The Greatest Fighter Pilot in WW II???

[lesofprimus]

Just about every bio and website has the follow-on info..... Do a search for the pilot and youll find them....

[Lightning Guy]

There were several reasons the Allied pilots didn't score as high. They didn't fly as many missions. They didn't see as many targets. And there were alot of Allied planes trying to shoot down a few Germans. Pretty hard to break the century mark given those facts.

[evangilder]

Remo, one place that I have looked at some of them is
http://www.acepilots.com

They have some good stuff there.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

There are many websites, just do a search for the names or just for WW2 aces in general and you should be able to find them.

[Udet]

Lightning Guy, HELLO!!!

With all due respect, it comes into my mind to say your comments are not accurate.

You say allied pilots did not score as high as so many Luftwaffe pilots did because they did not fly that many missions.

This is incorrect.

You will see, and I have plentiful and fluent evidence the allies (especially the USA and former USSR) have lied big time when narrating world war two.

That includes a campaign to minimize and even ridiculize the German war effort.

The Luftwaffe experten have not walked away unscathed from the allied defaming campaign.

"German pilots shot down so many planes because they had no limit in the number of missions to be flown. They flew either until the war would end or until getting killed."

That is one the main assets the allies utilize to minimize the German aces.

While such assertion by itself, all isolated, is correct it can certainly lead to incorrect conclusions. Yes, they had no limit in number of missions to be flown, while the USAAF crews had rotation system: fly a determined number of missions and (obviously) if you survive you go home and let the new meat see action.

What was the fundamental downfall of the Bf109? Its very short range.

What was the fundamental (strategic) advantage of the P-51? Its extremely long range.

The Bf109G-6, one of the most produced version of the G series, had a maximun range of about 550 km -with internal fuel load only-. That meant it could stay in the air for about 1 1/2 hour. In many cases the 109´s were fitted with a 300 lts drop tank which increased their range for nearly 50%, that is for nearly 1000 km.

The P-51 equipped with 2 drop tanks had a range reaching some 2,700 kilometers, with a flying endurance of nearl 8 1/2 hours!

So a pilot of the USAAF flying some 150 missions could have been in the air for about 1,200 hours. While a Bf109 G pilot, say, flying 700 missions could have been in the air for abut 1,050 hours.

With this I am trying to say there were many many USAAF pilots who indeed were in the air on combat mission more time than many many German pilots who flew far more missions.

Number of missions flown tells something, but not everything on a fighter pilot record.

Hours effectively flown in missions is a far more illustrative game.

I am aware the accurate number of hours any given pilot spent in the air is impossible to determine (there are cases when the exact number of missions flown for some pilots is unknown!); some missions could last less time than others, and there could be times when the pilot did not resort to use the full endurance of his plane during some missions.

Still, we can come close to telling how many hours a man spent in the air.

There are thousands of USAAF pilots who spent in the air more time than Pips Priller, Waldemar Radener and Willi Batz, just to mention three of them, and shot down many many times less enemy planes.

So as you might see, most arguments deployed by the USA to minimize the Luftwaffe pilots are easy to shatter.

Cheers!

[Udet]

I forgot to add:

The things I did comment in the last post, implied that one sole mission flown by a P-51 pilot could equal in many cases 4 or 5 missions flown by a German pilot when flying one sole mission.

[evangilder]

I don't think anyone here is trying to minimize the Luftwaffe pilots. But remember that the missions of the fighters on the allied side versus the German side was slightly different, especially later in the war. For the allies, the were on the offense, and in some cases, never saw an enemy fighter. For the Germans, it was defense, and they were going after the aircraft that were entering their airspace. A luftwaffe fighter group going after a large formation of bombers and their fighter escorts had a much larger target base as well.

There are definitely differences in the way that it was fought and to qualify or quantify kill totals is not an exact science.

[Udet]

I did not mean the guys in this forum are trying to minimize the Luftwaffe.

I was rather referring to USA historians and veterans of the war.

[lesofprimus]

Evan brings up some good points... Besides the BoB, Germany was mainly attempting to stop the bombing of their country..... More targets of opportunity.... Except on excorting duties, Allied pilots didnt fly their max ranges or stay aloft for their entire avilable flight hours....

Ive never seen where historians were trying to undermine the Luftwaffes airwar efforts.....

Hours effectively flown in missions is a far more illustrative game.

