Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Hi!

We are writing a book about count Pappenheim family and the family castle in Iszkaszentgyöry Hungary close to city of Szekesfehervar. One special incident in the family life during the war years that we would be interested in happened in the summer 1944.

According to some witnesses an allied plane (presumable British) was shot down over the Iszkaszentgyörgy and one the pilots landed close to castle. Local residents were about to stone the pilot death when count Pappenheim arrived and stopped the mob and took the pilot to his custody. He was later handed over to Hungarian authorities.

Can anyone confirm this story and if is true is there any chance to find out what was the plane and who was the captured pilot? Would be grateful for any information.

Jari41

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Is this fellow any relation to Graf von Pappenheim?

RABE von PAPPENHEIM, Ernst. 09.01.43 Oblt.(d.R.), trf from Erg.KGr.z.b.V. 300 to Minensuchgruppe 1 and appt Staka 2./MSGr. 1. 05.43 appt Staka 5./Minensuchgruppe 1 (to 08.44). 12.44 Hptm. and Staka 4./MSGr. 1.

If the plane shot down in summer 1944 was brought down during daylight hours then it was American. If it was shot down at night, then it was probably British.

Either way, it will be very difficult to identify the crew member without a specific date. Many planes were shot down over Hungary during the summer of 1944.

L.

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Hi!

In 1944 castle was run by count Alexander zu Pappenheim (born 1905). He died in 1995 in Salzburg.

If and as I have been told the pilot was captured in the daytime so it must have been then an American pilot. Incident happened between July 1944 and September 1944.

One more interesting historical detail is that family Oppenheim left they home castle in October 1944 because of approaching Red Army. Count Pappenheim returned once in the home late 1944 only to find out that castle was serving as a German army headquarters. Would be interesting to find out which headquarter was located in the castle!

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Hi Jari41 -
Then the work at hand would be a careful search through the July, August and September 1944 MACRs (Missing Air Crew Reports) for U.S. 15th Air Force that was based in Italy. The researcher would need to identify all losses in and around Székesfehérvár, Iszkaszentgyöry being 10 km NW of Székesfehérvár. My guess is that the researcher will end up with perhaps 10 or more names. Once these names are compiled, how would you know which one is the man you are looking for?

L.

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Hi!

Thank you very much for your comments. I’ll try to turn to eyewitnesses one more time to have more precise information about the incident and will also try to reach Pappenheim family members.

J

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Pilot was most likely 2Lt. Fred Roberts Crawford (O-754075, POW) of 15th USAAF, 52nd FG, 4th FS P-51B Mustang (WD-C, S/N: 43-24871) pilot on June 16, 1944 near the fishing pond at Iszkaszentgyörgy.

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

There is a book about Fred Roberts Crawford, written with his two brothers who were also pilots. You can probably find the details of his capture in the book.

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Crawford.../dp/1438904576

There is also a brief writeup here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=EkU...%20POW&f=false

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Looks like it is matching. But the story would not be complete without mentioning those P-38 (eg. 82nd FG) and P-51 (eg. 31st FG) pilots playing target practice on bailed out German and Hungarian pilots still in the air and while running chancelessly on the ground. Or the killed farmers, cattles in their fields. These well known (confirmed and public!) stories explain the civilian anger of those days. Not to mention other things...

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Yeah, disgusting and tragic...................you think maybe at briefing that morning they had been told about how the Hungarian Gendarmerie (Cendorseg) and Police had been helping the Germans round up the country's 400,000 Jews and shipping them to the gas chambers at Auschwitz? Could that have accounted for the momentary loss of their humanity and self-control? You think maybe the Lightning and Mustang drivers were American Jews? Gosh, what are your thoughts on this?

L.

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

"Momentary loss of humanity and self-control"... To me it is still a war crime. Anybody could use it as a cheap excuse. Do not try to wash it clean or make it look less barbar than any other murder in history. A crime is a crime regardless of the side or who won the war and who lost it. The nazi war propaganda did not allow the general public to know all of the real details of what was going on in the camps. Those rural civilians did not speak English at all. The word 'Jew' sounds completely different in Hungarian. So I am not sure what Lt. Crawford was really hearing from them... Just relax and think again.

