Shooting at jumped Luftwaffe pilots

Just finished reading a book by Donald Caldwell called "JG26, Top Guns of the Luftwaffe". On several occasions the LW pilots told about Allied (US) fighters shooting at jumped LW pilots hanging on parachutes, killing them. To avoid this they were advised not to open their chutes until at the very last moment.

How common was this? Was there some kind of an official or un-official order for that practise? If yes, why? What about the other Allies - or Luftwaffe fighters shooting at jumped Allied airmen?

I tried to look for any previous threads about this topic but could not find any.

 

Does it say when these occured. I know of occasions when near the end of the war where German pilots used "Kamakase" tactics such as ramming bombers. On these occasions escorting fighters would open up on descending Luftwaffe pilots in retribution.

 

I have the book mentioned and I remember the passage. I have seen mention of this practice in other books re. the Luftwaffe. My impression is that there was a common understanding by American fighter pilots that fighter pilots were more important than their planes. Planes were easily manufactured. Pilots were not. Besides, shooting someone down and then letting him parachute to earth just gave that enemy pilot a great air combat lesson that will help that enemy flyer become a better fighter and quite possibly killing the person who extended the gesture of mercy. It had been a long tough war and some American pilots saw no difference in shooting someone in the chute than an infantryman shooting at fleeing enemy soldiers. Certainly, many American pilots did not do this, either from a sense of morality OR the understanding that someday, perhaps soon, they might be dangling from a 'chute and needing a little mercy themselves.

I remember reading about some discussion the RAF had just prior to the BoB. It was opined by some that Germans shooting British pilots over Britain could be a justifiable act of war; while a British pilot shooting a parachuting German over Britain, a man that undoubtedly would be captured, was possibly a war crime. One German fighter leader told his pilots that if he ever saw someone killing a parachuting enemy, he would kill the shooter himself! His reasoning was that they had to keep some sort of a sense of humanity. Such sentiments were probably a little threadbare by 1944.

 

That practice was not infrequent by all combatants, you find plenty of episodes in most detailed air war account you read no matter if it's 1939 or 1945. So was unfortunately was also the killing of downed aircrews by civilians and ground troops. Machine gunning Japanese shipwrecked sailors and troops by US planes and PTs was so common I suspect it was "standard operating procedure" and sanctioned by higher commands in some units (read Morrison's account of Surigao and Bismark Sea if you doubt that).

 

Machine gunning of shipwrecked enemy sailors and troops was legal,if they were trying to escape to an enemy coast/ship .It happened already at Narvik when the RN was shooting on shipwrecked Germans who tried to swim to the coastwhere they would be received by German paratroopers .

The Germans investigated the incident and the conclusion was that it was legal.

 

I think it was well documented that Polish Pilots shot down Germans. Above from Forgotten Voices series

 

Don't have the book now, since I lent it already. Think it happened on several occasions, not only at near the end of the war. Don't think the Kamikaze tactics was involved then.

 

I saw an American P-51 pilot talking about it in an interview taped in the early eighties. He said that after he saw a German shoot an American airman in a chute that he would shoot every German parachute that he saw. He was quite matter of fact about it.

 

I'm sure in Stanford Tuck's "Fly for your life" he describes killing an ME110 crew member on the deck, having forced the ME110 down he went back for a look and they/he (not sure which) fired at him. I seem to remember with an SMG, so he went back and killed them with his MG's.

 

I believe Tuck also shot a ME-109 pilot in the water, except this time it was a mercy killing. The enemy pilot face a certain long cold death with almost no possibility of rescue. He stated that if he were in such a predicament he would hope that the enemy pilot would shoot him.

Certainly, chute shootings happened, probably from the beginning. My guess is that they were probably in retaliation for like behavior. It is just that most historians have stated, if they touched on the topic at all, that for most of the war they were infrequent. Only around the last part of the war did the Luftwaffe pilot have to fear being killed while helplessly dangling in his chute.

Not all American pilots engaged in that behavior. In 1944 Eric Hartmann fought 6 P-51s alone. He was able to keep them from hitting him but he ran out of fuel before reaching his base so he bailed. Coming down in his chute he thought he was going to be strafed but the American pilot just waved as he went by.

Having said all this, I must end it by saying I feel killing an enemy pilot in his chute, if he is going to reach the safety of his own side, as an acceptable act of war.

 

I remember reading an account (perhaps by Johnstan the P-47 ace) about a long dogfight he had with a German fighter pilot. After he damaged the plane he turned to make another pass hopeing to get the pilot before he had actually bailed out. He didn't want to shoot him in his shoot but the guy was so good he thought letting him fly again would likely result in the death of allied aviators.

 

I agree. I've often thought about how the families of an allied bomber crew or the familes of an English people killed by bombers might feel about an American pilot letting a German fighter pilot return to the fight.

Thankful I was never in a war.

Edit:

My post crossed in the mail with LWD's above. That's exactly the situation I was trying to describe

 

I can't say how it in general was. In that particular book about JG26 only it seemed to be the Allies, who started the practice.

 

Agree with your thoughts about the feelings of the pilots. When thinking about the Allied bomber crews I can also very well understand the feelings of the German pilots for their families and homes in the receiving end of those massive area bombings.

 

for the LW 1944 fall into 1945. and unwritten order went around to dive and pull up less than 500 feet, pop the canopy and fall out. Me 262 pilots were generally given NO mercy in spring of 45.

 

Paul Richey, RAF Pilot, referring to a Mess conversation, 1940 - after witnessing strafing from the air of Refugee columns:

Despite some fine tales of air chivalry, I have no hard illusions about this business. The air war, despite perhaps some 'remoteness' in it's nature, was as likely to be as brutal as any other aspect of the conflict.
I think there's likely a certain amount of propaganda still leaving a trace in attempting to attribute blame to one side or the other. As mentioned, a plane could be replaced - the real target in terms of war aims and doing harm to the enemy will always likely be the man flying it.

I think of Jackie Fisher again: "Moderation in war is imbecility..."

 

When I was a kid I used to read lots of comic books about WW2, most of which were AFAIK made in Britain. Naturally in those the Allies were always the good guys and the Germans always the bad ones - always true Nazies to various degrees.

One of the nasty features, which was presented as a "proof" of the "evilness" of those "Nazi" pilots, was that they often shot the good Allied pilots hanging on parachutes - who naturally never did the same themselves. I did't really pay that much attention to that "fact" until very recently, when after having read the book I mentioned on top I realized, that in reality it might have been more often the other way round. That's why I decided to ask some further information about the subject.

So - if I've understood it correctly - basically all sides did it to a certain extent, but it was most common with the Japanese and the Americans, who even had an order to do it.

And to avoid any misunderstandings: I'm not trying to blame any side nor make or take any moral stance. Just interested in the facts.

 

Let's look at it from another angle. What if we weren't talking about pilots, but about the crew of armored vehicles. A tank takes a hit and the crew bails out... Do you let them run away or shoot at them?

 

Let's look at it from another angle, What if we weren't talking about pilots but sailors, You torpedo an armed unescorted merchant (it's the flag that makes it a merchant not the guns) carrying contraband (if it's not torpedoing it would be illegal) , the crew gets to the boats .... interfering with that is a war crime.
Who said the law has to be consistent or even sensible? We are in a very grey area here from a legal standpoint, from a moral standpoint I find killing people that are unable to fight back distasteful and cowardly, even if may be "efficient" from a war economy standpoint.

 

I agree. I'm just pointing out the dichotomy. It is considered legitimate to shoot at a tank crew, but not at a pilot, or as you point out, a sailor.