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One bit of trivia from the war is that aerial aces did not hate one another. There are numerous accounts of Hartmann, Barkhorn, and Marseille welcoming downed Allied pilots into their camp. The flyers respected one another.
Walter Nowotny, Germany's #5 Ace, was finally downed over France in 1944. French fighters honored him with a proper military burial, and gave his grave the inscription:
>Here on 8 November 1944, following 258 aerial victories, the recipient of the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, Major Walter Nowotny, fell for his people and his fatherland.
Pierre Clostermann devotes a whole chapter of his memoirs to mourn for Nowotny. Clostermann relates this loss of a fierce enemy as if it were the loss of an old friend. In another life, they might have been comrades.
I think there's something beautiful about that. To some degree, these men did not hate each other. They fought for their country and happened to be on the opposite sides of a terrible war.
