yeah... it's common to see descriptions of MvR as bloodthirsty and implicitly evil... while Mannock's apparent desire to watch his enemies go down burning is overlooked. it's especially bad from WWII British vets, for some reason... Richard Townshend Bickers is an especially bad writer-- he's gone so far as to say "the French are an inherently selfish people, and thus produced no great flight leaders"... or talking about Richthofen's disregard for talking to his parents about the mortal danger he faces every day... and when
Albert Ball does it, he's not disregarding his parents feelings because he apparently KNEW they were up to hearing that sort of thing.
were the Germans wrong to invade their neighboring countries? hell yeah! I'm glad they lost the war.
but it still feels kinda like self-righteous hypocrisy when we consider that Great Brittain and France had some of the largest colonial empires in human history... and invading other countries is bad, providing your neighbors... but running about and invading faraway countries apparently isn't so bad!
(heavy sarcasm)