Flying ace
- See also: List of World War II air aces
In World War II, many air forces adopted the British practice of crediting fractional shares of aerial victories, resulting in fractions or decimal scores, such as 11½ or 26.83. Some U.S. commands also credited aircraft destroyed on the ground as equal to aerial victories. The Soviets distinguished between solo and group kills, as did the Japanese, though the IJN stopped crediting individual victories in 1943. The Luftwaffe continued the tradition of "one pilot, one kill", and now referred to top scorers as experten.[4]
The Soviet Air Force had the world's only female aces. During World War II, Lydia Litvyak scored 12 victories and Katya Budanova achieved 11.
The huge tallies accrued by German World War II aces are partly explained by the Luftwaffe's technical and tactical superiority over the Allies during the first half of the war. Many kills were over obsolescent aircraft and against either poorly-trained or inexperienced pilots fielded by the Allies, especially the Soviets. In addition, Luftwaffe pilots generally flew many more sorties (sometimes up to 1000 operations) than their Allied counterparts. Additionally, national policies differed; Axis pilots tended to return to the cockpit over and over again until killed, captured or incapacitated, while very successful Allied pilots were either progressively promoted to ranks and positions that involved less combat flying, or routinely rotated back to training bases to educate cadet flyers, to equip younger pilots with valuable combat knowledge from the experienced aces to survive battle and improve the overall fighting ability of the aerial fighter force. Having said all this - in spite of theoretically very stringent criteria for crediting "kills" in the Luftwaffe it has to be said that some German claims were over-optimistic (see next section).
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Accuracy
Realistic assessment of enemy casualties is important for intelligence purposes[5] - so most air forces expend considerable effort to ensure accuracy in victory claims. Despite this, very few recognized aces actually shot down as many aircraft as credited to them. The primary reason for inaccurate victory claims is the inherent confusion of three-dimensional, high speed combat between large numbers of aircraft, but competitiveness and the desire for recognition (not to mention sheer optimistic enthusiasm) also figure in certain inflated claims, especially when the attainment of a specific total is required for a particular decoration or promotion. Consequently, errors of 50 to 100% and more are common in air victory claims. In World War II, the aircraft gun camera came into general usage, partly in hope of alleviating inaccurate victory claims. In the Korean War, both the U.S. and Communist air arms claimed a 10 to 1 victory-loss ratio.
The most accurate figures usually belong to the air arm fighting over its own territory, where many wrecks can be located, and even identified, and where shot down enemy are either killed or captured. It is for this reason that at least 76 of the 80 planes credited to Manfred von Richthofen can be tied to known British losses — the German Jagdstaffeln flew defensively, on their own side of the lines, in part due to General Hugh Trenchard's policy of offensive patrol. During the 1939-45 conflict night fighter claims (where one fighter would usually detect and attempt to shoot down one bomber aircraft at a time) avoided the confusion of the classic day dogfight to a great extent, and proved among the most reliable and verifiable.
On the other hand, losses (especially in terms of aircraft as opposed to personnel) are sometimes reported inaccurately, for various reasons. Nearly 50% of RAF victories in the Battle of Britain, for instance, do not tally statistically with recorded German losses - but some at least of this apparent over-claiming can be tallied with known wrecks, and aircrew known to have been in British POW camps. [6] There are in fact a number of legitimate reasons why reported losses may be understated - including poor reporting procedures and loss of records due to enemy action or wartime confusion.
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Ace in a day
The term "ace in a day" is used to designate a fighter pilot who has shot down five or more airplanes in a single day. The most notable is Hans-Joachim Marseille of Germany, who was credited with downing 17 Allied fighters in just three sorties over North Africa on September 1, 1942, during World War II. The highest number aerial victories for a single day was claimed by Emil Lang, who claimed 18 Soviet fighters on November 3, 1943. Erich Rudorffer is credited with the destruction of 13 aircraft in a single mission on October 11, 1943. Numerous other Luftwaffe pilots also claimed the title during World War II.
On December 5, 1941, the leading Australian ace of World War II, Clive Caldwell, destroyed five German aircraft in the space of a few minutes, also in North Africa. He received a Distinguished Flying Cross for the feat.
During World War II, 68 U.S. pilots—43 Army Air Forces, 18 Navy, and seven Marine Corps—were credited the feat, including David McCampbell, who claimed seven Japanese planes shot down on June 19, 1944 (during the "Marianas Turkey Shoot"), and nine in a single mission on October 24, 1944. Others included Joe Foss, Chuck Yeager and Oscar Francis Perdomo, the last US "ace in a day"[7].
Other pilots to have claimed "ace in a day" status during World War II include Antoni Glowacki of Poland, during the Battle of Britain, and Jorma Sarvanto of Finland, during the Winter War. Captain Hans Wind of HLeLv 24, Finnish Air Force, scored five kills in a day a remarkable five times during the Soviet Summer Offensive 1944, a total of 30 kills in 12 days, of his final tally of 75.
The last pilot credited with this feat was Pakistani F-86 pilot Squadron Leader Muhammad Mahmood Alam, during the 1965 war with India. During the war, he downed nine Hawker Hunters of the Indian Air Force in a single day, four of them reportedly within less than a minute.[8]
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See also
- List of World War II aces by country
- List of Spanish Civil War air aces
- List of Korean War air aces
- List of Vietnam War flying aces
- List of flying aces in Arab-Israeli wars
- List of U-boat aces ("Aces of the Deep")
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References
- ^ [http://web.westernfrontassociation.com/thegreatwar/articles/individuals/mannock.htm Dr David Payne (no date), "Major 'Mick' Mannock, VC: Top Scoring British Flying Ace in the Great War". (Western Front Association website.)
- ^ Payne, ibid.
- ^ Payne, ibid.
- ^ For the award of decorations, the Germans initiated a points system to equal up achievements between the aces flying on the Eastern front with those on other, more demanding, fronts: one for a fighter, two for a twin-engine bomber, three for a four-engine bomber; night victories counted double; Mosquitoes counted double, due to the difficulty of bringing them down. See Johnson, J. E. "Johnnie", Group Captain, RAF. Wing Leader (Ballantine, 1967), p.264.
- ^ The classic instance of this is the catastrophic failure of German intelligence to accurately assess RAF losses during the Battle of Britain - due (in large part anyway) to wild over-claiming by German fighter pilots
- ^ Lake P 122
- ^ Americas Defense
- ^ M M Alam - Pakistan's Fighter Ace
- Hobson, Chris. Vietnam Air Losses, USAF, USN, USMC, Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast Asia 1961–1973. North Branch, Minnesota: Specialty Press, 2001. ISBN 1-85780-1156.
- Lake, John The Battle of Britain London, Amber Books 2000 ISBN 1-85605-535-3
- Stenman, Kari and Keskinen, Kalevi. Finnish Aces of World War 2, Osprey Aircraft of the Aces, number 23. London: Osprey Publishing. 1998. ISBN 952-5186-24-5.
- Toliver & Constable. Horrido!: Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe (Aero 1968)
- Toperczer, Istvan. MIG-17 and MIG-19 Units of the Vietnam War. Osprey Combat Aircraft, number 25. (2001).
- _________. MIG-21 Units of the Vietnam War. Osprey Combat Aircraft, number 29. (2001).
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External links
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