From Wikipedias article on the IL-2 Sturmovik ground-attack aircraft:
"Hero of the Soviet Union T. Kuznetsov survived the crash of his Il-2 in 1942 when shot down returning from a reconnaissance mission. Kuznetsov was able to escape from the wreck and hid nearby. To his surprise, a German Bf 109 [JK: most common German fighter plane of WW2] landed near the crash site and the pilot began to scrounge the wrecked Il-2 for souvenirs. Thinking quickly, Kuznetsov ran to the German fighter and used it to fly home, barely avoiding being shot down by Soviet fighters in the process."
He fought for an equally evil system - but man, you've just gotta love the guy.
Does CAPTCHA still work? If this publishes, no.
"Does CAPTCHA still work? If this publishes, no."
Bad news, Joe.
It does now!
Was the system evil, or were the people in charge of it evil?
It was another skirmish in the eternal struggle of Chaos to overpower Order.
But didn't order invade chaos in this case?
Or was it a "defensive" invasion of choice?
Now THAT took a lot of nerve. The "switchology" alone could have been problematic. Nothing like getting your first solo in an airplane by jumping in it, stealing it, and then flying it back home through an air defense system trying to shoot you down.
I like the new CAPTCHA. WOC is moving up in the world. What's next? Colors with animated text?
Kuznetsov was very fortunate the Messerschmidt didn't kill him. It had an unusually narrow, outward-retracting gear system that was very unstable on the ground and landing it in any sort of a crosswind was often fatal. The view from the cockpit was also terrible, which didn't make landing the thing any easier.
Anyone around here play the game?
Yes, the IL-2 game is quite excellent. A must for all hard-core flight-sim buffs.
If the system that Kuznetsov fought for was evil, but it's okay to admire him, would it also be okay to admire the skills of Nazi pilots? Just wondering.
Wat (#11), sure, why not: certainly lots of people speak admiringly of Rommel and his abilities.
Rommel was not a Nazi, and pretty much despised the Nazi Party apparatchnicks whenever he ran up against them.
The same is true of a lot of German soldiers in WWII. They weren't maniacs.
How much choice did Kuznetsov have in the place of his birth? Should he have spit on Mother Russia when she was at her extremes, having been invaded by Germany? What choice did many Russians have? The Ukrainians initially welcomed the Germans as liberators from Uncle Joe Stalin, but sooned learned that the occupation (the Gauleiters) following the Werhmacht regular army was defined by its piggish brutality, sanctioned by the top reaches of the Nazi party.
Every time I read the historical "hurrahs" about how we (the US) won WWII, I think about the horrific brutality of the Eastern Front. The Russians lost more men in the Battle of Stalingrad than we lost in the whole war. And they WON that battle.
Food for thought.
From the wikipedia entry about the Nazi pilot Hans Rudel:
"In total, Rudel flew some 2,530 combat missions (a world record), during which he destroyed almost 2,000 ground targets (among them 519 tanks, 70 assault craft/landing boats, 150 self-propelled guns, 4 armoured trains and 800 other vehicles; as well as 9 planes (2 Il-2's and 7 fighters). He also sank a battleship, two cruisers and a destroyer. He was shot down or force-landed 32 times (several times behind enemy lines), always somehow managing to escape capture despite Stalin himself putting a 100,000 rouble bounty on his head. He was also wounded five times and rescued six stranded aircrew from enemy territory. The vast majority of his missions were spent piloting the various models of the Junkers Ju 87, though by the end of the war he was flying the ground-attack variant of the Fw 190.
He went on to become the most decorated soldier in Germany (the only person to become more highly decorated was Hermann Goering who was awarded the Grand cross of the Iron cross), earning by early 1945 the German Cross in Gold, the Pilots and Observer's Badge with Diamonds, the Close Combat Clasp with 2000 sorties in Diamonds, and the only holder of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. {The highest ace of World War II Erich Hartmann also held the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds ? but not in gold}. After the war Rudel became a close friend and confidante of the Argentine president Juan Peron. Rudel wrote a book titled In Spite of Everything, and a book of memoirs called Stuka Pilot which supported most Nazi policies. Even without a leg, he remained an active sportsman, playing tennis, skiing and even climbing the highest peak in the Americas, Aconcagua (6,959 metres (22,831 feet)). He also ascended the second highest volcano on Earth three times, the Llullay-Yacu in the Argentine Andes (6,920 meters). In addition, Rudel's input was used during the development of the A-10 ground attack aircraft.
Rudel returned to West Germany in 1953 and joined the German Reich Party. He became a successful businessman in post-war Germany. He died in Rosenheim in 1982, and was buried in Dornhausen."
Yes, my friends, the greatest warrior in history was a Nazi.
Just sticking to generals, Zhukov and Giap come immediately to mind. Two of the greatest generals in history fought for profoundly evil systems.
Studies in command, both good and bad, are tremendously helpful. Teddy Roosevelt's "Do what you can, where you are, with what you have." order is nearly timeless in its simple greatness. The siege of Budapest, OTOH offer numerous examples of terrible leadership on all three sides (German, Hungarian, Russian) all of which, at that point were decidedly bad folks.
The quality of command is unrelated to the nature of the system for which people fight.
Westerners traditionally admire the skills of their enemies. So we admire Crazy Horse, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Manfred Von Richthofen, Erwin Rommel, Isoroku Yamamoto, and Vo Nguyen Giap. It doesn't mean that they were on the right side, or even that they were good human beings.
The Nazis paid some of that respect in turn. German general Hans Guderian acknowledged his debt to British military theorists like B.H. Liddell Hart.
As Patton said, "Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book." And after Patton's 3rd Army swept through France, even Josef Stalin uttered a few words of praise for Patton, saying the Red Army could not have conceived such an operation, let alone carried it out.
Of course, there's particular irony in the fact that Stalin, via his purges, was himself the chief reason that the Red Army couldn't have pulled off an operation like Patton's.
Guderian "acknowledged his debt" to Hart because Hart was editing his English translations. At best, it was a nod to a then-coworker. At worst, it was sockpuppetry-by-editorial-proxy.