Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

After the end of WW2, in 1947 Oberst Joseph Priller (ex Kommodore JG 26) was imprisoned by Allied justice and accused that on the ground he shot an Allied pilot who was shot down in aerial combat and was captured unharmed.
Accusations against Priller were later dropped and he was released from prison.
Such an episode is likely to actually occur, even if the perpetrator was therefore not Priller.
Does somebody, please, the date and place of the incident and also the name of the murdered pilot? The pilot should have a Slavic name (possibly Polish or Czech). Nothing more are known for me at the moment.
Source: Josef Priller: Geschichte eines Jagdgeschwaders (JG 26).Vowinckelverlag, 1956.

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

I am somewhat taken aback by this. Are you suggesting that it was "a likely occurrence" that Luftwaffe pilots sought and executed Allied pilots who had been shot down and captured? Is that what you are suggesting? Or, are you suggesting that this singular event likely occurred?

Bronc

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

jiri

please read the book. There is written that it was an RAF pilot with slawik name - nothing more. At the trial they took Prillers flight books away.
They put him under severe mental pressure also they threatened him to hang him. 3 weeks before his release it was permitted to view the flight books.
Fact, no evidence was found for an start or landing to the this place what they say where Priller should have killed the pilot.
Priller was released without any word of apology, and - without his flight books.
A nice horrorstory about an man who was known for that he sended small gifts to his opponents once they were captured.
I can tell you that my father flew in JG26 and knew Priller as well, also this story. He said Priller was an absolutely fair and correct man. Nobody - has believed this incredible story.

Regards, Rainer

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

Probably just another witch-hunt against any and all things German after the war.

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

Was not Otto Schulz of JG 27 known for that?

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

Below is one high profile victim of II./JG 27 apparent strafing of the crash-landed Allied aircraft from the days of North African campaign... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gott

The event was commemorated on the cover of John Weal's book Jagdgeschwader 27 'Afrika' - this though might have been the execution of a highly ranked Allied commander, somewhat like the USAAF shooting down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

I'm still trying to understand the nature of the allegation.

"...Oberst Joseph Priller (ex Kommodore JG 26) was imprisoned by Allied justice and accused that on the ground he shot an Allied pilot who was shot down in aerial combat and was captured unharmed."

Is the allegation: (1) a Luftwaffe pilot landed his aircraft, located a downed, captured Allied pilot, and shot at said pilot with a sidearm, or (2) a Luftwaffe pilot strafed a downed Allied pilot who survived the strafing and was later captured?

My apologies,

Bronc

P.S. Interesting. Is there any evidence that this indeed was a carefully planned assassination of Gen. Gott?

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

Bronc,

Please note the wording used in my post ... might have been the execution ... I have also checked the relevant excerpt from John Weal's book:

"... It was on 7 August that a Schwarm from 5./JG 27, led by Oberfeldwebel Emil Clade, chanced upon another of the occasional Bombay transports of No 216 Sqn. But this machine was not carrying SAS troops (who had long since taken to using jeeps for their forays behind Axis lines). It was instead on the daily flight from Heliopolis to pick up wounded from the front for transport back to hospital in Cairo.

At one forward landing ground, however, the Bombays 18-year-old pilot, Sgt H E James, was ordered to wait for a special passenger. This turned out to be Lt Gen Gott, who, only hours previously, had been appointed Commander of the 8th Army, and who now needed to get back to Cairo for an urgent meeting.

Rather than fly at the stipulated 50 ft (15 m) to escape the attentions of Axis fighters, the pilot elected to climb to 500 ft (150 m) on account of an overheating engine. It was his undoing. Clade's first pass forced the lumbering Bombay to crash-land in the desert to the south-east of Alexandria. Some of the crew and passengers attempted to escape from the still moving machine. All but one of those remaining inside, including Gott, were killed when Unteroffizier Bernd Schneider carried out a strafing run to finish off the stricken machine. Lt Gen Gott was the highest ranked British soldier to be killed by enemy fire in World War 2. His death led to the hurried appointment ofa replacement Commander for the 8th Army -a relative unknown named Bernard Law Montgomery..."

So, no, there apparently is no evidence that the Germans knew about gen. Gott's flight.

However, the above is I believe a good illustrations that the strafing of downed airmen was far from one-sided affair.

