Ace fighter pilots of WW2

Armyjaeger said:
Found this list while searching from google, quite an interesting read. Does anyone have something to add in, cos I thought soviets had more capable pilots than what this list shows but I dunno:roll:
Its amazing how many aces the germans had and yet they managed to lose the war :p

http://www.1000pictures.com/aircraft/aces.htm
Many of the German aces racked up a good portion of their kills on the Eastern Front, where for the first 2 years of war with the Soviet Union they dominated the skies. This, and the fact that the Soviet Airforce, the VVS, was heavily geared towards providing CAS for the Red Army, may explain the lower than expected kills of the leading Soviet Aces.

Some of the German aces though really were aces. Erich Hartmann was as good a fighter pilot who's ever lived. Not mentioned in the list is Hans Ulrich Rudel, a Stuka pilot who had nearly 2000 confirmed ground kills, including 519 tanks and the Soviet Battleship 'October Revolution'. I have nothing but the highest regard for this outstanding man, who truly lived life to the full.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Hans-Ulrich+Rudel

The Luftwaffe aces managed to rack up their kills, despite the Luftwaffe in the last 2 years of war being short on fuel, being overwhelmed by Allied numbers and performing operations that it had never been originally trained or designed to do.
 
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one of the most unusual aces in this list is Douglas Bader...for the british commonwealth.

Why is he unusual? because he made all of his wartime kills..flying the plane with artifical limbs for his legs.

a little known fact was that if he had had his regular legs instead of his artifical ones...he would not have been able to bail out of his fighter when he was shot down by the germans. seems his legs were trapped by twisted pieces of the dash...and he had to unstrap them to get loose.

when he was in german prison camps..he tried to escape many times. so many times that in exasperation the germans would take away his artifical legs to keep him around..sort of. :bang:

a most unusual ace indeed :salute2:
 
Mark Conley said:
one of the most unusual aces in this list is Douglas Bader...for the british commonwealth.

Why is he unusual? because he made all of his wartime kills..flying the plane with artifical limbs for his legs.

a little known fact was that if he had had his regular legs instead of his artifical ones...he would not have been able to bail out of his fighter when he was shot down by the germans. seems his legs were trapped by twisted pieces of the dash...and he had to unstrap them to get loose.

when he was in german prison camps..he tried to escape many times. so many times that in exasperation the germans would take away his artifical legs to keep him around..sort of. :bang:

a most unusual ace indeed :salute2:

Amazing. Did he lose his legs while serving, or did he begin the war with artificial legs?
 
There were other disabled pilots. For example Hans Ulrich Rudel lost a leg and Saburo Sakai lost one eye and much of the vision in his good eye and still managed to keep flying.
 
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