[Larry deZeng]

Hi Johannes,

This book, written by a highly respected professor who teaches in German, American and possibly British universities, is a study of Allied war crimes as investigated by the German military authorities:

de Zayas, Alfred M. The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1989. ISBN: 0-8032-9908-7. Pb. 364p. Illus. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

The British and other Commonwealth pilots do not get off Scot-free, according to this work. They intentionally shot down Ju 52 ambulance aircraft in the Mediterranean that were clearly marked with the red cross and they intentionally machine gunned German ambulances on the roads in Italy, these also clearly marked with a red cross on their roof. This was probably the work of individuals rather than policy and the book presents the evidence.

The closest I have been able to come to the "pilots in their 'chutes" controversary is that American pilots in several fighter groups were verbally encouraged to "finish off" German fighter pilots once they had baled out. There were no written orders, it did not happen in every fighter group, and the "encouragement" was provided by briefing officers at pre-mission briefings. This allegedly began sometime during the summer of 1944 and is usually described as an overzealous attempt by a few individual briefing officers to bring an end to the war more quickly in the belief that a dead and experienced enemy fighter pilot could not be replaced. Only a relatively small number of these American pilots did this. The vast majority thought it to be bad form and ignored these unwritten instructions. This comes from 12 years of reading numerous discussions on this subject on various web sites. No one has yet produced a piece of paper showing this to have been a written order or even USAAF policy. But there definitely were cases of it.

Larry