Thread: Luftwaffe pilot crashes near the city he once tried to bomb

From the BBC

A Luftwaffe pilot who carried out 120 bombing raids over Britain escaped unharmed after a plane's engine failed near the city he once tried to destroy.

Willi Schludecker carried out three missions over Bath in 1942, before returning last April to apologise.

The 88-year-old was flying to Bath last Friday with friend Chris Kilminster, 61, when the engine cut out.

In his apology to the people of Bath, Mr Schludecker said sorry for the "dreadful harm" he had done in his Dornier 217E-4.

Mr Schludecker twice won the Iron Cross after carrying out 120 raids in England between April and July 1942.

The Mooney M20T was later vandalised by thieves after the landing last Friday, causing £30,000 of damage.

He has survived 10 plane crashes, but this was his first civilian one.

Apparently Bath was read to fire a gun as a salute to the old boy when he arrived....



Balloons were handed out to the kids too...



Herr Schludecker was also to be presented with a ball of news paper, with salt and vinegar. There should have been fish and chips too, but apparently the chippy was in sh1t state.

Mmmmmmm that amused me

Should we be celebrating? He was doing his job, same as our boys were. He at least had a pair swinging between his legs to go back and apologise.

Would he have apologised if he had not of crashed?

The apology was a while ago, the crash recent.

False equivalence Crabby. There is a vast gulf of moral difference between the Allies fighting for freedom, decency and the rule of law and the Germans trying to plunge the entire world into a thousand-year Nazi night. It should be noted that the only resistance to Hitler that eventually surfaced had no moral base, it was only concerned that Germany was losing the war. Leaving one brick standing on another anywhere in the Third Reich was an act of great mercy.

Originally Posted by seaweed

False equivalence Crabby. There is a vast gulf of moral difference between the Allies fighting for freedom, decency and the rule of law and the Germans trying to plunge the entire world into a thousand-year Nazi night. It should be noted that the only resistance to Hitler that eventually surfaced had no moral base, it was only concerned that Germany was losing the war. Leaving one brick standing on another anywhere in the Third Reich was an act of great mercy.

Is Iraq morally justified? If not then everyone who's served out there equates to your argument. Yet they're merely service men and women doing their jobs.

Not everyone who fought for Germany was a Nazi. I have no idea whether the chap in question supported the Nazis; he was a German, but what would you suggest he do when ordered to bomb a city? The same as our lot did using incendaries on Dresden's "railway network". (Yes, I know, Dresden was a centre for advanced optics etc, but the attack was still out of proportion, but it's war)

I think the old boy has a pair and a half of bollocks to come and apologise. To be honest, I don't see why he owes us one. He was doing his job as a soldier.

Originally Posted by Dr_Chris

. He was doing his job as a soldier.

Which might explain why he kept crashing the plane :D

We've all been there after a few pints...

Originally Posted by Jagythistle

Originally Posted by Dr_Chris

. He was doing his job as a soldier.

Which might explain why he kept crashing the plane :D

Ha Ha.

Let´s be honest, apart from my Father in Law (who will never fogive the Luftwaffe for bombing his Rugby pitch) do we really hold any grudge against this man or any others*?

*except the proper nazis that is.

Dresden was a place where roads and railways converged - the object was to wreck it so that the Germans could not retreat through it and so would be forced to face the Russians. Entirely militarily justified, raid worked a treat. If the Germans didn't want a war they shouldn'y have backed Hitler so enthusiastically. I suppose the Wermacht soldiers who committed all sorts of atrocities in Eastern Europe were 'only doing their job'.

By 1939 (by 1936 in fact) the disgusting treatment of the Jews in Germany was so blatant that no sentient German could have deceived himself that his Government was in any way on the side of right.

Your Kraut had a moral duty to refuse to bomb Bath as it was NOT any sort of military target. Next thing people will be saying that those Huns who obliterated Rotterdam (remember Holland was a neutral country) were 'only doing their job'.

The Germans are stained to the end of time for what their forebears not only did in the war but for their nation wrecking the first half of the twentieth century for the whole of Europe and far beyond, and wrecking the whole of the century for Eastern Europe which disappeared into a fifty-year night of Socialist brutality, torture, murder and general slavery.

Personally I think invading Iraq was entirely right, pity (1) wrong arguments were used to justify it to the public because Blair et al didn't trust their own people and (2) Americans made a Horlicks of the peace afterwards.

Originally Posted by seaweed

Dresden was a place where roads and railways converged - the object was to wreck it so that the Germans could not retreat through it and so would be forced to face the Russians. Entirely militarily justified, raid worked a treat. If the Germans didn't want a war they shouldn'y have backed Hitler so enthusiastically. I suppose the Wermacht soldiers who committed all sorts of atrocities in Eastern Europe were 'only doing their job'.

By 1939 (by 1936 in fact) the disgusting treatment of the Jews in Germany was so blatant that no sentient German could have deceived himself that his Government was in any way on the side of right.

Your Kraut had a moral duty to refuse to bomb Bath as it was NOT any sort of military target. Next thing people will be saying that those Huns who obliterated Rotterdam (remember Holland was a neutral country) were 'only doing their job'.

The Germans are stained to the end of time for what their forebears not only did in the war but for their nation wrecking the first half of the twentieth century for the whole of Europe and far beyond, and wrecking the whole of the century for Eastern Europe which disappeared into a fifty-year night of Socialist brutality, torture, murder and general slavery.

Personally I think invading Iraq was entirely right, pity (1) wrong arguments were used to justify it to the public because Blair et al didn't trust their own people and (2) Americans made a Horlicks of the peace afterwards.

Then why use incendaries? The railway system was fully operational again within 3 days.

Bath had industry.

We did exactly the same and in some cases worse to their cities as they did to ours.

Yet we did not exterminate 6 million jews, obviously.

The problem is, as a private or soldier called up to the army "I've been asked to do something, if I don't my life is in peril. No-one else is going to say anything".

Was Suez canal justified? Did Hamburg have to be pounded for 3 days and nights solidly?

It is very easy to look back as the victor at the terror caused by your enemy, but remember that neither side had the cleanest hands in the war.

Despite that the Allies were fighting for the common good and the lesser of two evils. I am not a revisionist and I'm not a twat.

Originally Posted by seaweed

The Germans are stained to the end of time for what their forebears not only did in the war but for their nation wrecking the first half of the twentieth century for the whole of Europe and far beyond, and wrecking the whole of the century for Eastern Europe which disappeared into a fifty-year night of Socialist brutality, torture, murder and general slavery.

To be honest, I doubt you'll live to the end of time, and I'm sure decent people won't be holding Germans responsible much longer for events that happened over three generations ago. Germans are stained for all time?
Get a grip.