Gunther Rall vs. Zemke's Wolfpack

[drgondog]

I have to correct a mis-statement I made re: Rall and Zemke's flight of three. The shooters were I./JG5 Krupinski and Jahn in the Frankfurt area. Johnson's and Piper's MACR and LW KG reports agree on location - which was well away from Rall and JG 11. Rall had nothing to do with the shoot down's of Zemke's wingmen.

I devoted about six pages to the May 12 battle in Our Might Always.

 

[Parmigiano]

You will always have collateral damage in war. You will always have overshooting and mistakes made. But purposely to target individual civilians, I have never heard of from the Allies. And I'm not talking about bombing missions.

I can relate an episode that my grandpa told me when i was a boy.
One of his brothers was ploughing a field with a pair of oxen, alone in the countryside.
Some fighters, likely US, came strafing the area, probably as part of an attack to a nearby bridge (north Italy, where Po and Ticinum rivers merge).
A fighter went strafing the lone ploughman, who jumped between the oxen for protection.
One ox died, the other one and the man were not hurt.
Of course there is not certified documentation of this, just the story told by grandpa, but on the other hand he had no reasons to lie.
He said that was good luck that the brother survived, but the loss of the ox was a big hit for the family.
Gran and his brother were 1901 and 1897 vintage, so they were lucky enough to be too old to be drafted in the army