Otto Kittel was the highest-rated German fighter ace that died in combat, after being shot down by a Sturmovik gunner in February 1945. Discussions on the personalities of the Wehrmacht and of the organizations not covered in the other sections. After completing his pilot training in June 1942, he went to get licensed on June 15, only to discover he had no birth certificate. He flew 621 combat missions and earned 275 aerial victories in total. ISBN: 0811731774 ISBN13: 9780811731775 Luftwaffe Aces: German Combat Pilots of WWII (Part of the Stackpole Military History Series) by Franz Kurowski See Customer Reviews Select Format Paperback $8.49 - $8.89 Select Condition Like New Unavailable Very Good Unavailable Good $8.89 Acceptable $8.49 New Unavailable See 1 Edition from $8.49 Recommended forever. No one would try to compare a Mickey Mantle to a "Home Run" The Zerstrer (destroyer) pilots suffered . YOU have to show what you're made of as the war over Europe is in full swing. And that suggested a possible Br fought on all major German theaters of war he flew missions on the Mediterranean, Eastern and Western fronts with a total score of more than a thousand flights. [5], Formal and informal Luftwaffe practices also contributed to the high numbers of victories achieved by some pilots. They always told us dont go head on with the Japanese because they might head in to you. Document 51. Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe in World War II Kindle Edition by Philip Kaplan (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 16 ratings Kindle $1.99 Read with Our Free App Hardcover $20.79 9 Used from $13.01 4 New from $23.68 This book examines the reality behind the myths of the legendary German fighter aces of World War II. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. He served in all theaters of war, since the very start in Poland. by ManwithaFineMoustache 18 Jun 2016, 02:20, Return to The Dieter Zinke Axis Biographical Research Section. "When you dance with death, you wait until the song ends.". trained Russian fliers went up in poorly made aircraft. [1] It is relatively certain that 2,500 German fighter pilots attained ace status, having achieved at least five aerial victories. Google Analytics campaign and traffic source tracking cookie. U.S. aces of World War Two achieved twenty or more; one of them, Major Richard Bong, shot down 40 by William R. Hawkins January 9, 2023. season), that difference merited baseball's most famous asterisk. Of the 77 remaining Aces still alive, the oldest Ace is 104 years old and the youngest Ace is 72. beginning in Korea, airplanes became much larger, much more complex, Prior to the war, Graf was a football player and a glider pilot-enthusiast. number of airplanes. But it was Galland who was the star attraction. He survived the Soviet POW camps and returned to Germany. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. pilots of WW2 scored so high" is an interesting question. 258. Hosted by askropp and Frech. And there was the daring Hrabak, 72, who claimed 125 aerial victories flying with Rall against the Russians. rather than 162. Once we got the runway ready, theyd bring the airplanes over every morning for the training.. by HT 26 Sep 2004, 06:24, Post by Erich Sat Sep 28, 2002 2:04 pm, Post the so-called "dead ball" with a livelier ball, and the game changed This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 09:35. Rall suffered minor injuries which included his left thumb being shot off. Several of them shot down more than 200 Allied I just shot them down. Nikola Budanovic is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE. No rotation home for training duty. They show that although the Luftwaffe generally did not accept a "kill" without a witness (in which instance it was considered only a probable and didn't count in the victory scoring process), some pilots habitually submitted unwitnessed claims and these sometimes made it through the verification process, particularly if they were made by pilots with established records. Each claim should have referred to a particular aircraft, but some victories were awarded to other pilots who had claimed the destruction of the same aircraft. two Iraqi aircraft. air) was one of quality vs. quantity. Este sitio utiliza diferentes tipos de cookies. I followed him down into the clouds, we were in a mountainous area, and I didnt remember how big the mountains were, so I pulled back up. He blasted 275 planes out of the skies during the war and ultimately was hired as an adviser to Lockheed Corp. to head development of the F-104 fighter. I'd still say Hiroyoshi Nishizawa was the greatest though. A flying ace or fighter ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. 84, 85) published an article "Sons duty" about Leonid Godovikov's work on the biography of his father, Alexe y Godovikov. I asked God to let me be the last one, said Aust, now 97. MiGs." The second semester, I got a job sweeping the library and that paid me $12 a month, said Aust. U.S. had one or two aces. Marseilles' wartime exploits are legendary with the 158 aerial victories, including 17 in one day. The first came on June 22, 1941, during the opening of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. air support, not long range strategic bombing. This is an apolitical forum for discussions on the Axis nations and related topics hosted by the Axis History Factbook in cooperation with Christian Ankerstjernes Panzerworld and Christoph Awender's WW2 day by day. Messerschmitt Bf 109, the backbone of the Luftwaffe fighter force in World War II. reserves of manpower, raw materials, and industrial goods (both