Aircrew casualities

DAN wrote:
Guy Alcala wrote:

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.

Why? difficult to train?

Nah. To kill the enemy.

-Mike (novel idea, eh?) Marron

Mike Marron wrote:
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy,
it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a
wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist
and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll
raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the
huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe.

Gord Beaman wrote
It is!...I never came across that before!...quite amazing.

Just a lesson in how gifted the human mind is in
finding familiar patterns in a stream of input or data.
Some "progressive" people (mis)used this ability as
the springboard to the concept of "sight reading,"
where kids who are learning to read are taught to
try to guess the word based on how it looks. Funny
thing is, if you don't already know how to read (i.e.
your mind has not yet learned what patterns to try to
fit the jumbles into), it doesn't work worth a damn.


Jeff

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
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


During the BOB Dowding specifically ordered the RAF not
to strafe German pilots who had bailed out over UK territory

He made the point that under international law once the
pilot had bailed out over enemy territory he was no longer
an enemy combatant but a surrndering prisoner. German
pilots over occupied territory or British pilots over the
UK were fair game.

Keith

Subject: Aircrew casualities
From: Mike Marron
Date: 9/19/03 6:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

DAN wrote:
Guy Alcala wrote:

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.

Why? difficult to train?

Nah. To kill the enemy.

-Mike (novel idea, eh?) Marron


The Germans supposedly put their best into the ME 262's

Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

(ArtKramr) wrote:
Mike Marron wrote:
DAN wrote:
Guy Alcala wrote:

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.

Why? difficult to train?

Nah. To kill the enemy.

-Mike (novel idea, eh?) Marron

The Germans supposedly put their best into the ME 262's

That, in addition to the fact that the 262 was 130 kts. faster than
anything the U.S. could put in the air explains why the Americans
were ordered to kill 262 pilots in their chutes or on the ground
rather than pay homage to the Nazi *******s.

-Mike Marron

"Mike Marron" wrote in message
...
(ArtKramr) wrote:
Mike Marron wrote:
DAN wrote:
Guy Alcala wrote:

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.

Why? difficult to train?

Nah. To kill the enemy.

-Mike (novel idea, eh?) Marron

The Germans supposedly put their best into the ME 262's

That, in addition to the fact that the 262 was 130 kts. faster than
anything the U.S. could put in the air explains why the Americans
were ordered to kill 262 pilots in their chutes or on the ground
rather than pay homage to the Nazi *******s.

You served when Marron? You say your pussy hurt?

Gernot Hassenpflug wrote:

Although Mike is in my kill-score file, I can't resist some play
here.

What a joke. You don't have me (or anyone else) in your
mythical "killfile." Even if you did, who cares? Certainly not
me, but perhaps I shall killfile YOU.

If the sole reason for ordering the killing of someone is
because he happens to fly something better than you have, that
makes a pretty good reason for the Germans to order the killing
of almost all allied fighter pilots by that stage of the war. Frankly,
war is barbarous enough without going completely off one's
rocker. Keeping one's marbles after the events is also am
important issue.

Are you a Nazi apologist? I wasn't even born when the orders to
shoot Me-262 pilots in their chutes were given. If you don't agree
with the U.S. WW2 policy, tough!

-Mike Marron

Mike Marron writes:

Gernot Hassenpflug wrote:

Although Mike is in my kill-score file, I can't resist some play
here.

What a joke. You don't have me (or anyone else) in your
mythical "killfile." Even if you did, who cares? Certainly not
me, but perhaps I shall killfile YOU.

I just enjoy baiting you. If you knew how gnus worked, you would
understand (I hope).

If the sole reason for ordering the killing of someone is
because he happens to fly something better than you have, that
makes a pretty good reason for the Germans to order the killing
of almost all allied fighter pilots by that stage of the war. Frankly,
war is barbarous enough without going completely off one's
rocker. Keeping one's marbles after the events is also am
important issue.

Are you a Nazi apologist? I wasn't even born when the orders to
shoot Me-262 pilots in their chutes were given. If you don't agree
with the U.S. WW2 policy, tough!

What is the relevance of Nazi aplogoy here, or when you were born? I
have no issue with you personally, just the orders. Yes, you are
right, I don't agree, and yes, that is `tough'. Stupid orders or worse
are the same whichever `side' enacted them.

--
G Hassenpflug * IJN & JMSDF equipment/history fan

Dale wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

chutes (in
That's another reason why ball turret
gunners
had such a high casualty rate; there was no room in the turret for them to
have
their chutes, so they had to first make it back up into the fuselage, get
their
chute and put it on before they could jump. The waist gunners had it far
easier.

Hmmm. From what I've been told statistically the ball was one of the more
survivable positions..regarless of what the silly History Channel "Suicide
Mission" show stated.

I've seen claims of that, but the stats don't seem to back it up, at least for the
B-17.

And if you think about it, it makes sense. The ball gunner has more steel
around him than say the waist gunner and he's in the fetal position making for a
smaller target, not standing upright like a waist gunner or top turret gunner
(some of which were on seats as in the B-26).

As I understood Art, his question wasn't so much about casualty rates, as it was
survival rates. The ball turret gunner had the hardest time getting out of the a/c,
because he first had to get back IN to the a/c, then put on his chute, then bail
out. If the turret was damaged it was often difficult or impossible to rotate it so
that the hatch faced the proper direction, even with help from the crewmembers
inside the a/c. Ideally, the ball turret gunner could have worn his chute in the
turret, and just open the hatch and fall out backwards; I've read one case of a
really small man (even among ball turret gunners) who was able to wear his chute in
the turret, but he seems to be the exception.

Guy

ArtKramr wrote:

Subject: Aircrew casualities
From: Guy Alcala
Date: 9/18/03 11:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

No, I meant the fighters taking evasive action on the run-in, and preparing
to do

Never saw that once. Thyey would drop tgheior inside wing and their nose would
swing in toward us and we hten knew they had started their classic fighter
approach. And once they set up constant bearing, they never swerved, changed
course or took evasive action at all. They just bore in on their heading of
constant bearing firing as they came.

"Evasive action' was a poor choice of words on my part; involuntary flinching
before the breakaway, and doing the breakaway early for fear of collision/gunfire,
was more what I meant.


The USAAF bomber crew didn't have backpack parachutes either for quite a
while (it
seems to have been late in 1943 that they started to come in). Normally it
was a

The USAAF bomber crew didn't have backpack parachutes either for quite a
while (it
seems to have been late in 1943 that they started to come in). Normally it
was a

I wore a chestpack. The tail gunner and the top turrest gunners also had
chestpacks and we wore them in our positions with no problem. We never ever
flew missions with chutes off. And in 1943 both our pilot and copilot flew with
backpacks, the rest of us wore chestpacks and once in the air never took them
of except when I had to enter the bomb bays. I couldn't fit through the bombay
access door with a chestpack on.

Then it must have been 8th AF practice not to wear them, as numerous accounts exist
of crews trying to buckle theirs on in a hurry. The RAF bomber crews didn't
normally wear theirs either, aside from the pilots and the tail gunner.

Guy