We all know that being an Ace is also being a killer. Not only that, but society's one respected and cherished form of serial killing.

So, my question is: What stories do we have about aces who were of humane predispositions? How many of them felt remorse? How many of them had empathy for their victims? How many of them were even moved by the loss of their comrades?

What were the personalities like?

I read a story a while back where Erich Hartmann let an enemy aircraft go (I think it was a P-51) after it stalled. Something along the lines of pulling up next to it after the recovery from the stall, and then diving into a cloud and simply vanishing.

There was a story I heard a few years ago about how a 190 escorted a badly damaged Jug halfway across the channel. The Jug was very badly damaged/shot up and limping home. The 190 pilot saw the jug was amazed it was still flying, took pity on the pilot and escorted him back to friendly airspace.

Here is how History Channel portrayed the famous Udet vs Guynemer clash of aces,
{well, Udet was an aspiring ace then)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vylgMb2km3s

An interesting story here:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3477401/OT_This_Date_In_History_Decemb.html#Post3477401

Cheers

Guynemer denied the event.

Just finished reading the 1933 biography of Albert Ball. Ball's diary and letters certainly speak of regret at being a killer, though he was also vengeful of lost friends. The author also interviewed many surviving pilots of WWI and most of them certainly had remorse, especially for those victims witnessed going down in flames. I think Mannock's machismo comments "pop, pop, sizzle, sizzle" or something to that effect, and not true to his character.

Then again, some guys were butchers...

Somewhere I read that killing is more of a contributor to combat fatigue than fear of dying. Whatever the case these young men got very old very quickly.

How? I don't think he was alive when Udet's memoires were published!
Anyway, denying such an event-rumor, in a wartime period makes perfect sense...

That story exists from the Mustang pilots perspective too - or maybe that's what you're talking about.
Come to think of it, I don't remember reading about it in Hartmanns's book.

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.