The RAF and parachuting Luftwaffe aircrew

[phylo_roadking]

On August 31st 1940, during the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill visited Keith Park's 11 Group HQ at Uxbridge and viewed the day's fighting from the control room there. Later that evening, Hugh Dowding dined with Churchill at Chequers...after dinner, one of the topics of conversation recorded by John Colville was the morality of the RAF machinegunning parachuting Luftwaffe aircrew. Churchill thought it wrong - but suprisingly to all present...Dowding approved of it.

I can understand his point, to an extent - given that as AOC Fighter Command and in the middle of fighting the attrition battle that was the Battle of Britain, he would have been only too keen to see the Luftwaffe deprived of its pool of skilled pilots that were the product of MANY months', if not years', of training and experience. A pilot bailing out over the Channel and rescued by "his" rescue services could be back in the air that day if not the next.

BUT did he EVER turn his opinion into hard orders or recommendations to Fighter Command? Were any directives issued at all to the RAF on this, whether for or against? The snippet on this after-dinner debate in John Ray's The Battle of Britain has only served to remind me that I don't think I've ever read anything on it...

[sniper1shot]

I can honestly say I have never read anything on this matter .....however it is known that the US did issue such orders later in the war. Not sure if it was followed or not though.

[phylo_roadking]

There was quite long debate on the morality of the issue on AHF some time ago. Certainly the USAAF DID have a reputation for this in Northern Europe in the last 2 years of the war...and the RAF not a little after the shootings as a result of the breakout at Stalag Luft III. IIRC there was certainly a shoot-to-kill policy - whether written-down or not I'm not sure - for Me262 pilots.

But In this case I'm trying to avoid the morality of the issue and cut to the facts - or absence of them, with respect to Hugh Dowding's tenure as AOC Fighter Command - given his views.

[Liam]

I was under the impression from what I have read about Dowding that he DID NOT approve of the killing of bailed-out German aircrew over the UK since they were, once they had left their aircraft, essentially POWS. By the same logic, he regarded such actions against RAF crews as permissible, since they would soon return to battle so were still to be regarded as operational crewmen. The same sort of logic applied to his opinions regarding air-sea rescue aircraft and boats.

[Cott Tiger]

Hi Phylo,

Out of interest, does this information originate directly from Colville’s diaries?

Also, didn’t Colville himself become a RAF pilot later in the war?

Regards,

André

[phylo_roadking]

Both events - the Uxbridge visits and subsequent dinners - are from John Ray's The Battle of Britain, footnoted as coming from Colville's diaries.

Not sure about the latter, but I'll check.