Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry deZeng
G.C. -
That is certainly a valuable contribution and one I had not encountered before, but it leaves open the questions of when, who and where. Was this early in the war in the East or later? Was this one specific Staffel, Gruppe or Geschwader, or was the retaliatory practice adopted by all or most Luftwaffe units in the East? Was this practiced across the entire Eastern Front or just a particular sector?
L.
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Walter Wolfram served in the JG 52 at the Kuban peninsula during the summer of 1943 and his account if from that time. On other sources it has been stated that shooting parachuted pilots at Eastern Front had started well before that. For example the famous case when Clive "Killer" Caldwell shot a German pilot of JG 27 on a parachute in North Africa, there were at that time also some pilots transferred from the German Eastern Front to Africa and according to them it was commonplace practice in East Front and that Caldwell´s kill was not such an unusual thing to happen during air combat.
Anyway Wolfram describes well the feelings of the combat pilots of that time. In the end it is irrelevant who pulled the trigger first to kill a parachuted man when it has escalated to merciless killing of parachuted enemies in which both sides are equally committed.
However the commanders of JG 27 in North Africa decided that there would not be retaliation act of "Killer" Caldwell´s action as it would only escalate the killing of parachuting pilots of both sides and because it certainly would not look good for their record once the war was over. One good point was also that they wanted their captured airmen to be treated well by the enemy. I guess it depended lot of the commanding officers of the units and in last stand it was up to individual pilots what they decided to do if there was a chance to kill without risk a parachuted enemy.
Although many famous German pilots condemned the killing of parachuting pilot as too cold-blooded murder, it seems that German pilots where the first to attack parachuting enemy pilot during WW2 as this has been documented by the Polish sources of the September 1939. IIRC, it started already in first air combats of 1.9.1939 between the Bf 110´s and PZL P 11. This in turn may have developed a legend that specially Polish pilots of RAF/USAAF were eager to kill parachuting German pilots whenever chance - as a revenge of earlier German action (and also as a "payback" of all the cruelties that German occupiers were doing in Poland).
From the point of the previous point that parachuting pilots were killed also by other means that strafing there are Japanese sources confirming it - Japanese did not hide it that they killed parachuted pilots and recorded the successfull "pilot kills" without bullets. The fighter pilots of Imperial Japanese Army Air Force used the wingtip of their plane to cut off the cords of parachute of an enemy. This they did in such a perfection that the method was probably well studied to employ it without risk.
Of course the war is very much of killing - killing the enemy before he kills you or those of your side. However where is the line to be drawn upon? Why not execute all the POW´s after they have been interrogated and all valuable information has been taken from them (with hard means if necessary) - why to keep POWś after that alive - feed, clothe and accomodate them and thus waste valuable resources on them when they are no use anymore and may even escape when chance? When it comes to the logic of killing during war or any conflict, everything can be justified if one wants to do it.