I used to read a lot of books on WW2 and also watched a lot of WW2 docs on the History channel before it jumped on the reality TV bandwagon. There seemed to be a code of conduct that was shared among pilots on all sides that you don’t shoot a downed enemy pilot in a parachute. Was this an unspoken gentleman’s agreement or was this something that was part of the Geneva Convention?
In a television doc I saw years ago there was either an American or British veteran pilot who recounted a dogfight he had with some German fighters. He saw this German pilot picking off allied pilots who had bailed out of their planes and were descending to the ground in their parachute. It incensed him, so he maneuvered behind him and slowly shot at his rings until the pilot bailed. And then he shot him. He said that others would condemn what he did, but said that if they saw what the pilot did before then they would understand why he did it.
Wouldn’t it be extremely difficult to shoot a bailed-out pilot? Other considerations aside, you might not attempt it simply because you would be wasting ammunition, and missing the opportunity to do something of greater tactical value.
There was an unwritten rule but not all sides practiced it. The Japanese were infamous for shooting down bailing out pilots, while American and British pilots would shoot down parachuting German pilots if they felt they had been attacking extremely “ungentlemanly” such as they had been previously strafing Allied bombers even when the aircraft was falling out of formation and was doomed anyway.
There’s a large section on World War II (and a good discussion in general) in this wikipedia article:
There is much more info in the article.
It’s not mentioned in that article, but there was an interesting story about a Russian man named Ivan Chisov. Lieutenant Chisov was a navigator on a Soviet IL-4 Bomber. His plane basically got shot to bits, and the crew bailed out. Relevant to this discussion, Ivan feared that if he popped his chute immediately, some angry German pilot would just shoot him in his chute, so apparently this was common enough that a Russian navigator considered it to be a realistic threat.
What Ivan planned on doing was dropping below the level of the battle, and then, when he no longer feared getting shot, he would pop his chute and land safely. What actually happened is that Ivan passed out, and fell about 20,000 feet or so and never opened his chute. Miraculously, he survived. He hit the side of a snowy ravine and bounced and slid his way to the bottom. He was very seriously hurt, but not many people get to say they fell 20,000 feet and lived to tell the tale.
Surprisingly, there were about half a dozen guys in WWII that basically got shot out of their bombers and fell 20,000 feet or so without a chute and lived to tell the tale (and one, Nick Alkemade, managed to walk away with barely a scratch!). But Ivan was the only one who intentionally didn’t open his chute, and the reason was that he feared becoming an easy target for a pissed off German pilot.
That subject and much more is considered in James Holland’s book on theBattle of Britain. Highly recommended. Not just a personal account of the fighting it also considers the technical, organisational and procedural aspects and soaks you with just enough nerdy stats to push the points home.
Pilots were much more valuable than planes in WW2. Britain enjoyed a great advantage in the Battle of Britain in that their skilled pilots that bailed out could be back in the fight the same day. German pilots who bailed were POWs.
Japan also suffered from losing their best pilots early in the war. At the beginning of WWII JApanese and American pilots were roughly equal. Maybe even a small Japanese advantage. But by 1943 their ranks were so depleted that it was easier to just teach them to crash planes rather than expect them to actually be functional as fighter pilots.
Japan’s problem was not only their inability to replace pilots, but also they weren’t capable of improving their planes or developing new ones. They essentially finished the war with the same planes as they started, while the US introduced a number of better planes throughout the war.
The other problem was that the US tremendously increased the number of antiaircraft guns on the ships as well as the considerable improvements in accuracy, making them much more lethal. The first tokkotai pilots were actually trained veterans and not newbies.
Another factor for the US pilot advantage I heard is that the Americans rotated their best pilots into teacher assignments. Whether that’s because of better management philosophy or simply because the US could afford to play a longer game, I don’t know.
What I remember being taught in the Army was that aircrew members who had parachuted were considered out of the fight and hence essentially prisoners from the moment they left the airplane and couldn’t be shot at unless they resisted. So if they pulled a sidearm and started shooting at you on the way down, they were fair game.
Paratroopers, on the other hand, where fair game at any point in their jump as they were assault troops.
