Airforce possesses different mentalities vs. infantry who fought face to face bloody battles.
An airforce pilot views battles as machine to machine fighting, i.e. he shot down an enemy aircraft instead of killing human beings.
Franz Stigler had down two American aircrafts earlier on the day, if they were B-17s, would be 11 crews per plane,
How come he only had mercy on Charlie Brown?
Earlier, only he did not see any human in front of his gun , what he distoried were machines.
Charlie Brown's B-17 could be his 3rd victory of the day, but through the bullets ripped holes he saw the wounded crews plus one dead , real human faces, the moment humanity or military morale came up first, he could not pull the triger..
No body blamed Franz killed 2 more planes with 22 people down together, that was just his job.