Quote Originally Posted by TedK View Post
i was recently re-reading Admiral Dan Gallery's autobiography "Eight Bells and Alls Well". Gallery was a Naval Aviator and Captain during WW2 who commanded an Escort Carrier task force that captured the U-505 (now in a museum in Chicago). He rescued the crew of an earlier Uboat that hadn't played by rules of the game and the Brits wanted to try that skipper for war crimes. Gallery promised him if he "sang" they would put him in a POW camp in the USA, if he didn't they would pull into Bermuda and he would turn him over to the Brits.

The Uboat skipper reluctantly sang.

Gallery kept his promise.

BTW. If you can lay your hands on one of Gallery's books they make great, sometimes sidesplitting, reading.
Dan Gallery's books are a hoot to read. "Stand By-y-y to Start Engines" captures Naval Aviation of the 1950s, with a lot of hijinks in the air and on the ground. His series involving Boatswain's Mate John "Fatso" Gioninini are hilarious as well.

And for readers of science fiction, Fatso Gioninini is reincarnated as a minor character (same name, same rank, same questionable businesses) in Jack Campbell's "The Lost Fleet" series.

Allied treatment of POWs wasn't always as correct as people might want to think. MacDonald's non-fiction book "Company Commander" included an event where he instructed a soldier to escort a set of prisoners back to the holding area just prior to a major attack starting. The soldier came back a few minutes later...wasn't gone long enough to deliver the prisoners. MacDonald figured he'd just shot them...but didn't take action.

Back in the dawn 'o time when I was in ROTC, we were told to be SPECIFIC about what underlings should do with prisoners. Not just "Take care of them...." There was also the difference between paratroopers (shoot them in their chutes) and bailed-out airmen (should be allowed to land). IIRC, American pilots were ORDERED to shoot parachuting Me-262 pilots...killing an experienced jet pilot prevented him from flying another jet.

Ron Wanttaja