I see what ur trying to say, but if your assigned sector doesnt have any enemy flight activity, u could stay aloft for 6 hours and see nothing but white puffy clouds....

The Germans rarely had to look for enemy air action.. The Allies granted them that request.....

[Udet]

Sorry but your statements do not make any substantial change to the fact P-51 pilots completing their combat mission period in Europe flew more time than most German pilots who flew far more combat missions.

It would not surprise me at all, there were USAAF fighter pilots who spent in the air even more time than German aces known for their massive number of missions flown, such as Gerhard Barkhorn who achieved some 1,100 missions, all in Bf109s.

I digress: that is one of the main assets of allied historians and veterans to explain why German aces scored as high as they did. And as you can see, such argument when put into broad perspective -and not isolated as them USAers do- lacks both head and feet.

Mind you Primis: the Luftwaffe of course looked forward to see action against the large formations of the USAAF. I would not call it a concession granted by the USAAF. During 1944, before the first airfields were established on the continent, thousands of P-51s flew the whole bombing run England-Central Germany-England, and indeed saw plenty of action against German interceptors, and many of them got killed in action. Many times such missions enabled huge swarms of Mustangs for free hunting missions over Germany.

[Stallion_51]

Great discussion going on. It appears our boys didn't come close to Hartmann but that guy was out of this world...kind of the Sean D. Tucker of dogfighters.

How about Preddy and Landers? Landers was an ace in both the Pacific and European theatres. (Yes, there's a little bias here.)

[lesofprimus]

And the Germans were sitting at the aerodromes..... Kinda pointless to send up 25 fighters to engage a swarm of Mustangs...

In 1944, the Luftwaffe was fighting a losing battle... Most of the higher ups, including Galland knew this....

Hartmann scored as much as he did because the Soviets had inferior aircraft, inferior pilots and inferior training.... And he was a great pilot..... Flying a great machine.... There was a never ending supply of aircraft for hime to shoot down....

My Grandfather did a whole tour with VMF-122 and never had an enemy Jap plane in his sights... Many Allied pilots did the same...... They were just not in the right place for enemy action....

Being stationed on the Eastern Front definatly gave u the opportunity to see some action, let alone the opportunity to die...

[Nonskimmer]

And there is a lot of validity to the fact that allied pilots generally flew for a set tour of combat, where as the Luftwaffe boys and the Japanese were usually in it for the duration.
Some folks try to discount this when comparing kill tallies relative to one's skill, or what have you, but think about it. Of course it had an impact!
How many more of the enemy would the Richard Bongs of the USAAF have shot down if they never left the combat zone, and/or if America had been in the war from the start?

[Udet]

Hello over there beauties:

Primus:

On what grounds do you base your argument that by 1944 the Luftwaffe was fighting a lost battle?

At the very beginning of 1944, that is, January, the air battle over Europe was still far from being decided. 1943 helped the allies discovering the Luftwaffe was a very fearsome enemy to tangle with.

1944 can certainly be considered the decisive year of the allied victory in the air, but it took so many months of very bloody battles, where both the USAAF and RAF took frightful losses.

So it is not correct to say, in my view, that by 1944 the Luftwaffe was fighting an already lost battle. It would be more appropriate to say, that by late 1944 the battle was lost.

On January 11th, 1944, the USAAF lost about 80-90 heavy bombers. That means on one single day the 8th AF saw some 800-900 men not returning for dinner; while for the Luftwaffe fighter force the number of KIA pilots was about 35-40.
So nearly 900 men (from heavy bombers only) on one day in exchange for some 35-40 pilots killed, seems like more than a feasible exhange ratio for the first days of 1944.

For the RAF things did not fare significantly better at all in early 1944. There was a night of February where the NJG´s destroyed more than 70 RAF heavy bombers as well.

However, here we will have to sing the same song: in the long term Germany could not afford its casualty rates while the RAF and especially the USAAF had not that much problem in bringing on the new crews; still that should not get you confused in saying the casualties of both the RAF and the USAAF were "moderate".

[lesofprimus]

I said:

In 1944, the Luftwaffe was fighting a losing battle

U said:

that by 1944 the Luftwaffe was fighting an already lost battle

U said:

that by late 1944 the battle was lost.

I never said fighting a lost battle.... I said they were fighting a losing battle..... I am basing that argument on what the people on the German side of the War had to say about it..... Galland stated this... Nowotney said this... Even Goering admitted it to Hitler in 1944......