RIP Terry Spencer DFC

[EternalOptimist]

Fact or opinion, bearing in mind it is against the articles of war?

Well, I have an anecdote from and uncle who was in the infantry. He was in the follow up after DDay and saw a fair bit of front line combat. When they got withdrawn from the front line,for R&R quite often they were given lighter duties before being sent back to the combat zone.
One of his jobs was to conduct a two week patrol of the rhine, up and down, searching for stragglers and infiltrators, they caught a fair few. I asked him how they coped with the prisoners, if they were living out of backpacks and no transport. 'Ah, we didnt take any of those' he said.

[interested]

Interesting to note that the Luftwaffe viewed the Battle of Britain as a kind of romantic Knights engaged in Chivalrous Combat - and that the RAF would conduct themselves as Gentlemen in battle.

The RAF though had no such illusions they realised it was a Battle for survival and so were under instructions to shoot and kill any Luftwaffe pilots who had parachuted - no mercy and no quarter for the Nazis.

Not true at all - my Grandad flew Spits in 92 Squadron and recounted plenty of examples of Luftwaffe pilots machine gunning baled out/splashed down RAF pilots. It's mentioned in the 'War Diaries of Neville Duke' if I recall correctly.