Quote:
Originally Posted by perseus
Yeah wasn't that the philosophy behind the Schu mine?
that said, I guess downed aircraft and pilots could be a valuable source of raw materials and information. I wonder why they didn't try to patch up allied aircraft from the downed ones. Plenty of spares available!
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They did patch up the aircraft the could and the rest were recycled but the manpower cost of the PoW camps alone would have furnished a couple of extra divisions alone add to that feeding (even if it wasn't the best quality) and maintaining the health of POWs would have been a fairly major burden on the Reich.
This does not take into account the logistics requirements and subsequent industries and workforces needed to maintain the camps.
Personally if I was Goering I would have hoped just about every aircraft made it home on one engine and with its crew injured enough to be sent home.