Greatest aviation myth this site “de-bunked”.

33k in the air said:

It was some 550 miles from U.S. airbases in England to Berlin. Bombers were lost all along the way. Some crashed in occupied Holland. A few made either made it to neutral Sweden or ditched in the North Sea.

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For both the RAF and USAAF a bomber landing back at base or in UK didn't mean it wasn't a total write off with many crew dead or injured. Many never took to the air again.

That's right. Or Second Schweinfurt: 60 B-17s shot down (one ditched), 17 crash-landed or scrapped on return. If Germans only counted wrecks they could access they'd make a 22% error in their after-action assessment.

All pilots and aircrew are prone to over-claiming. Air gunners are going to over-claim simply because multiple gunners are likely to be claiming to have destroyed the same aircraft, and pilots are going to over-claim because they see an aircraft badly damaged and they assume it's going to be lost; these are not "lies" in any meaningful sense. These factors are, incidentally, part of the reason eyewitness evidence is not considered particularly reliable (many of the inmates exonerated from death sentences had been put there by eyewitnesses who were certain and probably not actively lying). Add to the basic issues with human memory and perceptions the likelihood that plausible claims would get a positive reaction, either unofficially (from congratulations from colleagues to drinks at a bar to a nice evening with a person of the appropriate sex) or officially (say, a Knight's Cross) and there are even more reason to conclude that damaged aircraft must have crashed.

From a strictly practical position, I'd also think it would be unwise to instruct your pilots to chase an enemy plane to ensure that it was definitely destroyed if it's diving out of combat with some evident damage (like flames), as this could be both excessively risky for your pilots and prevent your pilot from combating a second threat. (this, not some sort of chivalry is why I'd tend to discourage shooting pilots* when they're parachuting to the ground: they are no longer an eminent threat, but the enemy force may have other aircraft that are current threats.)

Obviously, military planners need to know how many enemy aircraft were actually shot down, but they a) don't necessarily have a good value for this (it's easy to count wrecks on territory you control, but challenging to similarly verify claims resulting from actions enemy-controlled territory or, say, an ocean) or b) they may feel the need to overstate success for civilian morale (something far less fragile than most military planners assumed, especially in the democracies).


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* Discourage, not ban, at least over enemy territory. Over friendly territory, well, captured pilots could be useful sources of intelligence. I'll leave morality out of this, for now. Rather obviously, killing an enemy pilot when he's parachuting from a destroyed aircraft is distasteful, probably even immoral.

swampyankee said:

killing an enemy pilot when he's parachuting from a destroyed aircraft is distasteful, probably even immoral.

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Tankers bailing out and running away from their destroyed tank???

Milosh said:

Tankers bailing out and running away from their destroyed tank???

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I think that's different. They can still operate as ground forces and present a danger, even though their tank is toast, using their small arms. This doesn't apply to aircrew.

I tend to agree. We could explore the analogy of sailors in the water after their vessel is sunk. They represent no threat, and hence murdering them in cold blood would be seen by most as reprehensible.

The pilot who is shot down learns and the next time up is a better pilot. Many of the aces were shot down and survived to be better combat pilots. I still would not shoot one in a chute as that is obvious murder.

It was perfectly normal for crews to abandon tanks, in heavy fighting they did so every few days in Normandy, then they got back in it when it was recovered and repaired or got in another one straight away.

swampyankee said:

. . . killing an enemy pilot when he's parachuting from a destroyed aircraft is distasteful, probably even immoral.

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It was implicitly understood that once one side started doing that sort of thing on a widespread basis, the other side would retaliate in the same way. Hence why it was better to not engage in such actions and open up Pandora's Box. Both the British and the Germans had large stockpiles of chemical weapons during WWII, but both refrained from using them for fear of the retaliation which would inevitably ensue.

I remember an interview with an Allied pilot who had seen one of his fellow pilots bale out and who was shot while parachuting down by an enemy fighter. The Allied pilot then chased after that enemy fighter and shot it up, and when its pilot took to his parachute, the Allied pilot shot him in retaliation.

If go down the merciless route, the other side will too.

33k in the air said:

It was implicitly understood that once one side started doing that sort of thing on a widespread basis, the other side would retaliate in the same way. Hence why it was better to not engage in such actions and open up Pandora's Box. Both the British and the Germans had large stockpiles of chemical weapons during WWII, but both refrained from using them for fear of the retaliation which would inevitably ensue.

I remember an interview with an Allied pilot who had seen one of his fellow pilots bale out and who was shot while parachuting down by an enemy fighter. The Allied pilot then chased after that enemy fighter and shot it up, and when its pilot took to his parachute, the Allied pilot shot him in retaliation.

