Chivalry: D'Olive has his say...

In order to pad shamelessly my score, as well as for editorial reasons, I've decided to divide this thread into two posts:
Let me begin by again thanking Hugh Halliday for this article, MEMOIRS OF AN ACE, by Vance Bourjaily (Esquire Magazine, early 1960's); I was able to get four threads from just this one article.
It begins with D'Olive describing a dogfight that he's in...
"There was a fellow named Goulding in a dogfight above me, and I went up to get into that, shooting a few rounds, and maybe shared his Hun. He started to spin right away. Now you can tell if a guy is spinning on purpose or is really out of control, and I was watching to see what this Hun was doing when I had a funny feeling.
"I looked up and here came this guy, two hundered feet away. Instead of turning in toward him, which would have been safest, I turned away, and he shot three times. That's the mark of a good pilot, he doesn't waste shells llining you up; he only shoots when he's on. He hit both my wings and the gas tank ans a hung bomb that hadn't released. Every shot was right in line with where I was sitting. He was using a 7mm. bullet that exploded on contact, and the next thing I knew fragments from one of them had penetrated my gas tank and killed the pressure.
"I had enoght momentum to complete the roll I'd started, and I turned on a little emergency gravity gas tank, but I'd slowed down so much that he was out in front. I shot as I saw him go by but didn't do any damage, and he pulled over by me. He had me then-- but he didn't shoot again. He waved to me and flew off. I never knew why."

[The interview continues; the interviewer, Vance Bourjaily, now interjects:]
"Mr. D'Olive and I talked about it for several minutes. Did the German pilot who was (like the one Lt. D'Olive may have shared with Goulding) out of Goering's group hold fire because he saw that D'Olive's plane as already done for? Was he being chivalrous? Or did he see, as seems most likely to Mr. D'Olive, other American planes diving at him and decide to get out while he could? In any case, the crippled Spad made it back to the American side of the line, and Lt. D'Olive managed to land and catch a ride on a motorcycle back to base."
[Chivalry? Expediency? Or simply a 'beau geste'?]