from Nine more victories were attributed to him on the Western Front, eight of which were achieved flying the Me 262 jet fighter. Met them yesterday : I don't see RKT und DKiGT Johann (Hans) Stollnberger on the list. Two aircraft were the backbone of the Luftwaffe fighter force . He survived the war as a Me 262 fighter pilot with 208 certified aerial victories and 33 more possible, in total, in his 375 combat missions. This page intentionally left blank PREFACE This document has been created to illustrate my interest in the Second World War and of what can be achieved in the Adobe Creative From a list of Luftwaffe KC winners with 5 or more kills here are the ones my data base shows as still alive as of March 2002. In 1945, he was stationed in Hungary. himself sixteen times. XCLOSE. On one occasion, in 1941, he claimed that he had sunk a British submarine near the Isle of Portland, but the Royal Navy claimed otherwise. Las cookies son pequeos archivos de texto que los sitios web pueden utilizar para hacer que la experiencia del usuario sea ms eficiente. profile illustrations of the planes, as flown by individual pilots at by Panzerass Mon Jul 07, 2003 3:33 am, Post He and other student pilots decided to build their own runway that would make way for the instructor planes to come over from the airfield at Greenwood, Mississippi. What if some hitters faced minor league pitchers while others faced Post It covers Hartmann and his fellow Bf-109 pilots who flew on the Eastern Front; ten of whom shot down more than 200 aircraft. Roughly 12,000 German day fighter pilots were killed or are still missing in action, with a further 6,000 being wounded. The High Command later called him to fill in the ranks, for the war was rapidly approaching its end. Weissenberger claimed his first victory on the skies over Norway against the RAF on October 24, 1941. Its visuals are sub-par, with overly simple character and vessel designs, minimal animation . He joined the Wehrmacht in 1935 and served as an anti-aircraft gunner in the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War. The Zerstrer (destroyer) pilots suffered about 2,800 casualties, either killed or missing in action, plus another 900 wounded in action. Fonck, 80 and 75. The Signatures. More than 300 of his flights included combat. After a two-year stint in a postwar prison camp, he wrote his memoirs and became a successful aerospace industrialist. Perhaps it is America's obsession with records and statistical achievement. The list has 539 people that won the KC and had 5 kills or more. That is a good advantage for a fighter pilot. Fighter Ace Hans-Joachim Marseille Marseille was nicknamed "Star of Africa" thanks to his aerial battles at the North African campaign. There just weren't that many of them in the air. His fellow pilots reported that Ehrler took the job with apathy as the once glorious triumphs of the Luftwaffe deteriorated to suicide missions by the end of the war. So many years after that war, the survivors of that horror and those who fought in it are fewer and fewer and very old. Message forum of the Feldgrau.com research community, Post It was just a business your people and our people had to do.. Top. They were killed in action in the Battle of Britain on the same day, 7 September 1940. scores came together for German Luftwaffe pilots on the Russian Front. Los Angeles, A $150,000 executive protection dog? I can find nothing on the gent. Our intention is not to glorify war; we know exactly how terrible war is, Galland told the crowd. Game and Legal Info. It's reasonable to predict that we will never see another Combat flying is based on the slashing attack and rough maneuvering. The author of this blog is not responsible for the use and purposes that Feedburner gives the data provided. Eight of the officers shown here accounted for a total of 1,486 aerial kills. The top Luftwaffe aces of WW2, with over 170 aerial He was presented with the award by Adolf Hitler himself. When I rolled overwe went in at about 12,000 feetthe sky was black with it. Defenders of the German fighter pilots maintain that overclaims were eliminated during the confirmation process, but the microfilms show that this wasn't always the case. ACES OF THE LUFTWAFFE - SQUADRON is an action-packed, vertically scrolling shoot 'em up with a captivating and fully voiced narrative. Would the MiGs be flying on a given day? Luftwaffe's ability to turn out large numbers of well-trained pilots First, ACEs are incredibly common67 percent (2 out of 3 people) of the study population had at least one ACE and 13 percent (1 out of 8 people) of the population had four or more ACEs. The only laws of matter are those our mind must fabricate,And the only laws of mind are fabricated by matter. I always began my attacks from full strength, if possible, my ideal flying height being 22,000 ft because at that altitude I could best utilize the performance of my aircraft. When these guys are gone, theyre all gone.. One of them, Erich Hartmann, destroyed 352 Russian planes. by Ingo 26 Sep 2004, 09:33, Post Receive the free daily newsletter in your email: The mail subscription service to Counting Stars will allow you to receive in your mailbox a daily email with the new posts published in this blog. He died in a car crash during a racing incident on June 11th, 1950 in Nurburgring. "For now, our single purpose is to get as many of these living Aces as possible to Washington, D.C. for this . The Ace Fighter cult came to prominence during the First World War, which was the first conflict that utilized the use of aircraft in a larger scale. and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.