Somehow I just can't shake pictures in my mind of Japanese and German atrocities during WWII. A relative of mine survived the Bataan Death March and wrote a book about it "Corrigador to Hell". And i've met a few children of holocaust victims. All this left an unshakeable impression on me . And i imagine there are others out there who feel the same, even though this is only a game simulation.
Yet you fly B17's?
German pilots weren't involved with the atrocities, in fact they were VERY kind to captured enemy pilots. Even Russian pilots and ground crews, which is interesting considering how much the Germans hated the Russians.
Allied bomber pilots, however...
Just to reiterate my point. From Heinz Knoke's, 'I Flew for the Fuehrer'. These events occurred on March 5th, 1942, as Knoke was intercepting a recce spitfire that had been plaguing them the past few days/weeks, causing Knoke much frustration as he tried to shoot down the Spitfire on past occasions. He had shot the Spitfires oil cooler causing oil to splash back on his forward windscreen.
'... I veer a little to the right, in order to to observe the Tommy farther through the side window. He is gradually losing speed, but is still flying. The smoke-trail is becoming thinner.
Then another Messerschmitt comes into view climbing up on my left. It is Lieutnant Dieter Gerhard, my old comrade, and I radio to him to say I am no longer able to fire.
"Then let me finish him, Heinz!"
He opens fire. The right wing of the Spitfire shears away. Like a dead autumn leaf, the plane flutters earthwards.
And the pilot? Is he still alive? My throat tightens. I had come to like that boy. If he is not dead, why does he not bale out?
The spitfire goes down, a flaming torch now, hurtling towards the snowfield. It will crash and be utterly destroyed. And with it the pilot.
I find myself shouting as if he could hear me: "Bale out lad, bale out!" After all, he is human, too; a soldier too, and a pilot with the same love of the sky and clouds that I feel. Does he also have a wife, a girl like Lilo, perhaps?
"Bale out, lad, bale out!"
Then a body becomes detached from the flames and falls clear. A white parachute spreads open and drifts slowly down into the mountains.
A feeling of pure joy is in my heart now. This is my first combat victory in the air. I have got my man, and he is alive. Dieter and I share the bottle of brandy. We drink a toast to our own fighter pilots, and another one to our Tommy. Dieter brings him in, after landing in the mountains in a Fieseler Storch fitted with skis. He is a tall, slim Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force. A stiff drink of brandy does him a lot of good. He joins in the laughter when I explain how the entire bottle was actually dedicated to him.'
Knoke was crippled by a roadside bomb planted by partisans in Poland in late 1944. He was forced to live the rest of the war out as a civilian.
