former airbase of Ängelholm, easily reachable at the address Drakenvägen 5, 26274 Ängelholm. This town is 15 mi north of Helsingborg along the E6 highway.
Large parking ahead of the entrance. Nice shop with books, toys and gadgets by the ticket office. The museum facility is rather compact, yet a visit may easily take 1.5 hours for an interested subject, when carefully checking out all items on display and taking pictures. Descriptions are in double language, Swedish/English, allowing for an informative visit even if you are from abroad.
Professional website with full information here.
Museum of Forced Landings, Morup
The Museum of Forced Landings (in Swedish language the museum is named in a rather different way, ‘Morups Samtidsmuseum’) is a one-of-a-kind collection of remains and traces from air crashes or forced landings taking place during WWII in Sweden. Run by a lively group of dedicated enthusiasts, the display is extremely well-crafted, offering not just an array of many and diverse relics from aircraft wrecks, but for each of them a complete synopsis of the story behind that specific flight – and the crewmen who were on board.
Furthermore, in my case I was accompanied by a very knowledgeable English-speaking gentleman for the entire duration of my visit, making the experience even more engaging.
The exhibition starts with a display of general maps of the crash or forced landing sites. A sharp increase towards the end of the war is evident, due to the increase in the number of bombing raids over the center of the Third Reich. The crashed aircraft are mostly from the US and Britain. When hit over Germany but still airworthy, Allied crews attempted an escape to neutral Sweden, to avoid capture by the Germans.
Of course, Sweden was a neutral country, hence all grounded crews, irrespective of their nationality, were interned, albeit in more than decent conditions, especially compared to German or Soviet prison camps.
A map of the internment location in Sweden is presented as well. Clearly, also German aircraft crash-landed in Sweden. Crews of opposing nationalities were interned in totally different locations. Rare photographs from these sites are on display.
Then, one by one, the display cases describe each a notable forced landing, retracing its timeline, and showing some relics from the wreckage, as well as personal items belonging to the crew. Nice detailed scaled models and dioramas of the accident complete the reconstruction.
Among them are a German Messerschmitt Bf110 attack aircraft, with a fragment of the canopy as well as other parts on display, Norwegian training aircraft, a German Junkers Ju-52 transport, with an entire control column put as an exhibit.
The bombsight, radio and other instrument goggles belong to a German Heinkel He-111 bomber landed on ice.
One of the plots documented in the deepest detail is that involving Lt Edward E. Phillips, of USAAF 354th fighter group, which flew escort missions over Germany from Baxton, England, with North American P-51 Mustang fighters. On the 15th of April 1944, on return from a mostly failed bombing mission over Germany in bad weather, Lt. Phillips aircraft was chased north by a Bf109. He was hit over southern Sweden, bailed out but the parachute failed to deploy. He was killed instantly, and his aircraft impacted soft terrain and sank so deeply due to its own energy that it almost disappeared into the ground – and there it remained for 40 years. In the 1990s an excavation attempt was carried out by the future crew of the museum, uncovering substantial remains of the aircraft, including many parts, cockpit gauges, machine guns, an entire landing gear leg, and more.
A link was established by the local crew with the former wife of the man in the US, and the story hit the news. A memorial was inaugurated on the location of the crash.
Another American aircraft with a story to tell is a Consolidated B-24 Liberator. This time the aircraft managed to crash land under control, and the entire crew of 10 was saved and interned. Sgt Robert C. Birmingham, part of the crew, visited the locations of his adventure in Sweden more than once with his family.
More accidents described in the display involve British and German aircraft.
In an adjoining room, an impressive collection of quality scale models reconstruct many of the aircraft in service within the Air Force in Sweden, including details such as different celebration markings and camo coats. Among the artifacts and memorabilia items on display in this part is an autographed photo of WWII German ace Günther Rall.
In another small hangar is an interesting addition to the collection, mostly centered on aircraft engines. Engines from crash-landed aircraft, significantly damaged but undergoing a display-oriented cleaning and refurbishment, make for an unusual and interesting sight.
Outside is also a small collection of classic cars in pristine conditions.
Getting there and visiting
The museum is called ‘Morups Samtidsmuseum’ in Swedish language. It can be found right along the road N.768 about 6 miles north of the coastal town of Falkenberg, 0.25 miles north of the small town of Morup. The exact address is X9MP+84 Morup.
A visit may take about 1 hour, more when stimulating further telling by the very enthusiastic crew of the association running the museum.
Please note that no credit cards are accepted, only cash is – unless you are entitled to employ electronic payment methods allowed for citizens or residents of Sweden.
The website, partially under construction as of spring 2025, can be found here.
Credit for directing me to this hidden gem goes to Martin Steffen, from Sweden.