Actually, theycould (to cite only two IJN fighters). But there were multiple problems getting them deployed into frontline service. Among them:[ul]
[li]There was a reluctance to divert resources from producing weapons that were working very well (inertia).[/li][li]By the time the top brass realized that they no longer had an edge in pilot skill and technology, their ability to implement mass production of the new designs was severely compromised (due in large part to the US submarine campaign).[/li][li]According to Sakai Saburō’s biography, the new designs required more skill than many of Japan’s late-war pilots possessed. He recalls a fellow pre-war pilot swearing at their superiors for sending new pilots out in the new designs — they could barely control the planes, he said, let alone fight in them.[/li][/ul]
They did. The Ki-84, Ki-100, N1K2, and C6N were all types developed during the Pacific War, but mass production and subsequent operational deployments were hampered by Japan’s overall lack of fuel and abbreviated pilot training.
There is a definite point to be made here, but the Japanese weren’t completely incapable of improving their existing planes and developing new ones. If you look at the list here, you’ll see that many of them were first flown long after the start of the war:
Like I said, there’s a point to be made here, and while the Japanese did develop new aircraft, they weren’t all that good at aircraft development or manufacturing. The main reason for this is that Japan did not have a separate air force. Instead, the Japanese military was divided into the army and the navy. The army had its own air force of sorts, and the navy had its air force as well. But there was this huge disconnect and lack of communication between the army and the navy. There was no cooperation. The navy went off and developed their own planes and built them in their own factories, and the army developed its own planes and built them in its own factories, all completely separate from each other. With everything split, they were unable to benefit from economies of scale.
The navy’s Zero was a much better plane than the army’s Hayabusa, but the navy never volunteered to make the plane for the army, and the army never asked. There was no attempt at all to share parts or designs.
Since Japanese air power was split off into subdivisions of their main military branches, Japanese air power also suffered from a lack of focus and a lack of vision. Air power by the army was considered secondary to armor and troops. Air power by the navy was secondary to ships, and the navy continued to focus on battleships even as carriers continued to prove their worth in battle.
They did manage to develop new planes, though. The army felt that it’s fighters were underpowered compared to U.S. planes, and in response they developed the Ki-84 and the Ki-100. The Zero was no match for the U.S. P-51, but both the Ki-84 and the Ki-100 could go toe-to-toe with planes like the P-51 and the F-4U Corsair (though the Ki-84 suffered a bit in high altitude performance).
The Japanese navy developed the N1K, which was also competitive against the later WWII U.S. planes. The N1K was originally developed as a float plane though, and that version performed fairly poorly against later U.S. planes. By the time the N1K entered service, Japan was on the defensive and didn’t have much use for a float plane to support advances at that point. The navy tweaked the N1k and made it more capable against the P-51 and F-4U.
More like fighting in a way that minimizes loss of life and destruction of property. At the beginning of the war, the Allies wouldn’t bomb the Ruhr because most of the strategic targets were private property! At the beginning of the Civil War, generals were more interested in trying to win battles with cute maneuvers that won with minimal loss of life, but later on they just settled into a war of attrition. WWI was also supposed to be a quick war of maneuver that settled down into pointless butchery. But as all three of those wars went on, both sides became a lot less interested in chivalry and rules.
This is exactly correct. Ignore the suggestions in previous posts that there were “gentlemen’s agreements” about not shooting bailed-out pilots – it is a violation of the laws of armed conflict to attack those who are “hors de combat,” or out of the fight. This would include pilots exiting a destroyed aircraft, sailors who are shipwrecked, the sick and wounded, etc.
This is not a new rule in the law of armed conflict, as it has been part of various rules and treaties on warfare since the late 19th century, and has been adopted into customary international law. (Customary international law is basic standards of conduct for countries that are viewed as binding on them even if they are not signatory to a particular treaty.) Link.
However, it is perfectly clear that various countries have ignored this prohibition, just as they ignored the requirement to treat POWs humanely, etc.
Isn’t it also normal to shoot a tank crew that’s bailing though? everything I’ve ever read or seen on tank warfare says that it’s normal practice to kill the bailing crewmembers on the logic that they can just get another tank. I would think the same applies to pilots, at least if they bail on their own territory.