"Keith Willshaw" wrote:

"Guy Alcala"
wrote in message
...
Mike Marron wrote:

"Erik Plagen" wrote:
Mike Marron wrote:

Haven't you heard all the stories of the
Luftwaffe strafing downed
allied pilots coming down their chutes


That;s all they were- "stories" or fairy
tales!

We never tried to shoot down Crew Members
in their chutes!

You are thinking of the Japanese.

Nope, I'm thinking of the Germans. In fact,
I've heard Chuck Yeager
himself during an interview describe how
the Germans were known
to strafe downed allied airmen descending
in their chutes.

snip

There were certainly instances (on both sides)
of this happening, and it
was widely believed (again, by both sides)
that the other side was just
looking for opportunities to do so, but it
was an individual thing, not an
order. It tended to be crews with better
reasons to hate, i.e. a pilot
whose family had been killed by bombing, or
pilots of some of the occupied
countries (the Poles come to mind). And there
were the occasional
bloodthirsty or just plain ruthless types
on both sides. There was little
reason for the Germans to strafe parachutes
when they were on the
defensive, because the crews were almost certain
to be captured. There
was more reason for the allies to do so when
they were on the offensive,
because any German pilot who survived was
likely to be back in the air;
most of the top German aces were shot down
numerous times. The situation
was the reverse in the BoB, where it would
have made sense for the Germans
to shoot British pilots as they descended,
but was pointless for the
British. There seems to have been one exception:
in the case of the
Me-262, US fighter pilots were ordered to
kill the pilots, in their chutes
or on the ground, according to Yeager and/or
Clarence 'Bud' Anderson in
their biographies.

Guy


During the BOB Dowding specifically ordered
the RAF not
to strafe German pilots who had bailed out over
UK territory

He made the point that under international law
once the
pilot had bailed out over enemy territory he
was no longer
an enemy combatant but a surrndering prisoner.
German
pilots over occupied territory or British pilots
over the
UK were fair game.

Keith


How about the Pacific casualties? With USN/MC aircraft like the SBD, SB2C,
TBF/M off of carriers, plus the Navy/Marine and AAF aircraft, wouldn't the
casualties be somewhat different than Europe? I'm thinking the TBF/M might
have a higher casualty rate with the turret gunners-wouldn't those guys have
a hard time bailing out than the pilot or radio operator/tunnel gunner?

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