Yeah, it was a Mustang pilot's story. Interesting stuff.

From a military pilot perspective, I think Mannocks comments were actually a "self-defense" mechanism to try and separate himself from the horrors that he both witnessed and caused. Why do you think he carried a pistol-it wasn't to shoot at the Germans. I've personally experienced it as a military pilot and as an EMS helicopter pilot. I think it's actually referred to as "gallows humor" and it's a self protection deal to maintain one's sanity after seeing terrible things....

Some people can deal with it-others can't..............

I don't disagree with you about it being a defensive mechanism, that's what I meant. Gallows humour? Closest I've experienced to that sort of thing was in Gross Human Anatomy lab... had to deal with and abstract a dead body you have to cut up on a weekly basis. A few had nervous breakdowns by mid-term exams. We didn't talk much about them, because otherwise they were solid students.

Killing somebody on a regular basis, just glad I never had to...

yeah, got "challenged" by a resident to attend an autopsy once and I said OK. After the autopsy started I said I'd seen enough and the resident started to give me some grief about "wussing out". I told him that I helped the flight nurse ( who's now my lovely wife) extract him from the vehicle and he died ( no-one "dies" in the helo, they pronounce them in the E.R.) enroute to the E.R. while my soon to be wife was doing chest compressions and I was bagging him while I was flying the helicopter. I told him he looked in my eyes when we loaded him in the helo and I was looking in his eyes when they rolled back in his head and the Lifepak 11 showed flatline (traumatic arrest). He never brought the subject up again.

THAT'S were gallows humor kicks in-----to maintain balance in one's life. The "regular" folks would be shocked to hear the conversations that take place after an especially bad patient flight but it's a self-defense mechanism to deal with things that thankfully, most people don't have to.

I can't begin to imagine what would go through ones head setting an enemy aircraft on fire, knowing the pilot is without hope-doomed to a horrible end. Don't care how "tough" Mannock talked, it had to take its toll...

It's obviously different for different folks-read "Tiger Squadron" by Ira "Taffy" Jones when I was a kid and he didn't seem to have any issues whatsoever with his exploits during the first war. It appears that his hatred of the "enemy" was so great that the deaths he caused were of no concequence.

I Read an account concerning Dick Bong; towards the middle or end of his career, he witnessed a dogfight from the ground, saw a Japanese fighter shot down, and for the first time got to see the Japanese die up close (do not remember if the pilot jumped out without a chute, or crashed on burned alive on the ground). Long story short, it made him violently ill.

That said, I think we need to be careful about this "sactioned serial killer" talk. Aces (and all fighter pilots) flew and fought in time of war; they had to shoot down the other guy; otherwise they are their buddy ended up in the 'chute or under the ground. Not to mention, for fighter pilots at least, most studies and memoirs mention the rather anti-septic feel of things. Whether valid or not, most pilots saw themselves as destroying enemy planes; unless they were in a bomber where they saw a fellow crew member killed or injured, they were rarely close enough, especially after WWI, to actually see anyone be wounded or die. For them, it was often "clean fun" until it was over.

Thank you for the stories.

These types of biographical information provides a very interesting window into the human effects of these types of experiences.

P.S.
I started this topic partly because I recalled having read about a German Ace who initially aimed for the engines of two-seaters in hopes of giving the crew a chance to crash-land the plane. Any idea who he was?

http://www.waltsrchanger.com/html/b-17_f__ye_olde_pub_.html

edit: ah just saw was already mentioned, sry.