However belated, this warning directed at American aircrews by their evasion officers is revealing. Enemy civilians had become the greatest danger facing downed airmen, more so even than the Gestapo and SS. They also outdid the Hitler Youth, who were nevertheless heavily involved in hunting down fugitives. The fact that civilians should be the ranking champions of violence against downed airmen took Allied intelligence services by surprise. It took them nearly two years, from 1943 to 1945, to recognize that the usual hierarchy of wartime violence had in this way been inverted.