Machine-gunned whilst parachuting

[David Thompson]

Geneva convention:
Part III. Methods and Means of Warfare Combatant and Prisoners-Of-War
Section I. Methods and Means of Warfare

Art. 42 - Occupants of aircraft

1. No person parachuting from an aircraft in distress shall be made the object of attack during his descent.

2. Upon reaching the ground in territory controlled by an adverse Party, a person who has parachuted from an aircraft in distress shall be given an opportunity to surrender before being made the object of attack, unless it is apparent that he is engaging in a hostile act.

3. Airborne troops are not protected by this Article.

http://www.genevaconventions.org/

The quote is from Protocol I, dated 8 Jun 1977, to the Geneva Convention of 1949, neither of which had even been drafted in WWII. The 1977 Protocol 1 to the Geneva Convention of 1949 can be seen online at:
http://www.globalissuesgroup.com/geneva/protocol1.html

[Juha Tompuri]

If I was a fighetr anyway I wouldn't be much proud of adding a parachute to my tally.

I agree 100%

Regards, Juha

[Ten. Gianluca Missi]

Conventions could hardly consider bailed out pilots since parachute was developped in the late 1930's even if experiments were carried out before WW I.

Anyway Conventions usually codify into laws what is common sense or common felt .
The slaughtering of prisoners is something that even the Romans condemned as an act of unnecessary cruelty (with sad exceptions)and that was long before any Convention ; killing kids in occupied territories to prevent them from becoming soldiers or partisans or chopping their right hand is something we leave to Hutu's and Thutsi's in Ruanda and we refuse such a barbarity even if we don't look up in the Geneva convention to check if it is allowed or not .

By endorsing the shooting of bailed out pilots to prevent them from going back into combat the next day we are in a way endorsing the shooting of american POW during the Ardennes Campaign , germans were issued such orders since they lacked men , facilities and supplies to held them captive and would have been obliged to let them go with them of course going back to fight the next day .(perpetrators of such crimes in the ardennes were condemned to death sentence or life sentence)
I hence condemn both these actions as crimes .

Gian

[Zygmunt]

Conventions could hardly consider bailed out pilots since parachute was developped in the late 1930's even if experiments were carried out before WW I.

I think you are mistaken - I recall reading an account by an American named Hall who flew in WWI - on being assigned a mission to attack an observation balloon (a tethered, manned balloon used particularly for artillery spotting) - he notes that the enemy observers usually had parachutes. There were orders to fire on anyone leaving the balloon in a parachute.
You can find this chapter of his account here:

http://www.richthofen.com/hall/hall06a.htm

NB - I include this account mostly to show that this ethical question had been faced by pilots in the First World War (differences between observers and pilots notwithstanding), but the attitude of this American and his superiors make interesting reading in any case.


Zygmunt

[Ten. Gianluca Missi]

"A patent granted in 1911 to an Italian inventor , Pino , for a knapsack parachute, including a pilot chute, must be considered as one of the major milestones in parachute history. When World War I began in 1914, very few crewmembers of balloons or aeroplanes carried parachutes. The Germans were probably the first to appreciate that a pilots or crewmembers life must be saved in case of emergency, and that the parachute was the means to accomplish this.

By the summer of 1918, parachutes were in wide use on all fronts, these early life-saving parachutes the German version was the Sack parachutes; the English, the Calthorp or "Guardian Angle" parachute. They were attached to the flier by means of a harness, and the bag-type parachute became, when not in use, a sort of cushion. From within its bag, a static line attached the canopy to the plane. When the pilot jumped, the tightening static line pulled the parachute from its container ready for action."

That's what I found about parachute history...here

http://www.ewell-probus.org.uk/programm ... huting.htm

I do believe that bailing out was less common since slow flying lighter planes were easy to glide to land and pilots still didn't trusted too much the parachute ..

Gian

[Zygmunt]

I do believe that bailing out was less common since slow flying lighter planes were easy to glide to land and pilots still didn't trusted too much the parachute ..

That may be the case, but don't forget that:
i) no pilot wants to linger in an aircraft which is burning
ii) personnel in observation balloons would only have the option of the parachute
iii) the link to Hall's memoir I provided earlier shows that pilots encountered enemy personnel in parachutes with sufficient regularity for them to have to consider the question of whether or not they should fire on them.


Zygmunt

[CvD]

Geneva convention:
Part III. Methods and Means of Warfare Combatant and Prisoners-Of-War
Section I. Methods and Means of Warfare

Art. 42 - Occupants of aircraft

1. No person parachuting from an aircraft in distress shall be made the object of attack during his descent.

2. Upon reaching the ground in territory controlled by an adverse Party, a person who has parachuted from an aircraft in distress shall be given an opportunity to surrender before being made the object of attack, unless it is apparent that he is engaging in a hostile act.