If go down the merciless route, the other side will too.

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Ive seen that interview too. As far as Dowding was concerned a German pilot on a parachute over UK could be considered to be surrendered while an RAF pilot was still a combatant.

33k in the air said:

It was implicitly understood that once one side started doing that sort of thing on a widespread basis, the other side would retaliate in the same way. Hence why it was better to not engage in such actions and open up Pandora's Box. Both the British and the Germans had large stockpiles of chemical weapons during WWII, but both refrained from using them for fear of the retaliation which would inevitably ensue.

I remember an interview with an Allied pilot who had seen one of his fellow pilots bale out and who was shot while parachuting down by an enemy fighter. The Allied pilot then chased after that enemy fighter and shot it up, and when its pilot took to his parachute, the Allied pilot shot him in retaliation.

If go down the merciless route, the other side will too.

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I've read that Allied pilots who gunned the sailors and troops of sunk vessels in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea did so because they'd heard of Japanese doing the same things to Allied sailors and downed airmen. I can't speak to the veracity of those claims, nor would I argue that that was adequate justification if true.

There were also American soldiers who, after Malmedy, perpetrated atrocities in response. Again, I can't speak to the veracity of those claims.

Koopernic said:

The nadir was likely the Korean War when a 10:1 exchange ratio was claimed but the exchange ratio was less than 2:1 and possibly even.

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It's hard to say since data from the other side is far from complete. I don't think we'll ever know the true losses of North Koreans and Chinese numbers need to be verified by researchers who are not under Bejing's control. Soviet losses were thoroughly investigated but it happened 50-60 years after the war and not all archives were opened yet.

Thumpalumpacus said:

I've read that Allied pilots who gunned the sailors and troops of sunk vessels in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea did so because they'd heard of Japanese doing the same things to Allied sailors and downed airmen. I can't speak to the veracity of those claims, nor would I argue that that was adequate justification if true.

There were also American soldiers who, after Malmedy, perpetrated atrocities in response. Again, I can't speak to the veracity of those claims.

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Bismark Sea battle involved Allies intercepting a convoy of troop transports from Rabaul. The survivors were strafed in the water because if they were rescued they would just be transported on to NG which was the whole reason for the interception in the first place. Grisly business for sure.

P-39 Expert said:

Bismark Sea battle involved Allies intercepting a convoy of troop transports from Rabaul. The survivors were strafed in the water because if they were rescued they would just be transported on to NG which was the whole reason for the interception in the first place. Grisly business for sure.

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True, but rescued soldiers bereft of equipment have little fighting strength, and as that battle itself showed, the ability to reconstitute them would have been mighty slim. I doubt those soldiers dove overboard with rifles slung, or weighed down by ammo, given their distance from any shoreline. Definitely grisly.

Thumpalumpacus said:

True, but rescued soldiers bereft of equipment have little fighting strength, and as that battle itself showed, the ability to reconstitute them would have been mighty slim. I doubt those soldiers dove overboard with rifles slung, or weighed down by ammo, given their distance from any shoreline. Definitely grisly.

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It was already well-established by that time that Japanese military personnel rarely surrendered and would rather die fighting, however poorly equipped they might be.

33k in the air said:

It was already well-established by that time that Japanese military personnel rarely surrendered and would rather die fighting, however poorly equipped they might be.

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Or die drowning, or shark-bitten, or of starvation as they did on the 'Canal, and in NG too iirc.

Thumpalumpacus said:

Or die drowning, or shark-bitten, or of starvation as they did on the 'Canal, and in NG too iirc.

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I remember seeing military newsreel footage on YouTube of a downed Japanese aviator who refused to be picked up by a USN warship.

33k in the air said:

I remember seeing military newsreel footage on YouTube of a downed Japanese aviator who refused to be picked up by a USN warship.

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I've read of such myself. I think the Pacific War only had its equal on the Eastern Front in terms of cutthroat.

buffnut453 said:

I tend to agree. We could explore the analogy of sailors in the water after their vessel is sunk. They represent no threat, and hence murdering them in cold blood would be seen by most as reprehensible.

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Look for the video of the Battle of the Bismark Sea. Lots of Japanese being machine gunned by various RAAF and USAAF aircraft. When the Japanese or Germans or Italians did that it was a war crime but history is always written by the victors who always develop amnesia.

A friend who was on the Enterprise told of, after an air attack, a destroyer put out a boat to pick up a downed Japanese flyer who then shot a sailor at close range. There were no more rescue attempts.