Hello AGV,
Thanks for sharing that wonderful family anecdote about your great grandfather!
Of course, we would all like to romantically believe that such things did happen. I think one or two times they actually
did happen, and I cannot say if the one about
Hermann Vallendor is true or not. These tales became so well known they were exaggerated and 'adopted' by many other pilots.
In February 1918,
Lothar von Richthofen told a very similar story, in which he was dogfighting an Englishman. Suddenly Lothar's guns jammed; the Englishman looked 'wonderingly across' at Lothar, and when he realized Lothar's problem he waved his hand and flew away. This story was related in the diary of Count Czernin, who met the Richthofen brothers when they briefly were at Brest-Litovsk.
Then, the most famous example of such an incident is told by
Ernst Udet in his book
Mein Fliegerleben. He was in the midst of a desperate fight against Guynemer when he was forced to resort to the crude solution of hammering on his guns with his fists to try to clear the jam. Guynemer flew close by, observed this, and chivalrously waved and took off.
The German ace
Josef Mai often told the story of a hard fight he had on 29 June 1918 with a Sopwith Dolphin. Mai claimed he had used up all his ammuniton and 'the empty machine gun belts were flapping around". (I've never heard of this happening in an Albatros D.Va). Anyway, the British pilot is supposed to have seen this and waved at Mai in a friendly manner. He was out of ammunition too (so the story goes) and held up three fingers, as if to say, "Let's resume this tomorrow at three". The next day they both showed up at three, and Mai saw his enemy's wings fold up under the stress of the dogfight - but there is no credited victory for Mai that day, and no loss of a Dolphin.
Such stories obviously became part of the lore and mythology surounding the "knights of the air" theme that was so popular - and still is today. The story of the pilot who mercifully spares his opponent with jammed guns has been retold in many versions, including comic strips, novels and movies (it turns up in the 1927 "Wings" , in "The Great Waldo Pepper" and was revived for the recent "Flyboys" movie).
However, such incidents were extremely rare (if they happened at all) and were the exception, not the norm. The brutal necessities of warfare ensured that such chivalry in the midst of a heated dogfight rarely happened.
So there you have it. I think you are welcome to believe the story about your great-grandfather if you want to!
Greg VanWyngarden