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Forgotten Casualties: Downed American Airmen and Axis Violence in World War II

Online ISBN:
9781531504151
Print ISBN:
9781531502850
Publisher:
Fordham University Press
Book

Forgotten Casualties: Downed American Airmen and Axis Violence in World War II

Kevin T. Hall
Kevin T. Hall
Ruhr-Universitat-Bochum
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Published online:
18 January 2024
Published in print:
1 August 2023
Online ISBN:
9781531504151
Print ISBN:
9781531502850
Publisher:
Fordham University Press

Abstract

Forgotten Casualties examines Axis violence inflicted on downed Allied airmen during World War II. Throughout the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, the remote jungles of Southeast Asia, and Nazi-occupied Europe, thousands of flyers were mistreated and executed during the duration of the global conflict. The perpetrators were not solely fanatical soldiers or Nazi zealots, but also included “ordinary” civilians. A combination of stimuli influenced and triggered the active involvement of the embattled populace, e.g., the death and devastation inflicted by the war, the lack of security and despair caused by aerial attacks, the longing for retribution, extreme nationalism, as well as propaganda that approved of lynch justice and encouraged citizens to take matters into their own hands. Whether spontaneous or premeditated, the mistreatment inflicted upon downed flyers represented an increasing response to the intense and devastating aerial attacks. As the Axis home front no longer afforded civilians safety from the effects of war, the encounters with downed airmen provided Axis citizens, with an unprecedented opportunity for personal retribution that simultaneously relieved the Axis regimes’ inability to deter the air war and combat Allied flyers. As the war dragged on, the militarization of civilians, and especially Axis citizens’ increased willingness to mistreat captured flyers, became an additional byproduct of this total war. Drawing heavily on airmen’s personal accounts and testimonies (of both witnesses and perpetrators) from the postwar crimes trials, Forgotten Casualties offers a new narrative of this largely overlooked aspect of Axis violence.

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