Svedino’s Automobile and Aviation Museum, Ugglarp
This unusual exhibition originates from the own collection of Lennart Svedfelt, a prominent Swedish stage and TV entertainer borne in 1924 and known as ‘Svedino’. The man started purchasing cars and planes for the purpose of collecting them, in an era when a similar activity was hardly heard of. In 1961 he opened his collection as a permanent display, the first museum dedicated to cars in Sweden. Over the years, and even following his passing, the museum continued to grow, reaching more than 100 cars and 40 aircraft on display today!
Even though this is not an eminently military museum, despite the cars being beautiful civilian cars, most aircraft on display are military machines, including some remarkable items – therefore, Svedino’s perfectly fits within this chapter!
The cars on display make for a really unique collection, in and out of Sweden. A remarkable feature is especially the number and uniqueness of US-made cars from the inter-war period between WWI and WWII. In a first building, these include models by Chevrolet, Buick, Dodge, Nash, Oldsmobile, and more!
Also some classic models from European manufacturers, like Opel, are on display. A special rarity is an Adler Trumpf from 1934. Adler, a German company from the 19th century active in the manufacture of petrol engines, operated in the car market for a relatively short time, roughly coincident with the Third Reich period. They made cars in the intermediate price segment, with good success. The company changed business following WWII, making Adler cars interesting collectible items representing car-making from a specific era.
As expected from a Swedish museum, a full array of classic Volvo is on display! These include small trucks and saloons, and interesting models like the PV36 from the inter-war period. Similar to the PV830 and the iconic PV444 from the immediate post-WWII years, an influence of the contemporary American designs is undeniable in all these models.
Also on display are more modern vehicles employed as state cars. An interesting item is a very old Gräf & Stift, an Austrian luxury sedan from before WWI, salvaged from the bottom of a Swedish lake after spending there more than 40 years, and acquired by the museum.
Two interesting cars on display are personal designs from the early 1950s. In Sweden it was possible at that time to introduce privately-built cars, provided they could sustain a compliance check. An example of a fantasy car, with a rather aggressive design and physically assembled from parts of other cars, is on display. It was never completed nor allowed on the road. Another example, designed and made by the son of the industrialist Wennberg, reportedly roamed around all over the 1950s! This unique exemplar is on display with ‘factory markings’ HW.
In a second adjoining building, a really valuable collection of even older cars, dating from earlier than 1930, is on display. Also here most items in the collection are from the US, a really rare sight on this side of the ocean! Looking at the elaborated labels of these oldies, made by Ford, Anderson, Seneca, and thinking of the craftsmen who personally assembled them back in the America of the early 1900s is really thought-provoking!
Among the most unique cars on display is a Pierce-Arrow from 1918, sitting alongside a Haynes from the same year.
Moving on to another adjoining hall, here cars are on display alongside a few classic planes from the first half of the 20th century. A DeHavilland Moth, a Götaverken GV-38 seaplane (a licence-built Rearwin Sportster, a US design), as well as a German Klemm Kl-35 and a Focke-Wulf FW-44 designs, are on the list together with more light airplanes and a few engines.
The latter include an original Rolls-Royce Goblin and Avon, respectively from a DeHavilland Vampire and a SAAB Draken, both in service with the Air Force of Sweden during the Cold War.
A focus of the exhibition is on the memory of a pioneer of Swedish aviation industry, Enoch Tulin, who is the author of many ‘firsts’ in the aeronautical history of this Country – the largest aviation workshop to date before WWI (with 900 employees), the first air mail service, the first air rescue mission, and more. A graduated engineer, flight instructor and early aerobatic pilot, Tulin died in an airplane crash in 1919, after gaining unquestioned prominence in many fields of aeronautical industry and operation in his era.
A final adjoining hall concludes the oldest part of the exhibition premises. Here the spotlight is on a few fighters from the Cold War era, namely a SAAB J29 Tunnan, two DeHavilland Vampire, and even a SAAB J35 Draken.
The latter is really a unique exemplar. As can be guessed by the monstrous red and white spine on the nose cone, typical to experimental aircraft and not a feature of the production machine, the one on display is actually the first prototype!
Another curious item is a Soviet-made Kamov Ka-26 helicopter. Alongside the helicopter is a vintage advertisement from 1975, written in Swedish, and made by Aviaexport, a Soviet agency for the commercialization of Soviet aeronautical products abroad. Borne as an import-export, Aviaexport acted also as a recipient of foreign certification rules, spreading the growing body of western aeronautical regulation within the Soviet design bureaus, to the aim of keeping the quality standard to a level sufficient for commercialization in foreign countries. Actually, thanks to Aviaexport the Kamov Ka-26 received a type certification in Sweden, which allowed its commercialization and regular employment there. Aviaexport is still existent in today’s Russia.
