Archbishop apologises for Dresden bombings

[Danny42C]

I would tend to discount stories of baled-out aircrew shot in the air from the air. It is hard enough to hit a thing the size of an aircraft, never mind a single body, in this way. Do you remember the balloon-bursting competitions by light aircraft at the Air displays of long ago ? (it looks easy, but isn't, to fly onto a point in the air).

In any case, in combat, your aim is achieved when you have downed the bomber. The crew, alive or dead, are no longer combatants. Alive, they are prisoners (useful to Intelligence, too). And why waste your precious few seconds of firepower when you might need them yourself in a moment or two ?

Lynching by an infuriated civil mob seems far more possible. When you have just seen your nearest and dearest killed or maimed before your eyes, and your home in ruins, you are not rational.

Kipling, as usual, has the right idea:

"I do not praise my country's foes,
Nor call 'em 'eroes. Still,
Where is the sense in 'ating those
'Oom you are paid to kill ?"

D.