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

[Richard Aigner]

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.