Firing at bailed airmen on parachute

Alex, I am well aware that the topic of firing at bailed out enemy airmen, or machine gunning civilians on the ground is a very sensible topic. Nevertheless, it did happen and therefore we have to talk about it, for the sake of retracing history the way it was, without cosmetics.

I always try to back up my comments and posts, not just air my personal opinion on matters regarding military history, to be able to prove my points and also to keep my reputation as (amateur) aviation historian untarnished.

Below I give you a few excerpts from original archival documents related to this controversial issue:
"April 21, 1944: Slt. av. Spiridon Matei+, Escadrila 58 vanatoare (I.A.R. 80 pilot), killed by Americans while descending on his parachute."

"June 23, 1944: Cpt. cdr. av. Ioan Sandu+, C/O of Grupul 1 vanatoare (I.A.R. 80 pilot), shot down by American fighters, bailed out, killed on parachute."

Excerpt from a document titled "The Effects of the Bombardments and Aerial Raids on June 10, 1944":
"Prahova County
Malaiesti village: 1 dead and 3 wounded. Machine gunned from airplanes.
Pleasa village: 1 dead, machine gunned (from air).
Poenarii-Apostolesti village: 1 dead, machine gunned (from air).

Olt County
(...)"
And so on.

Some of these victims may have been incidentally killed by projectiles falling fom the sky, but most of them were not.

I found similar reports in Hungarian documents, too.

These unfortunate incidents were neither regular, nor systematic; nevertheless, they happened. Therefore we have to talk about them.

Now, one could say that these documents were simply made up. If so, then we can say to anything found in archival documents that it's not true, it's made up. This is not acceptable from the history's point of view, as it would lead to sheer chaos in the attempt to retrace history.

I will not touch the other parts of your original post, dealing with general views on history, as it's outside the topic of this particular thread.

Col. Dénes

This post has been edited by dragos on December 17, 2004 10:04 am

Denes, many thanks I certianly agree with you regarding these incidents which are rather an act of individuial disobedience and could have ended up in court marshalling the pilots given the fact their CO's whould have known about it. A few ago talking to Brigade General der Luftwaffe ( A.D) and fighter ace Guenther Rall at Confederate Air Force , I have questioned various comments on which the German Luftwaffe footages produced after WWII were saying " German Pilots didnt start the war, they left behind wives and childrens and families like anyone else " . He admitted that there was a standard policy at Lufwaffe and Allied Axis on aiming at the chutes and the Germans were the pioneers of such acts , followed by Japanes and Axis pilots. I spoke alot with Erich Hartmann when he was alive about his staying at Zilste and his impression about ARR pilots. I was told by him that they were cooperative though not indoctrinated by Nazzi party and Hermann Goering views.

I would be particularly interested to know the details of the aircraft firing at ARR pilots...was it from bombers ? P-51' escorts ? P-38? or the russians ?

Many thanks
Alex

This post has been edited by alexkdl on December 17, 2004 08:36 am

There is another thread, which deals with the civilian victims of the June 10, 1944 attack by P-38 Lightnings of the 1st and 82nd F.G.
http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=1430

Col. Dénes

alexkdl, this kind of ugly things happened, there was no doubt that Germans were much more brutal than Americans in the WWII, but it was not very common among Luftwaffe pilots to firing at bailed out enemy airmen, even at the East front where usually quater were neither expect nor grant, bothe VVS and Luftwaffe pilots rarely fire at bailed out enemy airmen. But sadly things were different in Western and Pacific theatre where US and Japanese pilots usually would do this kind of thing, I recall at least one USNAF squadrine in Pacific made it a internal policty to shoot any bailed-out Japanese airmen, both American and Japanes pilots justfied their action as they thought those bailed-out enemy airmen were still enemy, they were not POW, after landing, they would simply climbed into another aircrafts, live and fought another day, so shooting a enemy hang under the parachute was the same as shooting him in his aircraft, and do not forget the fact that is was much easier for enemy to build a aicraft than training a qulified airmen

Also on 23rd june '44 Esc.58 Vt.Slt.Av.Ciutac Stefan was strafed on the ground after he managed to force-land his totally dammaged 109.For a moment there he thought the Stang pilot was saluting him In one (or more) of the ARR related books I read about similar cases when romanian pilots were strafed on the ground by US fighter planes.

There is a saying that explains such events (at least for me): "every forest has its wrotten trees" - how unfortunatelly true.

Mars, I read some books written by allied pilots who flew with RAF and they all said the same thing: although both british and german pilots had orders to choot at pilots hanging in chutes, they disobeyed this ordered, actually they were threattened by their squadron CO regarding such things :] hopefully in januarry I will get even more books written by RAF pilots and I will be able to get a clearer picture.

Denes, I wanted to ask you about cases when romanian pilots shot at pilots in their chutes - or everyone who has info about it.

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on December 17, 2004 05:08 pm

No, I am not aware of any such incident (which doesn't mean it did not happen).

That should be checked in the ARR's former enemies' recollections

Col. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 17, 2004 05:37 pm

I can talk only from the ARR pilots testemonies.
Ioan Dicezare was hit by return fire from a B 24.His eangine stopped and he risked a very dangerous belly landing (he dammaged his spine) than to bail out.
See Dragos Stinghe's memories for more details(Interviws).
Ioan Marinciu told me that the Bulgarians made a statement that if US pilots will go on shooting on hanging pilots,the American POW will be burned alive.He didn't know the result of this statemenet.
Boris Capbatut bailed out of his 110 only when his flying suit was on fire.
Almost no one was bailig out those days....
Marinciu was shoot down on Dec 1944 by German and Hungarian 109's(acording to Denes).He mannaged to made a hard landing ,but was suprised that the attackers didn' fire on him or the wreck.
I quess that if we can see today an American soldier shooting a woonded Iraki ,we can imagine what was going on that war

Don;t forget Ion Dobran - he too crashlanded his badly dammaged plane rather then risking a bailing out with the stangs around him.

I think the reluctance of pilots to bail out from a stricken airplane was not only because of the fear the enemy could machine gun while on parachute. The airmen felt safer in their well known airplane, than dangling on the string of a parachute, with the void under their feet (if the parachute would open at all ).

Col. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 17, 2004 06:57 pm

The archive documents speak for themselves, the witneses also, what a sad way to leed a war, when is no honor...

Actually this leads to an interesting question, which I never asked a veteran pilot so far. What was their parachute training? Did they make any jumps from transport airplanes??

I did ask.
Dicezare told me that they reieved a training at the "Turnul Parasutistilor"-the para.tower that still exist in Buc .
Some aircrew,like Capbatut navigator were former para.

D13-th_Mytzu, at least many US and Japanese pilots did not reluctant to shoot enemy bail-out airmen.

I have to correct you, over the Midways, Luzon and Marianas Islands .. The Japanese have reached scores in shooting American airmen hangging on chutes.

Alex

***edited by moderator***

alexkdl, I agreed, the point was both Japanese and American pilots did not consider this as a crime, they treat it as the same thing to shooting enemy aircrafts