On 26 Sep 2006 14:32:38 -0700, "Jay Honeck" wrote:

When the one pilot comments that it's his plan to shoot down one enemy then go
back to America, surely it would have been more dramatic to point out that this
would be desertion, for which the man (if caught) would have been the next
blindfold recipient?

Would that have been true in the all-volunteer American squadron?

The Escadrille Lafayette wasn't the Flying Tigers... it was a duly-constituted
squadron of the French Air Service, not a mercenary unit. Members were under
French military law, which, for instance, permitted members of a unit to be
randomly selected for execution (irrespective of the soldier's individual
behavior) if that unit failed in combat.

What's more, the American government at the time was pretty prickly, claiming
that citizens who pledged allegiance to a foreign government (as is usually the
case when someone joins a country's military) would give up their US
citizenship. Lafayette Escadrille members got around that by enlisting in the
French Foreign Legion (the Legion's enlistment oath only requires that the
member obey his officers) and then transferring to the Air Service. At last
report, the Legion never has been too friendly towards cowards or deserters. :-)

One of the early Americans in the French Air Service deserted in the middle of a
spying scandal, and one would suspect the French military might well have taken
a hard line in a similar case. Geopolitical realities might have prevented the
outright execution of an American deserter, of course. But French military
prisons of the time were no fun, either...kind of like Abu Graib with garlic.

BTW, the Lafayette Escadrille still exists, as the Lafayette Group in the Armee
de l'aire. They still fly with the Indian head insignia...

http://maquette72.free.fr/themes/laf...adron_2esc.jpg

Ron Wanttaja