Herbert Maxis brought his Messerschmitt down hard into the snow and dirt, and in the seconds that followed, the young German pilot was still firing. The aircraft hit the ground, slid, and came to a stop in a field that sat right beside the American artillery position he had just been strafing. Maxis was likely injured from the damage his plane had taken, and he was slow getting out of the cockpit, which gave the American soldiers on the ground time to sprint toward the crashed fighter. When he finally pulled himself free, he opened the swing canopy, stepped out onto the wing, and, according to multiple original eyewitness accounts, raised his hands in the air to surrender.

It is unlikely he intended to do anything else. He was injured, well behind enemy lines, and a novice pilot. He stood on the wing with his hands raised, and an American soldier arriving at the crash pulled out a pistol and shot Herbert Maxis in the back of the head, killing him instantly. The question of whether that killing was justified or was a wrongful death in the brutality of war is one that has no easy answer.

To understand it, one has to understand what the Luftwaffe was trying to do in those final months of the war, and the desperate gamble that sent Herbert Maxis into the sky on the first day of 1945. It was December of 1944. After the Allied invasion of Normandy, the Germans had been pushed back all across the Western Front and were on the defensive. This set the stage for the Battle of the Bulge, one of the most famous conflicts of the entire war, in which the Germans would combine all of their remaining resources for one last offensive in an attempt to shift the momentum of the war.

While the fighting on the ground was intense and gruesome, another battle was about to be fought that was just as important, the battle in the air. The entire Ardennes offensive of the German Army was planned around one critical factor, the weather. During this time, American and British airpower was wreaking havoc on German ground forces. The idea behind the offensive was to take that Allied air supremacy out of the equation by relying on poor weather, in which Allied aircraft could not support or supply their troops on the ground.

It was in this context that the legendary 101st Airborne would be famously encircled and trapped without supplies. As part of this endeavor, the Luftwaffe put together a daring plan to use this opportunity to gain an upper hand in the air battle. It was called Operation Bodenplatte. This plan would be the last organized offensive effort by the German air forces in the war and would take place on January 1st, 1945, the first day that the weather allowed.

The idea behind it was that the Luftwaffe would muster together every plane and pilot it could and fly a series of low-level attacks from bases in Germany to strike seventeen different Allied airfields across Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. It was a bold plan that would need a lot of things to go right; otherwise, it would be a costly failure. At this time in the war, however, it was the best option that German commanders could come up with. There were some key problems, though, that made this already daunting operation a near impossibility.

For starters, the Luftwaffe was running incredibly low on pilots. Although German aircraft production was peaking at this time, they were actually undersupplied with the men to fly them because of the long war of attrition. Many of the best German aces had been killed or captured, leaving very few qualified front-line leaders left and even fewer qualified men to train new pilots. Furthermore, the Americans were now pushing so far into Europe and their fighters had such a long range that, in reality, there were not even any training fields left that were out of the reach of American aircraft.

There was no airfield in Germany where green pilots could train without fear of being attacked by American fighters. This created a vicious circle of more and more inexperienced pilots that only allowed the advancing American aircraft to become more of a problem. In addition, the flight time of training pilots was constantly being limited due to the low fuel supplies Germany was facing, making it even harder to produce adequate combat-ready airmen. Because of these factors, the attack on Allied objectives was mainly executed by inexperienced German pilots, leading to high casualties and poor results in combat.

Secondly, Operation Bodenplatte, while bold and hopeful on paper, was planned poorly by German leadership. In one blunder in particular, the commanders planned the flight route to take many of the German units over their own anti-aircraft emplacements on the ground. Because of this, the first phase of the plan, in some locations, began with tragic friendly fire incidents before the German units could even cross enemy lines. Finally, because this was a large-scale surprise attack, German commanders held secrecy as the top priority.

But with the mismanaged communication lines that had plagued them throughout the war, the Luftwaffe failed to accurately pass along necessary information. As the January 1st attack was starting in the early morning, pilots received maps that were only partially completed to protect the plan, and many of the unit commanders were refused permission to brief their pilots until minutes before takeoff. This created substantial confusion across the ranks, and many of the airmen still did not fully understand the plan as they left the ground. According to some historians, many of them were still convinced that it was a reconnaissance flight and took off with this plan in mind.

With all of these factors, Operation Bodenplatte was an extremely low-probability move for the German forces, but it was executed nonetheless, sending many young German men to their doom. One of these men was a pilot by the name of Herbert Maxis. Maxis was a member of Jagdgeschwader 53 and would take off as part of the large-scale attack on January 1st, 1945, in his Bf 109, identified as White 13. As the large number of German aircraft flew at low altitude and were in route to the American airfields, this particular squadron came across a group of American anti-aircraft positions.

These were placements of the 455th Anti-Aircraft Artillery. The American guns immediately opened up at the Luftwaffe aircraft, and a number of the German fighters opted to peel off and strafe the positions. Maxis was one of them. The young airman opened up with his machine guns on the first strafing run and then turned around for another.

This was likely the decision of a novice pilot, as many seasoned aces knew how deadly ground fire was and that a second pass was ill-advised. But nonetheless, Maxis turned for another opportunity. As he did so, a gun placement from the 455th landed a direct hit on his Bf 109. The German fighter immediately took critical damage and would not be able to stay in the air much longer.

With no other option available and too low to bail out, Maxis lined up for a belly landing in the nearest field. This happened to be a field right next to the very artillery position he had just been strafing. What happened next would become a tragic example of the brutality and horror of war. There is some debate as to exactly what happened, as certain details do appear to be altered in some stories, but the accounts from the best sources tell the sequence as follows.

