Today's greatest Ace?

[FLYBOYJ]

"Giora Even is Israel’s leading ace with 17 victories! Born in 1938 as Giora Epstein, he grew up in the traditional frontier-farmer lifestyle of his home, Kibbutz Negba. An avid aviation enthusiast as a young boy, he poured over flying books and studied the biographies of Britain’s wartime aces. After the 1956 Suez War, the 18 year old joined the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and applied for flight training but was rejected for medical reasons. Enraged, he went to his commander and told him that if he could not be a pilot, he wanted to be a paratrooper. He eventually made over 700 jumps and was a member of the IDF’s parachute demonstration team. After seven years and countless obstacles, he was finally on his way to becoming a fighter pilot! Beginning in 1963 Even flew frontline fighters: Dassault Ouragons, Super Mysteres, and Mirage IIIs; Israeli Aircraft Industries Neshers and Kfirs; and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons. He accumulated over 5,000 hours of fighter time and scored 17 victories. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Even shot down 12 Egyptian aircraft, eight of them in 26 hours! After the war, he was awarded the Medal of Ideal, one of Israel’s highest military honors."

[Glider]

Someone you want on your side when the chips are down.

[evangilder]

Yep, or in a bar fight! IDF guys are pretty bad-ass.

[Nonskimmer]

Quite a pilot.

[FLYBOYJ]

I wsas told there was supposed to be a guy with 18 kills - I'll try to look him up!

[lesofprimus]

OK.... As near as I can get em, after a couple hours of research, here is a listing of all Aces AFTER Korea....

EDIT: Added Nahumi at the bottom of the list....

Shalmon, Abraham (Israeli) 18 [17+1]
Marom, Oded (Israeli) 18 [17+1]

Aven, Giora (Epstein) (Israeli) 17

Spector, Yiftah (Israeli) 15 [14+1]
Snir, Asher (Israeli) 15 [14+1]

Nahumi, Amir (Israeli) 13
Harish, Dror (Israeli) 13

Richter, Ya'akov (Israeli) 12 [11+1]
Koren, Yehuda (Israeli) 12 [11+1]
Baharav, Israel (Israeli) 12

Melnik, Moshe (Israeli) 11 [10+1]

Levi, Shlomo (Israeli) 10

Zandi, Jalal (Iranian) 9
Nguyen Van Coc (Vietnam) 9
Sharon, Menachem (Israeli) 9
Ronen (Pecker), Ran (Israeli) 9
Carmi, Eitan (Israeli) 9

Hertz, Moshe (Israeli) 8 [7+1]
Gonen, Ilan (Israeli) 8
Even-Nir, Uri (Israeli) 8
Enian, Menachem (Israeli) 8
Egozy, Shlomo (Israeli) 8
Amir, Amos (Israeli) 8
Pham Thanh Ngan (Vietnam) 8
Nguyen Hong Nhi (Vietnam) 8
Mai Van Cuong (Vietnam) 8

Tzuk, Michael (Israeli) 7
Shmul, Menachem (Israeli) 7
Peer, Ytzhak (Israeli) 7
Nave (Michael), Avner (Israeli) 7 [6+1]
Keidar, Yirmiyahu (Israeli) 7
Cohen, Ariel (Israeli) 7 [6+1]
Bar, Amos (Israeli) 7
Nguyen Van Bay (Vietnam) 7
Dang Ngoc Ngu (Vietnam) 7

Hoda, A. (Iranian) 6
Rayyan, M. (Iraqi) 6
Ščabakov, Vadim Petrovič (Soviet) 6
el-Gar, Adeeb (Syrian) 6
Halabi, Majad (Syrian) 6
Zugbi, Majid (Syrian) 6
Simon, Sha'ul (Israeli) 6 [4+2]
Peri, Ben-Ami (Israeli) 6
Peled, Eitan (Israeli) 6
Livni, Gideon (Israeli) 6 [5+1]
Lanir, Avi (Israeli) 6
Hankin, Ehud (Israeli) 6 [5+1]
Gil, Uri (Israeli) 6 [5+1]
Geva, Yoram (Israeli) 6
Eliyahu, Menachem (Israeli) 6
Ben-Nun, Asef (Israeli) 6
Agmon, Yoram (Israeli) 6
Afek (Hofman), Omri (Israeli) 6
Vu Ngoc Dinh (Vietnam) 6
Nguyen Tiem Sam (Vietnam) 6
Nguyen Nhat Chieu (Vietnam) 6
Nguyen Ngoc Do (Vietnam) 6
Nguyen Doc Soat (Vietnam) 6
Nguyen Dang Kinh (Vietnam) 6
Nguyen Ba Dich (Vietnam) 6
Luu Huy Chao (Vietnam) 6
Le Thanh Dao (Vietnam) 6
Le Hai (Vietnam) 6

Cunningham, Randolph H. (USA) 5
Ritchie, Richard S. (USA) 5
Weintraub (Navot), Shlomo (Israeli) 5
Adib, Djur Adib (Syrian) 5
Shafir, Israel (Relik) (Israeli) 5
S, Eytan (Israeli) 5
Rozen, Reuven (Israeli) 5
Rom, Giora (Israeli) 5
Rockach, Ami (Israeli) 5
Peled, Yoram (Israeli) 5
Noiner, Itamar (Israeli) 5
Dror, Gideon (Israeli) 5
Dotan, Ezra "Babban" (Israeli) 5
Bodinger, Herzl (Israeli) 5
Ben-Nun, Avihu (Israeli) 5
Arad, Amnon (Israeli) 5 [4+1]
Nahumi, Amir (Israeli) 5

[FLYBOYJ]

Great stuff Les - Look at all the Israelis!

