Interview with WWII reconaissance pilot

[FPSOlkor]

Originally Posted by swiss

You forgot something to quote:


...


disgusting.



also:

They ripped what they sawn:

Our garrison was blown to pieces, convicts were sent by trains to Kandalaksha, some of the NKVD officers were moved with them. We were hired personnel, so we had to take care of our selves. We had no idea where to move. My chief, Alexandrov said to me:
— If you have no place to go, come to Kronshtadt with me.
As we prepared to move, the survivors from Libava Naval base started arriving. Most of them lost their families there. There was one Captain, who was wounded, and whose wife was raped and killed for fun by German soldiers… He tried to save her, and saw what happened with his own eyes. He, himself, made it out of the Libava at the last possible moment.
Altogether our column consisted of almost 100 military men, and about the same amount of hired personnel. We were brought by trucks to the Oranienbaum area, and we hid in the forest during the daytime.
There was some General, and he ordered:
— If someone moves from this place, I will personally execute him! I’m going to Oranienbaum to find out where to go next…
And he left. For about 24 hours we heard nothing from him. We would cook food on a field kitchen, which was based on a truck. By the next morning we ran out of water. So, the officers told me and Shura (a typist from political department):
— Here is a 20 liter flask, there is a water tower across the road. You don’t look military in your civilian dresses. Go and bring some water.
So we went. The road was quite wide, and we were not in a hurry... And, suddenly, we heard the sound of airplane engine. At that time we did not know the sounds of German planes… Later we were able to tell from the sound, type, altitude and in which formation they were flying… But that was later. So this fighter dove on us and started firing with machine guns. Soldiers and officers were shouting to us from the forest:
— Run to the roadside!
So we did. I ran to one side of the road, Shura ran to the other… Meanwhile the German turned around, and fired at the flask that we dropped at the road, and flew away. For some time we did not dare to get out of the drainage trenches. When we got out, we found out that the flask was completely torn to pieces!
That was my “Baptism by fire”…

http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/pilo...a/antipina.htm

swiss, I see your point man, but we give our judgements in hindsight, these young guys back in those days had to deal with some seriously bad $hit..

Not to mention that the Germans weren't exactly a lovely peaceful buch during the war, were they?

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by swiss

disgusting.

Originally Posted by swiss

Don't know about you, but I would never shoot someone in the back(aka retreating).
This is not an act war but pure murder - without the intention to capture them.

Originally Posted by swiss

If they were just falling back to recollect - ok.

But it's may '45: they were already defeated, no danger coming from them, just running to surrender to the Americans rather than to the Red Army.

I guess we're all entitled to our opinion, and I strongly disagree with yours. I don't know what it's like to suffer at the hands of an invading army, to lose close friends and family, and hear their tales of torture, rape etc, so I couldn't say I would act towards that invading army with total dignity. My guess is I'd shoot.

And depleted and running these men may have been, but they still had weapons, and some of them will still have shot allied soldiers and innocent civilians.

[d165w3ll]

Schoerner's Army Group Centre in Bohemia was still fighting on despite the surrender - and still killing - until 11th May.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Sch%C3%B6rner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Offensive

[swiss]

Originally Posted by d165w3ll

Schoerner's Army Group Centre in Bohemia was still fighting on despite the surrender - and still killing - until 11th May.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Sch%C3%B6rner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Offensive

Ok, what's your point?

We were talking about retreating troops in this thread.

And FYI: That was the newly formed Heeresgruppe-Mitte(25th January 1945), after the original Gruppe A was defeated at the Eastfront.

Never only use Wiki as your only source, that is of course, unless you speak several languages and can cross-check.