Colin D. Heaton > Quotes

“The Russians had a strange attack method on the ground. I saw this myself, when we were flying over Stalingrad. In that area, they would attack in waves of five or six ranks. The first wave had weapons, and the following soldiers had nothing. They did not even have tank support—nothing. They had to pick up the weapons from the dead and wounded and keep going forward. Then the next wave did the same thing, and the next. It was incredible to us. Throwing away lives that way.”
― Colin D. Heaton, The German Aces Speak II

“Setting propaganda and postwar myopia aside, the Luftwaffe pilots were not only brave men defending their country from obliteration; they were men of honor who still fought by and believed in a code of chivalry, reminiscent of the First World War, when enemy pilots often saluted each other in battle, and wounded enemies were allowed to escape to fight another day.”
― Colin D. Heaton, The German Aces Speak

“The Ukrainian man told us that the Russians came in twice and took his farm, all of his grain that he grew, and that they did this to everyone. He was a boy the first time, in the 1920s, a teenager I think. His father argued with the official, and they shot him on the spot. Then they came again just a few years before the war, and again they took everything.”
― Colin D. Heaton, The German Aces Speak II

“It should be noted that not a single German combat pilot was ever charged with a war crime under the Hague and Geneva Conventions. The same cannot be said for their national leadership.”
― Colin D. Heaton, The German Aces Speak

“Rudel is a man I respect, but he was, to be polite, just insane. He was perhaps the bravest man I ever knew, but then again you have to use common sense in combat, at some point. He was probably the luckiest man who ever lived. I just think that he did not care about his own safety.”
― Colin D. Heaton, The German Aces Speak II

“What I learned from Rossmann and later Krupinski I later taught to new pilots when I became a leader. I learned that being a good leader is more important than being a successful fighter pilot with a lot of victories.”
― Colin D. Heaton, The German Aces Speak II

“He stole my car, went into town, and came back drunk, with two girls in varying degrees of undress. They were also drunk, and one was driving my car! I was beyond angry. Well, I had him call a taxi for the girls and made him pay for it. I then restricted him to the base for a month, restricted to his quarters, and after a week of this he was finally allowed to fly again. The only way out of his quarters for the rest of that”
― Colin D. Heaton, The German Aces Speak II

“These were men who were serving their nation in the cockpits of aircraft. Their job was to fight and, if possible, destroy the enemies of their nation. They were no different than the pilots of other nations.”
― Colin D. Heaton, The German Aces Speak

“It should be mentioned that, in spite of wartime and even postwar propaganda, there is not a single case of a German pilot intentionally shooting a parachuting enemy on any front.”
― Colin D. Heaton, The German Aces Speak

“We knew that millions of Ukrainians died from starvation. Stalin wanted their food for the Russians, and the rest he sold for money internationally. Stalin needed currency. The Ukrainians and many others were arrested and sent to mines and labor camps. We Germans have a bad reputation because of the Jews, and that is deserved, I will admit. However, we never hear anything about the Soviets, their crimes, killing their own people, the gulags and mass murder, what they did to other Europeans during and after the war.”
― Colin D. Heaton, The German Aces Speak II