Interspersed between closely-packed aircraft are more cars, including a beautiful Jaguar Mk V and an East-German Trabant, as well as aircraft engines.
A massive Wright Cyclone R-3350 is among them – the power plant of the Lockheed Constellation and Douglas DC-7, often considered the pinnacle and swansong of American piston power, this massive 1.2 tons, 18 cylinders engine produced 3.700 hp of shaft power!
Svedino’s aircraft collection is mostly hosted in a modern hall added more recently beside the original museum’s building. The first item on display is an original Junkers Ju-52! This aircraft is among those license-built in Spain. It operated for some time as far as in California in the 1970s, being later transferred to Ireland, and finally here. The camouflage and markings reenact those of a Third Reich’s Luftwaffe machine force-landed in Sweden during WWII. The cockpit of the Ju-52 has been reproduced separately, to allow checking it without boarding this precious aircraft.
As expected for a Swedish aircraft collection, the most prominent models which have served in the local Air Force are represented. These include a SAAB J32B Lansen, a Cold War attack aircraft from the 1950s, a SAAB SK60 trainer, and a SAAB J35 Draken – a production machine, not a prototype like in the previous hall.
These aircraft are presented alongside their engines. The Swedish licence-built version of the Rolls-Royce Avon, named RM6A, powered the Lansen and later the Draken.
The latest addition to the SAAB heritage on display is the J37 Viggen, here presented in the nice and distinctive camo coat of the Air Force of Sweden. This is presented alongside its mighty engine, the RM8A, a modified version of the Pratt & Whitney JT8D turbofan.
Additionally, a display of an open nose cone allows to see the arrangement of the radar antenna of the Viggen.
An interesting display case hosts the instrument panels, radar and reconnaissance gear of the Lansen, Draken and Viggen, as well as a collection of flight helmets and pilot’s gear, showing the evolution of this technical material over time.
But the collection of Svedino’s is not limited to aircraft in service in Sweden. A Lockheed F-104 Starfighter from the Air Force of Denmark is on display, next to a Gloster Meteor early twin jet. The blue exemplar on display is a former factory demonstrator originally employed by Gloster, and later sold to Sweden for target towing (in a batch of seven aircraft).
A rarity to be found close by is a Percival P.66 Pembroke, a twin-engined multi-purpose transport from the early 1950s, employed for training and passenger transport within the Air Force. Manufactured in Britain in just 128 exemplars, this type was mostly sold abroad to Western-European Countries and in Africa. Sweden originally got a batch of 16.
Another British type on display is a Hawker Hunter, which was actually employed by Sweden as a stop-gap model in the late 1950s, waiting for the completion of the design and the entrance into service of the J35 Draken.
Another Soviet addition to the collection is a MiG-21. A Cold War veteran, this exemplar is Soviet-built, and served in Hungary until 1982 and later in the Latvian SSR.
A recent addition to the exhibition is a Douglas Skyraider! Possibly overshadowed by the illustrious career the type enjoyed in the US Armed Forces, a part of the history of this massive attack aircraft is about Sweden. Some 13 exemplars were actually purchased by Sweden for target towing in the mid 1960 from Britain, which had got a larger batch from the US. The exemplar on display is an AD-4W, the early warning version of the Skyraider. It is currently (2024) being refurbished.
Among the biggest additions to the aircraft collection is actually an English Electric Canberra. As typical to this type, employed by the British for the first, high risk overflights of the Countries of the Soviet bloc before the high-performing Skunk Works aircraft became available, the Canberra (including its modified Martin version in the US) was employed for quintessentially Cold War signal intelligence missions opposite the Soviet Union. Two exemplars were employed also in Sweden from the early 1960s until the mid-1970s, and one of them is that on display.
A curious item also on display is a one-off design which won a competitive call of the Aviation Engineering Association in Stockholm in 1988, and which was later actually built by its designers. Unfortunately, it was eventually never tested due to one of the owners need to quit for health issues when the aircraft was undergoing a certification test for obtaining airworthiness. The name of the prototype is LLS-1.
Scattered among the aircraft are more engines, radars, consoles, simulators, and more aircraft than described, making for an overall very rich and interesting visit.
Getting there and visiting
Svedinos Bil & Flygmuseum – this is the name of the museum in the local language – can be found in a nice countryside 15 miles north of the port town of Halmstad. The exact address is SE-311 69 Ugglarp.
The premises are rather compact, with a large parking ahead of the entrance. Fresh cookies, homemade sandwiches and cakes are available for a light lunch in the exotic lobby, matching in style with this unusual collection.
A visit may take 2 hours for an interested subject. Most items are described with modern panels in double language Swedish/English, making the visit very informative. The website with logistical information is here.
