The flight log or Group Captain A. C. Deere recorded that on 11 July 1940, ". . . we had just crossed the coast at Deal where I spotted a silver-colored seaplane with Red Cross markings. . . behind it were a dozen Me 1O9s. "43 A fight ensued in which the seaplane was forced down. The Heinkel and its crew were captured. Entries in the pilot's log noted positions and movements of British convoys. Reconnaissance being definitely a military and not a humanitarian function, -the British decided to take repressive measures. On 13 July the Air Ministry released Bulletin 1254 which stated that as of 20 July air-sea rescue planes would be shot down. 44
Sir Winston Churchill presented a somewhat less legalistic and more sanguine interpretation of the issue when he wrote, "We did not recognize this means of rescuing enemy pilots so they could come and bomb our civil population again. . . all German air ambulances were forced down or shot down by our fighters on definite orders approved by the War Cabinet."45 It was Churchill's contention that since the 1929 Geneva Convention made no specific mention of rescue airplanes, such aircraft were not entitled to its protection.
The Germans claimed that their rescue aircraft were protected by Articles 3, 6, and 17 of the Convention. According to Article 3, " . . . the belligerent who remains in possession of the field of battle shall take measures to search for the wounded." Article 6 provided that, "Mobile sanitary formations, i.e., those which are intended to accompany armies in the field, and the fixed establishments belonging to the sanitary service shall be protected and respected by the belligerents." Article 17 claimed that, "Vehicles equipped for sanitary evacuation, traveling singly or in convoy, shall be treated as mobile sanitary formations. . . . "46
After 20 July, British attacks on Seenotdienst aircraft increased in frequency and ferocity. Colonel Otto Dreyer, squadron commander of the rescue unit at Cherbourg, reported that a British bomber machine-gunned his white-painted, red cross-marked, unarmed Heinkel as it taxied toward a downed aircrew. Dreyer's Heinkel caught fire and, sank, but the crew escaped on their life rafts and floated ashore on the Isle of AIderney the next day.47
In the light of the British actions, the General Staff ordered all rescue aircraft armed and painted to match the camouflage schemes in use in their area of operations. Though armed, the slow and cumbersome Heinkels and Breguet-Bizertes were no match for Spitfires and Hurricanes. In August, fighters began escorting rescue aircraft whenever mission requirements entailed operations in proximity to the English coast. Adolf Galland spoke of the gallantry of rescue crews that, with fighter escort, flew into the Thames estuary to pick up German and even English flyers. 48
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...b/tilford.html
