Talk:Sailor Malan

Malan

The description of the history of the Malan surname's origins are not relevant to this article. I will add a See also including a link to the Huguenot article (that now includes the note originally used here). --Deon Steyn 12:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes clearly South Africans are still concerned with race. Anyway, Malan could just as easily be an English name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.76.72.199 (talk) 14:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Corrected name of his brother from CWGG to Francis not George (keep "George" as nickname), he died 26 April 1943. Hugo999 (talk) 10:33, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Barking Creek

Regarding the battle of Barking Creek: John Freeborn had this to say about Malan: "...I was very sorry about it, but it was Sailor Malan’s fault. He gave us the order to attack and we attacked. I think I would have shot down more [Hurricanes] if it weren’t for Hawkins [another 74 Squadron pilot]. He got in the way and I was shouting at him to get out of the bloody way, to either shoot or let me shoot. But then he said, “It’s one of ours.” When the adrenaline is running, you don’t realize these things at the time. When we landed, George Sampson [the squadron commander] was waiting and Byrne and I were placed under close arrest. As for Malan, no one could find him. He’d gone off somewhere and dropped us right in the shit. But we were acquitted because we had two of the greatest barristers ever and they took Malan to pieces, said he was a downright liar."

source:http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/John-Freeborn-1919-2010.html

POV

The statement that "The National Party ensured that the memory of the Springbok Legion, Torch Commando and of Sailor Malan was purged from history because there was a fear that young Afrikaners in particular might want to emulate Malan' is POV, unverifiable, and most certainly false. I have read a number of accounts of Sailor Malan in apartheid era South African military magazines. The Torch Commando was not ignored either, though it was represented (correctly) as a far left radical organization.101.98.188.150 (talk) 08:40, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Racism?

""established to oppose the police state, abuse of state power, censorship, racism, the removal of the Coloured vote and other oppressive manifestations of the creeping fascism of the National Party regime"" I doubt that he'd used the word "racism" at this time. But I stand correct if someone comes with a reliable source --197.228.40.197 (talk) 19:38, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Home with dead crews?

According to the lead "Malan was known for sending German bomber pilots home with dead crews as a warning to other Luftwaffe crews." How did that work? Did he somehow seek to shoot the gunner/copilot/bomb aimer(s) of the planes he attacked but leave the pilot unharmed? I know he's described as a marksman, but really? Chuntuk (talk) 15:57, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

To answer my own question, the Keegan book cited by the sentence talks (in passing) about "the icy 'Sailor' Malan who tried to send German bomber pilots home with a dead crew as a warning to the rest." I've changed the sentence in the lead to "Malan aimed to send German bomber pilots home with dead crews as a warning to other Luftwaffe crews" which better reflects the source, though frankly I'm not sure it really belongs in the lead (or, arguably, in the article). Chuntuk (talk) 16:10, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Even if the source is a generally reliable one this smacks very strongly of "romantic myth" (many famous aces have one or two) - many German bombers (especially He 111s) did take this kind of damage from the rife calibre armament fitted to British fighters in 1940/41 - at the time He 111 pilots were protected by armour but NOT the other crew members. This seems a far more likely explanation. Some accounts of the Battle of Britain remark on the morale of German Bomber squadrons being (understandably!) affected by this sort of thing. But as you say - it is actually very silly to suppose this was deliberate, or even a deliberate "aim". Since this is your pick - do you want to excise the offending passage yourself? --Soundofmusicals (talk) 23:05, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

As suggested, I've removed the sentence altogether. I wonder whether what he actually said was for his pilots not to worry overmuch if they shot up a bomber without downing it, because a plane returning full of dead crew would still be a warning to the others. That might make some sense, but is just a guess on my part. Chuntuk (talk) 09:33, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

I think your original instinct on this one was spot on. We can guess all we like, but adding our guesses to the article would be original research. If we had a record of him making such a remark, then it might have been appropriate to include it. On the other hand, when it comes to him saying to himself, in the heat of battle - "Well, that'll do, I'll let that one get home to spoil their morale" - I mean... --Soundofmusicals (talk) 05:03, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't add anything to the article on the basis of my guesses (which I wouldn't even dignify by calling "research"). I did find this passage which does into more detail, and might find a home in the article somewhere (though I don't think it belongs in the lead):

"Squadron Leader 'Sailor' Malan - possibly the RAF's most gallant fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain - was famous for never looking for personal successes; he did not care much about how many planes he shot down. On the contrary, he argued that it was better to damage the German aircraft and let them return to base - 'with dead and injured crews as a warning to other Luftwaffe crews.'" - Bergström, Christer (2015). Battle of Britain: An Epic Conflict Revisited. Casemate. p. 49. ISBN 9781612003474.

It'd be good to know where Bergström got that (supposedly) direct quote from though. Chuntuk (talk) 15:00, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Obviously any fighter pilot who took his job seriously would be trying his level best to bring his enemy down, and anything else would be second best. If the Malan quote has any truth in it at all it might have been a word of encouragement to pilots who had been waiting for ages to chalk up their first confirmed victory and were frustrated by the way those Heinkels refused to go down - but that is my guess and no better than yours. We have to be selective about "facts" we allow in an encyclopedia, especially about famous air aces (and other famous people for that matter) - when we were working on the Albert Ball article (for instance) we carefully weeded out a whole rack of unlikely legends - including some that have been repeated in quite respectable biographies. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 01:00, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Rules of air fighting

The section on Rules of air fighting implies that Malan developed it from scratch. However, it is was actually a modification of existing doctrine, dating back to the Dicta Boelcke. Could the text be modified to reflect this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.232.227.7 (talk) 08:09, 24 August 2017 (UTC)