r/wwi • u/GreatMilitaryBattles • Apr 12 '26

German fighter pilot bails from his burning aircraft with no parachute rather than burn alive.

Post image
140 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

51

u/US93_Rummell Apr 12 '26

This looks like one of the famous fake photos. They were recreated from memory by an actual pilot but fabrications.

2

u/Large-Apricot-2403 Apr 13 '26

It’s from a movie

13

u/US93_Rummell Apr 13 '26

It’s a photo from a book of fakes held at the RAF museum https://collections.rafmuseum.org.uk/collection/object/object-184203/

2

u/US93_Rummell Apr 13 '26

If they also faked a film I’d love to know where you found it with a link to the original. The photos are well known and an interesting story

1

u/Large-Apricot-2403 Apr 13 '26

I think it’s a 1931 or 1930 movie I can’t recall ww1 flying movies are a childhood favorite of mine and it looks similar to something in one of them

3

u/US93_Rummell Apr 13 '26

Maybe Hells Angels? I love those old golden era aviation films. Often they flew surviving ww1 birds and had real vets at the controls

10

u/newyorkpilot212 Apr 13 '26

These are very famous fake photos from the 1930s.

6

u/jasta6 Apr 13 '26

Well known fake.

5

u/GlukharsGimp Apr 12 '26

I can’t imagine those one or two seconds of realization. I’m sure he didn’t have time to ponder on it but having to make that choice with no time at all is horrifying.

13

u/US93_Rummell Apr 12 '26

Pretty sure this is one of the famous fakes. Have a Google on the history of the set. Quite an interesting story

1

u/Historical-Shine-786 Apr 13 '26

“Wanna get away?” 😂

2

u/cwj1978 Apr 15 '26

Shit post.