Which other countries had "suicidal" aircrew in WW2? (1 Viewer)

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MiTasol

2nd Lieutenant
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Sep 19, 2012
Aw flaming stralia
We have all read, ad nauseum, how the Japanese pilots were "suicidal" because they stripped armour and other safety items from their aircraft to gain performance.

It turns out that, according to this book, Australian Catalina crews were equally "suicidal" as they removed not only armour but also fuel tank sealing. This leads to the question --

Which other countries had "suicidal" aircrew in WW2?

American pilots at Midway who took off knowing they had insufficient fuel to make it back to safety comes to mind. There must have been others.

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The crews of 617 squadron could be said to fill that criteria, though they didnt see it that way. Having already cheated the statistics to survive and become noted as good at what they were doing, they accepted a posting to a squadron that performed a lot of high risk and high loss missions, like the Dambuster raid, on the raid to sink the Tirpitz they were almost intercepted, if they had been they were dead meat, with only a rear turret and extra fuel tanks on board.
 
Well my two favorite "against the odds" were posted. I wish I could remember the Polish destroyers that seemed determined as well. There was a Merchant Marine freighter that counter attacked an IJN merchant cruiser. I think that may have been "pissed-off" big time rather than suicidal.
It was a YouTube vid on "History Deserves To Be Remembered ". I can't remember the names. Senility isn't as fun as I thought it would be.
 
HMS Jervis Bay attacking the Admiral Scheer to protect a convoy is another action that might be suicidal
And HMS Rawalpindi, a converted passenger liner which took on the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau the captain was heard to say "We'll fight them both, they'll sink us, and that will be that. Good-bye". The captain was Ludovik Kennedy's father.

 

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