3. Airborne troops are not protected by this Article.

http://www.genevaconventions.org/

The quote is from Protocol I, dated 8 Jun 1977, to the Geneva Convention of 1949, neither of which had even been drafted in WWII. The 1977 Protocol 1 to the Geneva Convention of 1949 can be seen online at:
http://www.globalissuesgroup.com/geneva/protocol1.html

Ok, but then you have Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague II); July 29, 1899, article 23:
Besides the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially prohibited:--
...
...
To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion
...
...
A pilot parachuting from his aircraft, shouldnt he be considered to have no means of defence???


http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague02.htm

[redcoat]

[Ok, but then you have Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague II); July 29, 1899, article 23:
Besides the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially prohibited:--
...
...
To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion
...
...
A pilot parachuting from his aircraft, shouldnt he be considered to have no means of defence???


http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague02.htm

I think " has surrendered at discretion" is the important part.

Soldiers under high level bombing, who are not manning AA guns could be considered to have no means of defence. So is bombing them a war crime ????
...

[David Thompson]

I don't know how it works in Europe, but Anglo-American Law has a traditional "Rule of Lenity," in which any ambiguity in a criminal statute is construed according to its least harsh meaning. See Black's Law Dictionary, Revised Fourth Ed. (1891-1968), p. 1497. This rule blocks most imaginative "create-a-crime" interpretations of laws and treaties.

[Ten. Gianluca Missi]

Dear redcoat ,

"To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion"

In "having no longer means of defence" the legislator stated that the enemy has temporarily or definitively lost its ability , that he once had , to cause harm , soldiers on ground under carpet bombing still retain their combat capacity and means of defence I doubt that a pilot could do any harm to a fighter with its 9 mm. Luger or 7,65 mm. Beretta .

I'm afraid we are on a minefield here and as I said above in a previous posting we risk to endorse crimes that have been condemned by our society long ago .

British and Allied soldiers commited torture and war crimes exactly as the german did and as the italian did but history forgives winners not loosers.

As a matter of fact I still haven't found evidences of bailed out pilots strafed by German (Goering expressely prohibited) and or Italian fighters and I can't believe we lost the war because we fought under the laws of chivalry beside the interpretation of any Convention.

Gian



I still

[redcoat]

In "having no longer means of defence" the legislator stated that the enemy has temporarily or definitively lost its ability , that he once had , to cause harm , soldiers on ground under carpet bombing still retain their combat capacity and means of defence I doubt that a pilot could do any harm to a fighter with its 9 mm. Luger or 7,65 mm. Beretta .

The legistator is ( as I understand it) merely stating that it is a crime to shot an enemy who has both lost the means to fight and has surrendered

British and Allied soldiers commited torture and war crimes exactly as the german did and as the italian did but history forgives winners not loosers.

I won't argue that British and American forces didn't commit any war crimes, they did. However,and its a big however, at no time did they commit war crimes with the permission of their governments. The same cannot be said of the Axis powers.

As a matter of fact I still haven't found evidences of bailed out pilots strafed by German (Goering expressely prohibited) and or Italian fighters and I can't believe we lost the war because we fought under the laws of chivalry beside the interpretation of any Convention.

Your talking complete nonsense, the peoples of Eastern Europe became fully aware of the Germans and Italians sense of 'chivalry' and 'fair play' during their attack on the Soviet Union.

[Ten. Gianluca Missi]

I think we are losing the point of this discussion ...

"he has either layed down his arms [b]or[/b] he has no longer means of defence ... as a consequence he has surredered or is unable to continue fighting at your discretion"

"pulling the nails of prisoners to extort military informations and adding salt was considered effective"

"I'm talking about pilot to pilot dogfights...I'm talking of aerial warfare and I mean that Allies would have won the war even without strafing bailed out pilots...again we are talking of war both sides committed deprecable actions trying to overcome the other I would like to go back to the subject of this discussion...but if you wish to broaden our horizons...citizens of Dresden and Hamburg may have somenthing interesting to add to this discussion but I won't follow this tread"

Gian

[gabriel pagliarani]

I have found a nice witnesses of such a crime on the official site of the President of the Republic. This italian pilot received a postumous gold medal for bravery(MOVM) because he faced 5 enemies all alone then he shot down 2 of those, the 3 survivors then shot down him as first and soon they strafed the brave pilot after having bailed out. Alam Alfa, 3 October 1942. Another black dot on the flag of the british RAF.

[Englander]

As a matter of fact I still haven't found evidences of bailed out pilots strafed by German (Goering expressely prohibited) and or Italian fighters

Sgt. Pilot Leslie Pidd was killed while earth bound in a parachute. He nearly made it. Battle of Britain 1940. Age 22.

Another black dot on the flag of the british RAF

Why you angry? I've read accounts by British POW's of very nasty Italian prison guards. But of course that's off topic. My point being is that war brings out the worst in people.

[gabriel pagliarani]

As a matter of fact I still haven't found evidences of bailed out pilots strafed by German (Goering expressely prohibited) and or Italian fighters

Sgt. Pilot Leslie Pidd was killed while earth bound in a parachute. He nearly made it. Battle of Britain 1940. Age 22.

Another black dot on the flag of the british RAF

Why you angry? I've read accounts by British POW's of very nasty Italian prison guards. But of course that's off topic. My point being is that war brings out the worst in people.

Ten Missi has the proof under his nose, or "habeas corpus" as it is correctly called in Brit law. I am not angry but disgusted: such fellonies were never persecuted. And a dirty fellony is a dirty fellony under any flag, Hague or not Hague.