"Letting Him Down: French Pilot's Expedient"

[Amy]

This little blurb appeared in the June 10, 1916 issue of The War Illustrated:


"Resourcefulness sometimes introduces an element of humour into the most perilous situation. A French airman, losing his way in a fog, came down to find himself in enemy hands. The German officer got into the machine and holding a pistol to the head of the airman ordered him to reconnoitre over the French trenches. The Frenchman perforce complied, but when over his own lines he suddenly proceded to "loop the loop", with the result that the German officer, who was not strapped in, was tipped out, while the resourceful French airman flew cheerfully home, to be mentioned in the despatches and decorated."



Question: Can anyone confirm this story really happened? If so, does anyone know who this French airman and/or German officer was?

[rammjaeger]

Amy,

frankly I doubt the story because German officers got orders how to deal with captured airplanes and pilots and it was *forbidden to remove parts of the plane *or to do activities like the one mentioned in the story. Why should a single officer risk to fly the captured machine with an enemy pilot? I have never heard about a similar stupid behaviour. The German propaganda used a similar lie story: A German soldier or pilot was forced to fly naked or nearly naked with an Allied recon plane over the lines and had to uncover German secrets ...
*
IMHO the story is not trustworth. Nevertheless it would be fine to make a collection of this and similar stories and to ask the candidates in a show or trivia: Did it happen ...?

VBR
Rammjaeger

[Amy]

Thanks Hannes. I'm questioning the validity of this story as well. I also find it a bit suspicious that they didn't reveal the French pilot's name since he was supposedly "decorated" afterwards. This story smells more of pure propaganda.

Cheers,
Amy