According to several sources, Luftwaffe pilots often had
poor flight discipline, leading to very high rates of accidents. Can anyone point me to more information on this? Particularly the claim at the end that some pilots were executed for violating flight discipline?
And has anyone seen the term "the plague" for this elsewhere?
Here is one discussion:
Quote:
In this connection, let us return once more to the problem of inadequate flight discipline, a problem which had grown to alarming proportions in the meantime.
The "plague", as it was called by [Göering], had been spreading with frightening rapidity since 1935 and was beginning to assume forms previously unheard-of in military history.
Circumstances beyond anyone's Control which ultimately led to aircraft accidents for which the pilots were in no way to blame are not included in the present discussion. They will be dealt with later on in the study.
The lack of flight discipline which concern the experts from the Inspectorate for air traffic control and equipment, all of whom enjoyed an unusual degree of authority in the accomplishment of their jobs, and the representatives of the military justice tribunals was quite a different thing. Experience showed that it almost always originated in deliberate or careless violation of the principles of flight safety. The most common causes of accidents were the following:
aa) violation of written instructions as to course and route;
BB) inadequate preparations for the mission;
CC) attempting to fly by instruments or to brave bad-weather zones in spite of inadequate training in these fields;
DD) showing off with acrobatics, although this was expressly forbidden;
EE) inadequate checking of performance certificates and flight orders on the part of flight supervisor;
FF) ordering of missions which exceeded student ability on the part of an experience squadron captains and training supervisor;
GG) requiring already weary cruise to fly additional missions in order to complete unit quotas; and
HH) pilots taking over aircraft as fully operational without adequate technical checking.
The personnel and material losses attributable to the factors listed above were so high that they represented a serious threat to the maintenance of operational readiness in the units. From the standpoint, lack of flight discipline was responsible for a genuine crisis.
In spite of warnings, briefing sessions, fines, and more drastic punishments ranging from court sentences to the death penalty, with subsequent dishonorable burial of the victims, it took a very long time before any noticeable improvement occurred.
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This is from a 1955 USAF historical report,
Technical Training Within the German Luftwaffe, by Werner Kreipe and Rudolf Koester, edited by Karl Gundelach (1955).
Numbered USAF Historical Studies 169.
Thanks.