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Gabor is right (except for the last sentence, Larry is a well respected aviation historian and author).
One should not condone war crimes, regardless who did it and what excuse he might have had, if any.

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Thanks, D.B. My sarcastic response to Gabor was for his gratuitous injection of the “American War Criminals” theme in a thread that, up to his unsolicited and unwarranted comment, had been civil, scholarly, balanced and even polite. He is not the first to do this is a thread dealing with the air war over Hungary. His reply to my response raises even more eyebrows in that he appears to excuse Hungarian war crimes by act of omission leaving one with the impression that he either does not recognize them or he exonerates them. Yes, war crimes are unpardonable, but we should strive to keep this topic off TOCH! where it almost always develops into a flame war full of nationalistic insults. If Mr. G. wants to pursue his theme, I might suggest he do so on the War Crimes sub-forum on http://forum.axishistory.com/index.php. They have a number of threads there on this subject.

Larry

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Watch it guys. No personal attacks.

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Larry,

Do not get me wrong: war crimes are not the centre of my interest at all. Neither time, nor intention to dig into them. But I do not understand why you say I ignore Hungarian war crimes. I think I was clear enough: “A crime is a crime regardless of the side”. I never said that it was correct what those civilians tried to do. BUT: if we ignore the other side of the coin, what some A.A.F. pilots did to civilians and some of their defenseless opponents in the air and/or on the ground, we will never be able to understand the civilians’ reaction to those captured pilots! What do you think the farmers in Texas would have done eg. to captured Japanese pilots if they reached the American mainland and started to burn down cities, strafing fellow farmers and their cattle? The answer is obvious. Only the whole picture can be understood with equal measures and standards. Bringing up the Holocaust in this topic was dangerous as well as very misleading. I have pointed out the language problem in Lt. Crawford’s story. That word in his memories is not even close in the two languages! So why should I let other people come to wrong conclusions? This is why history gets manipulated and changed over and over again. And finally: do not forget that the guy saving Lt. Crawford’s life (I mean IF this was that Iszkaszentgyorgy case in the original question) was also Hungarian. That’s all. Thanks,

Gabor

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

The Americans, Brits and other Allies committed many, many war crimes during World War II and no researcher worth his salt would disagree with that. Axis History Forum is chock full of examples. But we should avoid this topic here for reasons I previously stated. It's a subject that needs to be approached with tact, balance and nuanced prose to avoid stepping on tender toes. Since an ounce of caution is worth a pound of cure, skirting the issue entirely is the best policy as TOCH! does not have a dedicated sub-forum reserved for the discussion of war crimes and allegations.

Larry

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

Larry,

OK, I aggree. Have a nice weekend!

Gabor

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

And you have a nice weekend, too, i.e., with no tornadoes (U.S.) and no flooding (Europe)!

Larry

Re: Downed allied pilot in Iszkaszentgyörgy Hungary in 1944
 

It is a common knowledge that American and Japanese fighter pilots had the disturbing habit to shoot bailed out enemy aircrews, this kind of actions certainly do not fit the common accepted moral code of warriors. But the reason behind of this behavior, well, are a little bit complicated, some did it just in the heat of combat, fighing blood is up, just want to shoot any enemy who are still alive, others do it because that is the tradition of his unit, "Everyone in my group are doing this, so that I will do that too", or as many American and Japanese veterans explain: a bailed out enemy is still a dangerous enemy, if he survies, he would come at you next time in a new plane, and he can kill you.
Intentionally Killing unarmed civilians on the ground is a war crime of course, but the unarmed civilians killed by strafing are small number comparing to unarmed civilians killed by mass bombing, and sadly I have to admit that such mass bombing such as Luftwaffe bombing Warsaw, London and Coventry or RAF bombing Hamburg and Dresden or American nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate war actions.