As Maxis brought his 109 down into the snow and dirt, apparently he was still firing away at the enemy. His aircraft soon hit the ground and slid to a stop. Maxis was likely injured when his aircraft was hit and was somewhat slowed getting out of the cockpit, allowing time for the American soldiers on the ground to quickly run to the aircraft that had landed so close to them. When he did get out, he opened the swing canopy of the 109 and stepped onto the wing of the plane, and then, according to multiple original eyewitness accounts, put his hands in the air to surrender.

It is unlikely he would have been trying to do anything else, as he was injured, well behind enemy lines, and a novice pilot. As he stepped onto the wing with his hands raised, an American soldier arriving at the crash pulled out a pistol and shot Herbert Maxis in the back of the head, killing him instantly. In their book Bodenplatte: The Luftwaffe’s Last Hope, authors John Manrho and Ron Pütz have quite possibly the best researched information on this story, including a first-hand account that adds context to the events. According to the account, the Messerschmitts of JG 53 started to strafe the positions of the 455th AAA Battalion and the 739th Field Artillery Battalion.

During this action, a personal duel developed when one Bf 109, strafing west along the road from Felsberg to Boulet, passed over the gun section, engaging it, and circled around for another strafing run. The gun section was number one M51 quad of A Battery, manned by Private First Class Flinery Griggs. The aircraft was immediately brought down two hundred yards from the gun section. Billy M.

Taylor of the 739th Field Artillery Battalion offers quite possibly the best documented first-hand account of the incident. “I was in the prone tent taking a crap when I heard small arms fire picking up on the front. The rule was everyone shoots at low flying planes and we usually had a few minutes to be prepared. This had happened before and I wasn’t too concerned and thought I’d just finished my job.

The small arms fire gets so heavy and close I decide I better get out and see what’s going on. Just as I step outside of my prone tent I see a German fighter coming right straight at me about 300 yards away. I could still see the fire from his guns. I hit the ground with my pants about halfway up keeping my eye on that plane.

It quit firing before it got to me and I could see smoke coming from his engine. He banked the plane sharply and started back towards the German lines. He came into my battery area right in the middle of it firing his machine guns and 20 millimeter nose cannon and made a perfect belly landing. By the time I got to the plane the pilot had been shot and his flight suit taken.

He was lying in a pool of blood in his long handles with one foot on the wing. He had cold black hair about 20 years old or less and looked just like a cousin of mine. A friend of mine, Smith, shot the pilot as he got out of the plane, an Me-109. A grave registration unit picked up the body and the next day officers of corps headquarters came to our unit to investigate.

They didn’t like it because a German had been brought in dead in his underwear. There was talk of a court-martial but the idea was dropped when told that the pilot came in firing all his guns. ”

Following this, according to Manrho and Pütz, it appears likely that the whole affair was covered up for obvious reasons. In the official report, it was listed that Unteroffizier Maxis made a move which was determined to be hostile, which is why he was shot.

But this is contradictory to most first-hand accounts. This leads to the obvious question: was it wrong to kill this German pilot? The question becomes fairly difficult to answer, especially from the distance of decades. There will be those who say of course not, as he was a German and they were the bad guys.

But this is historically ignorant. Trying to determine the rights or wrongs of individual soldiers based on the side that they were fighting for makes no sense and simply allows for the victors to determine morality. Instead, it is necessary to hold a reasonable standard for all and look at it from the eyes of those who were there. From the side of the German, it certainly seems like an unacceptable act by the Americans.

A pilot was just shot down, was attempting to surrender, and was killed in cold blood. This would be a violation of the Geneva Convention and thus a war crime. If this was done to an American, which it was on many occasions, then most would agree that it should be classified as such. In fact, if one actually checks the footnotes of Bodenplatte, it can be seen that the name Smith in the first-hand account was not actually the name of the American who shot and killed Maxis, but was instead a false name inserted to protect the identity of the actual soldier.

This makes it clear that the authors of the book believed that the act was heinous enough that they needed to change his actual name. This stands in stark contrast to what happened to other downed German pilots on that same mission. German pilot Alfred Michel, another pilot from JG 53, was shot down on the exact same mission on New Year’s Day of 1945 in a nearby area. Interestingly, this was Michel’s first and last combat mission, showing just how thin the Luftwaffe truly was at this time.

Shortly after crashing, Michel attempted to run but thereafter decided to surrender and was peacefully captured, whereafter a famous picture was taken of him speaking with his captors and reviewing his crash-landed Messerschmitt. This offers a strong contrast when compared to the fate of Herbert Maxis. On the American side, however, it might not be quite that simple. According to the reports from this day, Herbert Maxis was still firing away as he came in for a belly landing, moments before his death.

In this action, one American was killed after being shot in the leg. It is easy to see how this might invoke a response for revenge. Furthermore, after speaking with veterans and historians, most agree that in war the lines of right and wrong are often so blurred that they become indistinguishable. The stresses, losses, and hatred for the enemy could easily lead men to do things that they normally would not.

Without being in the shoes of these soldiers, it is nearly impossible to say what one would do or should do in the same situation. Following his death, all of Maxis’s clothes were taken, and his Bf 109 was looted by souvenir hunters. Photos taken shortly after the crash and a few days later show that many parts of his aircraft had been removed. Operation Bodenplatte would go down historically as a tactical success but a strategic failure.

The Luftwaffe destroyed a good number of Allied aircraft in this attack and placed the Americans on their heels for a short amount of time. But with the US war machine, these losses were quickly replaced. The Luftwaffe, however, paid a high cost, losing 143 pilots, many of whom were experienced leaders and were irreplaceable. They would never be able to recuperate these losses and would be on the defensive for the remainder of the war until the German surrender five months later.

Herbert Maxis was buried in an unlabeled grave and is still officially listed as missing in action.