[lesofprimus]

Yea the Israelis and the North Vietnamese....

**Edit**
And BTW, save this list, cause its the only one on the internet... Ateast I couldnt find a solid list like this anywhere.... I looked and looked... Its all piecemeal, here and there... I just combined it all and edited and copy and pasted my ass off lol...

[cheddar cheese]

Nice list! Good job les.

[FLYBOYJ]

I found a couple of those lists - it seems that the Guy Randy Cunningham smoked (Toon or Tomb, depending whose book you're reading) is always omitted.......

[lesofprimus]

From: “Lee Brimmicombe-Wood”
Subject: Colonel Tomb
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 17:30:15 -0000
Interesting page on Duke Cunningham. Even more interesting is the myth about his fight against Colonel “Tomb” (or “Toon”, depending on your source) on 10th May 1972 over North Vietnam. America’s first Navy ace in the South East Asian conflict faces off against a fourteen kill hero with a name like “Tomb”. Sounds like something out of Hollywood, doesn’t it?

It is.

Two scholars, Dr. Istvan Toperczer and Marshall L. Michel III (the latter the author of the definitive book on the air war in Vietnam, Clashes) have visited Hanoi separately performing original research on the air campaigns. Michel is a former USAF Phantom pilot with a number of missions over Vietnam to his name, has flown practice combat against Cunningham, and can hardly be called a ‘Commie Lover’. Both Toperczer and Michel asked the Vietnamese People’s Air Force (VPAF) about “Tomb/Toon” and got a blank response.

In short, the man didn’t exist. As Marshall Michel put it to me, the VPAF aren’t slow to honour their finest. And dead martyrs are as good as live ones. They had no Earthly reason to cover up the death of a top pilot. The only reason they didn’t comment on the loss of a hero is that he didn’t exist.

So where did the Tomb myth come from? No one knows. I have personally heard all sorts of theories. Tomb is an amalgam of several officers. He really did exist but the details are still secret and are being held by the NSA. He was a Russian adviser. All sorts of conspiracies abound.

The story is muddied by Cunningham, who was one of the earliest Top Guns; a real ‘gung ho’ flyer who believed he couldn’t be beat in anything with wings. Cunningham states his opponent was really good. But Cunningham wasn’t flying too well that day. His RIO, Willie Driscoll, gives a more level-headed account of the flight and states that on several occasions he recognized that he and Duke were in a less-than-good situation and asked Cunningham to extend and get out. Duke refused, telling Driscoll that he was on top of things.

Expert opinion is divided. There’s a big strand of thought amongst the flying community that anyone who gets a kill must have done well to get it. But there’s another which says that Cunningham took enormous risks to get this kill and it could so easily have gone wrong. I incline to the idea that this was not the best of fights, Cunningham was not thinking straight, and that there were far more sensible things he should have done that day.

Not that Duke would accept this view...

There is a final note on the legendary VPAF fighter pilot Colonel Tomb mentioned in many Western publications. During my visit to Vietnam I tried to find out about him, but it seems that he is, and was, only an imaginary figure. There are several reasons for this:

There were very few pilots in the VPAF and they knew each other very well either from their training courses abroad or from joint service in VPAF regiments. Both Nguyen Van Coc and Pham Tuan (decorated VPAF pilots) denied, in separate interviews, that they knew or had ever heard of “Colonel Tomb”.

There is no official record of a Colonel Tomb in VPAF files, and, if he really had 13 victories, the VPAF propaganda machine would certainly have used him.
In 1972 there were no active pilots with rank of Colonel in the VPAF.
No North Vietnamese pilot had 13 aerial victories as reported by western experts.
The name Tomb does not exist in the Vietnamese language, nor are there any similar sounding names.”
According to Toperczer, the “top-scoring" would be Nguyen Van Coc, with nine claimed kills, followed by Nguyen Hong Nhi and Mai Van Cuong, with 8 each.



Thanks,
- Lee Brimmicombe-Wood

[FLYBOYJ]

Great stuff Les!!!!

[evangilder]

For some reason I remember an interview I saw with Duke Cunningham and he mentioned a Colonel "Toon". I'll have to see if I can dig out that tape.

Great list, Les. Good to see someone took the time to grab all that info.

[lesofprimus]

Cunningham does mention it, and has mentioned it in several publications and interviews... I believe he was told about this "Tomb" character by some Intel meatball.....

Thanks evan.....

[evangilder]

Could be, he did seem a bit of an arrogant guy. I never met him in person, but he had more that the usual fighter pilot "I'm hot ****" vibe going on.