View Single Post
Old 01-09-2020, 10:04 AM   #411 (permalink)
MeteorGray
Master EcoModder
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 360
Thanks: 275
Thanked 132 Times in 102 Posts
Quote: "According to Wikipedia both sides had pilots crash deliberately into enemy ships or planes when their own planes were damaged and unable to return. Just to be sure and to maintain neutrality I vow to never buy a Grumman, Curtiss or Lockheed car."

I scanned that Wiki article to see what this attempt at neutrality was, and found the following:

"Before the formation of kamikaze units, pilots had made deliberate crashes as a last resort when their planes had suffered severe damage and they did not want to risk being captured, or wanted to do as much damage to the enemy as possible, since they were crashing anyway. Such situations occurred in both the Axis and Allied air forces. Axell and Kase see these suicides as "individual, impromptu decisions by men who were mentally prepared to die". In most cases, little evidence exists that such hits represented more than accidental collisions of the kind that sometimes happen in intense sea or air battles."

Well, I got to say that is mighty thin soup to serve in an attempt to find any equivalency in what a handful of Allied pilots may have done vs the Japanese policy to specifically obtain, train and send thousands of pilots on suicide missions. The Japanese had a culture that accommodated such activity, which also resulted in such activities as Banzai charges as a last desperate attempt to avoid capture during the island campaigns.

__________________
  Reply With Quote