Shooting pilots in their parachutes

[chuckschmitz]

Perhaps the question that needs to be asked at this time is what did the Geneva Conventions(of that time period) say, if anything, about shooting "distressed airmen?" I beleive the current conventions say that you can not shoot an airmen bailing out of an aircraft. Paratroopers are fair game.


Chuck

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by chuckschmitz

Perhaps the question that needs to be asked at this time is what did the Geneva Conventions(of that time period) say, if anything, about shooting "distressed airmen?" I beleive the current conventions say that you can not shoot an airmen bailing out of an aircraft. Paratroopers are fair game.


Chuck

So, what is the distinction? neither are capable of defending themselves.

[Don Pearson]

Originally Posted by drgondog

So, what is the distinction? neither are capable of defending themselves.

Respectfully, the capability to defend is hardly a reason to not engage an enemy. Does one shoot at a transport aircraft full of troops, or wait for them to parachute down? The same of a landing craft, or soldiers scaling a cliff. A fair fight sounds chivalrous, but war is barbaric. If it were Martians descending, we wouldn't think twice...

Don

[chuckschmitz]

Paratrooper are considered combatants in that they can engage the enemy upon landing.

[Nick Beale]

To quote Bernard Cribbins: "After straining, heaving and complaining, we was getting nowhere …"

[RT]

It seems that civilization, is not just the written rules, maybe just the contrary , but a common behaviour so usually the air-fighting non-written rules say dont shoot at a defenceless foe, but when you name , a very bad american-habit , the ennemy a damned-bastard to slaughter at any cost, there is no more civilization,

Rémi

[kb]

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/m...-24april44.jpg

Henry Brown's claim paperwork 24 April 1944

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/m...-29april44.jpg

Henry Brown's claim 29 April 1944

Obviously he didn't feel he should hide that he was trying to shoot pilots.

[Andy Fletcher]

I don't normally get involved with these sort of discussions as they usually descend into heated argument but from a purely military point of view I would of thought it made perfect sense to try and kill enemy aircrew who had baled out of their aircraft over their own territory. No one gives a second thought about a tank crew being fired on as they try and bale out of a brewed tank. Aircrew are a war resource just as much as the aircraft they fly, I'm surprised the practice wasn't more wide spread.

Andy Fletcher

[Larry deZeng]

Originally Posted by RT

It seems that civilization, is not just the written rules, maybe just the contrary , but a common behaviour so usually the air-fighting non-written rules say dont shoot at a defenceless foe, but when you name , a very bad american-habit , the ennemy a damned-bastard to slaughter at any cost, there is no more civilization,
Rémi

Excellent Rémi! I somehow knew we could count on you to re-nationalize this discussion, which is exactly what the moderator cautioned against. Thank you for collectively painting my entire nation of 310,000,000 people as a bunch of uncivilized barbarians. Were you in the military, Rémi? I was. Were you alive during World War II, Rémi? I was. Did the French drive the Germans out of France, Rémi, or did the Brits, Americans and Canadians do it? You had better be damn glad they came ashore and over the coast with hatred in their eyes instead of carrying a bouquet of flowers and kissing the Boche on both cheeks.

[AndreasB]

I can see why some people cling to the notion of chivalry, even in a war most brutally fought. I am with those who fail to see the distinction between machine-gunning a pilot in his parachute, or a tank crew bailing out of a burning tank. Yet somehow the former is seen by some as revolting, while the latter is just fine.

As for the question of this happening in the desert, Michele Palermo has an entry from a book of a Commonwealth fighter pilot who stated (from my memory) that he would machine-gun Axis pilots descending over their own territory, since otherwise the guys would just get back to the airfield, get into a new plane, and continue to fight. I see this as a very logical approach.

All the best

Andreas