Regards,
Sinisa

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

And what is the trouble with strafing grounded pilots. They are still an enemy. It is not forbidden to kill a enemy during a conflict.
It is unsporty yes, but illegal ? Dont think so

Same as shooting paratroopers in their chute and pilots hanging in their chute. Unsporty, but not forbidden by law.


Best
OD

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

I feel that this issue was regulated by the Geneva Conventions, which are a series of treaties on the treatment of civilians, prisoners of war (POWs) and soldiers who are otherwise rendered hors de combat, or incapable of fighting... the category where pilots hanging helplessly in their parachutes certainly qualify.

The paratroopers might face different issues altogether for the reason they are capable of fighting when parachuted, and especially so once they touch the ground.

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

Shooting at airmen parachuting from stricken aircraft is prohibited under the Geneva Conventions (Protocol 1, Article 42) and the 1923 Hague Rules of Air Warfare (article 20).

Bronc

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

Hello Bronc
thanks a lot for the links, especially the latter!

Juha

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

Interesting link, Thank you for that. It seems that I was wrong about shooting on airmen in a parachute. But i says nothing about shooting a grounded airmen.

It also gives a lot of rules that was not followed by both parties during WW2. Especially bombing sivil areas

The Geneva Conventions is from 1949 and does not inflict WW2

Best from Norway
Olve Dybvig

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

That... is not exactly the case. The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of war. The singular term Geneva Convention usually denotes the agreements of 1949, negotiated in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–45), which updated the terms of the first three treaties (1864, 1906, 1929), and added a fourth. The Geneva Conventions extensively defined the basic rights of wartime prisoners (civilians and military personnel); established protections for the wounded; and established protections for the civilians in and around a war-zone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions

Thus, one might refer to Geneva Treaties for the WW2 period, but the fact remains that the shot-down airmen were incapable or out of combat, and strafing them was a war crime, no matter which side committed the act.

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

How about strafing civilians? In Spring 1945 my mother was 13 and lived on a farm right next to Zeltweg airfield. One day in April she had to carry lunch to the hands working in the fields. Carrying a basket in one hand, holding a much younger child on the other hand, she set off. A while later, a plane flew up and started to machine-gun her. She dropped the basket and ran home, still holding the child by the hand. The pilot executed 3 passes, possibly misidentifying the 2 kids for a Tiger tank, for his aim was off: neither of them was hit. The bullet-stirke melody on the 3rd pass, when she was safely in the arms of the farmers wife, sheltering inside the farmhouse, is still with her: bullets striking the ground, the flagstone-walls, and the rooftiles.
No, she did not identify type or nationality. That experience gave her a healthy respect for airplanes; in consequence she did not walk out for a good look of Batz's 109K when II/JG52 staged through Zeltweg on the way to surrender at Neubiberg: THAT would have been something to tell her son 70 years later!
Greetings from Austria, Richard
P.S.: Allow me to state unequivocally that I will be forever grateful to each and every Allied soldier for ridding the world of Nationalsocialism, including the pilot who strafed my mother.

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

For the 2nd TAF anything and everything was fair game. My dad was strafed by a Mustang on his way to school. I used to have martinis with W\C Rod Smith, and he told me that they shot everything that moved, including a mother pushing a baby carriage, which his gun camera footage captured. He was not proud of such actions.

Re: Allied pilot shot on the ground by Luftwaffe pilot after being shot down in aerial combat
 

1. The RAF pilot bailed out with parachute and waited somewhere along a road on his fate while he looked at the pictures of his family.

2. It was alleged that Priller (after he had landed) should be driven over an hour with an vehicle to find this pilot.

3. Priller was arrested under the accusation he would have murdered traitorously a by him self downed fighter pilot of the RAF.


So - what´s the problem to understand ?

A simple suggestive game of the judges:
1. The poor RAF-pilot, just he could save his life - then he was shoot treacherously
2. Priller the bloodthirsty Nazi - so bloody that he moves an hour by car just to kill an enemy pilot
3. Sure - Priller MUST be a murderer. And if it isn`t so - then we threaten him to hang him up so long he admits to say what he hasn`t done

Typical procedure of the allied courts during the denazification

But - during the war, the Nazis spoken guilty lots of prisoners in this way - although they have only committed one "crime" - to be an enemy soldier.
So there`s no difference. No court-martial has distinguished itself by fairness to prisoners. Neither the allies nor the germans

nfc.....