Luftwaffe pilots shot while parachuted

[Alfred.MONZAT]

@John Manrho : I've collected those data a long time ago and not retained the source. It can contain mistakes and this is probably one of them, thanks for pointing me that anyway

Regards

Alfred

[GuerraCivil]

Walter Wolfram, an ace of 137 air victories, describes this matter in his memoirs Unbekannte Pflicht - Meine Erinnerung als Jagd- und Kunstflieger 1923-2009 in following way:

It would be foolish if now and here we would wash the hands of some combatant part of the war. The gruesome truth is that many wars - using the cynical words of Clausewitz - are continuing politics with other means, but all ends up in limitless savagery and violence. War in itself creates in a man naturally developing savagery, which most individuals are unable to resist. In one day came information spreading fast that Russians were shooting our pilots on parachute. First we did not want to believe it. Such thing had not happened before. Not at the Eastern Front. It may have been a individual case, probably exceptional case. In air combat there is lots of shooting - sometimes one hits something that was not meant to be. Probably the witness just mixed the things. But after then more cases came up and they were proven to be true. Indeed the Soviet pilots were shooting our guys on parachute. Not apparently all of them. And probably they attacked those who were descending at this side of front and could already tomorrow fly and combat...How should we react to this? What could we do to prevent it escalating? In tense discussions we weighed both the good and bad sides of it and we came to the conclusion that we will do the same. I try to get hold of my memories of those times - I do not remember if I was unwilling to do it, how down to the bottom we thought it or if the anger made us uncapable of understanding all the consequences of such action...

[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.

[Kutscha]

There was also incidents where an airplane would fly close to a parachutist causing the parachute to collapse, so I have read.

[GuerraCivil]

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.

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.

[Larry deZeng]

This issue may now be mute because future wars will be fought with long-range missiles, drones and robots. We are almost at that point now. The machines will be programmed to kill the enemy's machines and there will be no "prisoners" to take except occasionally for technical evaluation. Will that be a step forward or a step back? Will a particularly vicious and ruthless enemy program his machines to intentionally kill civilians? It sounds like that could be a step back to me.

But the above is off-topic so back to the original discussion.

[kaki3152]

Well, I did read an account by a shot down Typhoon pilot hiding out in France who watched a Bf109 shot at the parachutes of a shot down B-17. It was in an old copy of FLYPAST

[edgardo gil]

What is right or wrong in a war?, that concerns with moral values and ethics of each culture in the human history. And I mean not the international law, I mean humans concern.
Look on the Hollywood movies characters, who is the guy that in a duel fight, use a cracked bottle against the other guy with nude fists? the bad guy; who kill the innocent? the bad guy: who shoot to the sailors in the water? the bad guy (remember the movie "Action in the North Atlantic" with Humphrey Bogart, and who kill a pilot that hang defenseless in his parachute? of course, the bad guy; why? because it´s wrong, it´s a bad thing whatever justification that you want to give it. That considering the occidental and others civilizations indeed and present values.
But, as GuerraCivil told, if you want, you can justify anything, from killing desarmed people to kill children or whatever you want.
I remember a question that was asked to Madeleine Albright about the iraqui children deaths as consequence of USA sanctions in the nineties : “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And – and you know, is the price worth it?”
And her answer was: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.”

[Bigdog]

Atrocities did not end with the shooting down of enemy pilots in the air. To quote an extract from "The blond knight of Germany - a biology of Erich Hartmann" by Toliver & Constable in the chapter "Stalin Hawks"

.....in a remarkable incident near Oriel.... Lt Vladimir D Lavrinenkov, an ace with 30 kills, downed a 109 in battle, and watched the German pilot land in a flat field.The Luftwaffe pilot scrambled from the cockpit and dashed for cover....
Circling low over the scene Lavrinenkov saw that the Red Army units would probably not be locate the German..... The Russian Lieutenant landed his fighter next to the 109 and led the searching infantry to the thicket....
Lavrinenkov found the downed German, pounced on him, and strangled him to death with his hands. The Russian returned immediately to his fighter and took of, leaving his dead foe to the infantrymen.

This was a terrible act but not uncommon as reports of Russian atrocities at the war's end were rife.

[edgardo gil]

Yes, as you said, atrocities were appaling and from all sides. But as I said, the topic is pilots hanging on parachutes.