Regardless of the reason for carrying sidearms, it was not all that rare for WWI air crew to decide to jump from burning planes. For reasons that are not totally clear, it was not until near the end of the war that a few Germans began carrying parachutes (successful designs for which dated to two years prior to the war), and the choice of jumping was pretty certainly death, yet many men chose jumping to burning (or pistols).
Raoul Lufbery was impaled on a picket fence when he jumped from his burning plane.
You’re standing at an open window 50 stories up. Flames are advancing toward you. Your possible actions are:[ul]
[li]run into the flames, either to try finding another way out or to end it quicker.[/li][li]stay where you are til engulfed.[/li][li]faint from the psychological stress.[/li][li]jump. (a few seconds of relief followed by oblivion)[/li][/ul]
My druthers would be to faint, but if I don’t, its jump all the way.
Besides, imagine what it would be like to put your hand on a hot stove top, and leave it there. That’s what it would be like not to jump. Think you could do that? Not me!