Aircrew casualities

Mike Marron wrote:

"Erik Plagen" wrote:
Mike Marron wrote:

Haven't you heard all the stories of the Luftwaffe strafing downed
allied pilots coming down their chutes

That;s all they were- "stories" or fairy tales!

We never tried to shoot down Crew Members in their chutes!

You are thinking of the Japanese.

Nope, I'm thinking of the Germans. In fact, I've heard Chuck Yeager
himself during an interview describe how the Germans were known
to strafe downed allied airmen descending in their chutes.

snip

There were certainly instances (on both sides) of this happening, and it
was widely believed (again, by both sides) that the other side was just
looking for opportunities to do so, but it was an individual thing, not an
order. It tended to be crews with better reasons to hate, i.e. a pilot
whose family had been killed by bombing, or pilots of some of the occupied
countries (the Poles come to mind). And there were the occasional
bloodthirsty or just plain ruthless types on both sides. There was little
reason for the Germans to strafe parachutes when they were on the
defensive, because the crews were almost certain to be captured. There
was more reason for the allies to do so when they were on the offensive,
because any German pilot who survived was likely to be back in the air;
most of the top German aces were shot down numerous times. The situation
was the reverse in the BoB, where it would have made sense for the Germans
to shoot British pilots as they descended, but was pointless for the
British. There seems to have been one exception: in the case of the
Me-262, US fighter pilots were ordered to kill the pilots, in their chutes
or on the ground, according to Yeager and/or Clarence 'Bud' Anderson in
their biographies.

Guy