Ace's of WWII
During the aerial battles in the skies some of the brave , talented and highly skilled fighter pilots reached A elite status of "Ace".
World was II lasted for several years ,,,from the moment the German forces invaded Poland to the fall of Berlin and the final unconditional surrender of all German forces. For the German pilot this was about 6 years of flying ..as well as the time some had spent in Spain before WWII assisting in the civil war there ...In the beginning and during the fight the Germans proved to be far better than their adversaries mainly because they had the much vaunted bf-109 witch totally outclassed their opponents planes .It wasn't until the Battle of Britain that the Germans met their match in the equally legendary Spitfire....it's a little known fact that the Hawker Hurricanes shot down 3/4 off all German aircraft during the battle .But the unstablizing effect of the Spits on the Germans was apparent.
As the was progressed and the German war machine Launched its invasion of the U.S.S.R they still enjoyed a technical superiority to the Russian early planes and not until the Yak-9 did they become equal with the 109's . In the African front the Luftwaffe had training and experience as we'll as that the allies were still fielding mostly P-40's and Hurricane's with a few Spits.
Then in 1942 the Germans introduced the FW-190 series and not until the advent of better American fighters like the P-38 series & P-47 series and the British Merlin equipped P-51 did the allies gain the upper hand . But by then the allies had such numerical superiority that all the German training and experience could only prove to slow down the inevitable defeat of the Luftwaffe.
The Pacific theater produced the number one Ace of the war for the USA Mjr. Richard Bong (40 kills)flying his Lockheed P38-J Lightning . As is the begining of the Eroupain war the allies were outmatched by the Axis planes ,,I use the term Axis losley , the Japanse and the Germans were odd bedfellows And it's obvious ultierior motives were responable for the Allinece between them .The fact that Hitler Declared War on the United States after the Pearl Harbor attack of Dec 7 1941 due to the allance between the Germans and Japan, was a gift to the allies and assured self destruction of the Riech. Britain was on her kness at this time the only thing that saved her from invasion was the might of the Royal Navy and the Greman Lack of anny navy to get thier landing craft safely across the English Chennel and their mauling at the hands of the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Aslo Americas public opinion's reluctance to break it's nurality and fight for it's ally Britain had left the situation very grave. It's has been said that Rosevelt and Churchhill both knew of the planned attack of Pearl Horbor weeks ahead of time via British intellegince.....
The Japanese also had training and experanice that the allied pilots did not posses at the beginging of the war except for the "Flying Tigers " no US personel were trained at air combat The Flying Tigers did produce Maj.Gregory Boyington (28kills) ex-Flying Tiger and Marine Corp's Chance-Vought F4U-4 Corsair Ace. As the war progressed the Might of the US industry began to roll out bigger and faster planes than the Japanes could cope with .The Japanese did have Hiroyoshi Nishizawanese (90+ kills ) The Gremans did send the plans for thier fuel injucted bf109 engines to Japan as well as some technicail advisors and the production of the ki-51 "tony" was the only in-lined powered Japanse fighter of the war. It was said to be a capable fighter during the mid and late war years ..allthough the best Japananese fighter has been said to be the excellent Nakajima KI-84 Hayate "Frank".
As you will see their are many more German aces than any other . The legendary reputation of the Luftwaffe was well deserved
One thing to be noted is that German Like the Japanese pilots were to valuable to be "sent home" after a tour of duty. Their "tour of duty" lasted the whole war.... Therefore there were many German ace's who racked up over 100 kills ..some of the figures of the top German ace's are staggering..The commander of the Luftwaffe...Adoulph Galland credited with 103 kills ..flew till the end of the was and was in command of a 262 squadron before he was wounded in action by a diving p-47.
Also if you look at the German ace's page you will see that around 90% of them were either killed in action (KIA)or missing in action (MIA) . And if you look you will notice that the top 3 German ace's Erich Hartman , Gerhard Barkthorn, & Guther Rall all survived the war! These guys were ether very good or had a horseshoe up their ass....hehe
As for the Allied pilots their skill and determination can not be denied ..Since most only had to fly 1 tour and not every one of of them singed up for 2nd or 3rd tours of duty..( all though more than a few did),their kill amounts were not as high as the Axis forces . If they all ahd flow the whole war or until their deaths like the Germans,,I'm sure they would produce some very talented ace's and rack up large amounts of kills also ..but they would also suffer the almost total attrition of pilots that the Germans did
Although many pilots & crews doing more hazardous jobs like bombing and reconnaissance never received the attention that many of the fighter pilots were adorned with ,,they truly deserve as much admiration as their fellow pilots do.