Greatest single pilot battles

Amazing story marshall even if it's not 100% corroborated.
This is the kind of story I would like to see on a well documented film.

marshall said:

...I wonder where are stories about Japanese pilots? It seems that there should be plenty, highly maneuverable planes though outclassed later in the war and Japanese spirit of fighting to the last drop of blood... Don't count on me I know almost nothing about Japanese air force of ww2.

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TomM said:

I've been looking for such.

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There is a famous story that my aged brain cells can only recall in its coarsest details about Saburo Sakai (from his autobiography: Zero!) about an occasion when he confronted a large number of F6F over Iwo Jima. (He had vision in only one eye as I recall from earlier wounds in 1942). I don't know how many he shot down but perhap a dozen F6Fs weren't able to shoot him down.
He survived the encounter and that seems a pretty amazing feat by itself.

I think part of the problem is that so many of their finest didn't survive the war to tell their stories, due to the lack of armor and perhaps the relatively low priority given to SAR ops. They certainly rescued their aviators when they could but they may simply not had the assets or operational circumstances that allowed them to do much in the way of SAR.

I read that 90% of all Japanese fighter pilots perished in the war.

just a small note by H Freys last claims are just that and not confirmed. remmber that JG 11 I and III gruppen with the Fw 190A-8 were making head on attacks and so close were the attacks that not even the wingman present could confirm his leaders victories, will not even discuss the freiburg/tony archivs as they are distrusting to some degree.

1) Nishizawa shortly before his death said to his commander that had shot down 86 aircrafts
2) Iwamoto, a 7 years combat veteran, claimed 202 kills, japanese historians propose around 80. In Philipines flew solo missions strafing american beeches. post war suffered greatly in the hands of occupation forces
3)28/8/42 saburo sakai intercepted a DC3.He saw a woman and a child through a window. He did not shoot the plane down
4)Sadaaki Akamatsu. An undisciplined wild man,a rebel, a non stop woman chaser,an alkoholik. And an amazing fighter pilot. a 6 year veteran , on 19/4/45 fought long against p51s of 45 american squadron flying a J2M and claimed 2.
On 29/5/45 using a A6M5 attacked alone 75 P51Ds (150 octane fuel,2000++ ps).Shot down a P51 and escaped .The victory is accepted even from the americans.
He was claiming to have downed between 260-350 kills ( depended on the levels of alkohol in his bloond) He is credited with 30++ kills
The myth says that entered combat drunk, and on another occasion wearing a kimono(!) having just returned from a brothel but propably are just myths.Survived the war but never the alkohol.
Japanese were not counting systymaticaly personal victories, believing unit succes was common effort. Its also true that many hided post war fearing american revenge measures . Still, survive many stories from their actions.
PS It is not a myth that Helmut Lipfert Scored his 190-191-192 kills in favor of a war corespondent and after consuming two botlles of wine! And then almost crashed demonstrating his victories over his airfield!

Erich said:

just a small note by H Freys last claims are just that and not confirmed. remmber that JG 11 I and III gruppen with the Fw 190A-8 were making head on attacks and so close were the attacks that not even the wingman present could confirm his leaders victories, will not even discuss the freiburg/tony archivs as they are distrusting to some degree.

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Mr Erich
Maby is true what you write but snce he deid during the mission and his comrades could not observe his attacks who made the claims on his behalf?

jim said:

1) Nishizawa shortly before his death said to his commander that had shot down 86 aircrafts
2) Iwamoto, a 7 years combat veteran, claimed 202 kills, japanese historians propose around 80. In Philipines flew solo missions strafing american beeches. post war suffered greatly in the hands of occupation forces
3)28/8/42 saburo sakai intercepted a DC3.He saw a woman and a child through a window. He did not shoot the plane down
4)Sadaaki Akamatsu. An undisciplined wild man,a rebel, a non stop woman chaser,an alkoholik. And an amazing fighter pilot. a 6 year veteran , on 19/4/45 fought long against p51s of 45 american squadron flying a J2M and claimed 2.
On 29/5/45 using a A6M5 attacked alone 75 P51Ds (150 octane fuel,2000++ ps).Shot down a P51 and escaped .The victory is accepted even from the americans.
He was claiming to have downed between 260-350 kills ( depended on the levels of alkohol in his bloond) He is credited with 30++ kills
The myth says that entered combat drunk, and on another occasion wearing a kimono(!) having just returned from a brothel but propably are just myths.Survived the war but never the alkohol.
Japanese were not counting systymaticaly personal victories, believing unit succes was common effort. Its also true that many hided post war fearing american revenge measures . Still, survive many stories from their actions.
PS It is not a myth that Helmut Lipfert Scored his 190-191-192 kills in favor of a war corespondent and after consuming two botlles of wine! And then almost crashed demonstrating his victories over his airfield!

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Jim - in American Fighter Aces USA by Toliver and Constable there are sections devoted to the Enemy Aces: There are several pages detailing the top Japanese Aces. Specific comments are made regarding the difficulty of clarifying claims versus awards because of the Japanese high command late in the war ordering the fighter pilots to destroy their logbooks and the units to destroy the squdron/wing records.. The Japanes Historians have consistently applied the rule of "divide by two" but that also is unsatisfactory. Nishizawa claimed 147 credits to his parents. Iwamoto's logbooks were recovered - totalling 202 victories -

We just will never know.

How bout Robin Olds shooting down an enemy fighter with both engines dead because he forgot to switch over his fuel tanks!

Arossihman said:

How bout Robin Olds shooting down an enemy fighter with both engines dead because he forgot to switch over his fuel tanks!

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Call that very lucky

Jim am not sure who is claiming except some RK winners LW books. in the exhausting JG 1/JG 11 book second volume by Prien, Freys kills are not listed at all the date of his death. again I point out the listing of claims versus the real truth of confirmed kills, same can be said of Marseilles fantastic day operations and others besides. the historical world thank GOD is getting smarter with more tech at their fingertips so we are no finally able to cross check with some accuracy at least with stepping up the pace instead of years and years of research.

E ~

Erich said:

Jim am not sure who is claiming except some RK winners LW books. in the exhausting JG 1/JG 11 book second volume by Prien, Freys kills are not listed at all the date of his death. again I point out the listing of claims versus the real truth of confirmed kills, same can be said of Marseilles fantastic day operations and others besides. the historical world thank GOD is getting smarter with more tech at their fingertips so we are no finally able to cross check with some accuracy at least with stepping up the pace instead of years and years of research.

E ~

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It appears that my books get gradually obselete as new evidence surface.
I bought recently a book that claims that Marseille had ,in worst case , 67 kills and in the best scenario no more than 121 kills. I prefer to believe Marseille and the members that witnessed his actions.in Septeber 42 he was a squadron leader and his actions were observed by many staffel members (who often were just supporting the master, not attacking the enemy themselfs!)
Mr Drgondog
You may be correct. The book i used was first published in 1998.(Though i bought it much later)

Jim - your book is one year newer than mine.

Note - The American Fighter Ace Association reached out to Germany, USSR, China, Nort Vietnam, etc to collaborate on credits and note the individual confirmation process, including US. The USAFHRC is the only source used by American Fighter Aces for US claim/credit validation. It does take under review new evidence.

I have three in review now - in which 355th pilots had mid air collisions that killed both combatants and were documented in KJ reports.

How about Erich Rudorffer flight on 9 Feb. 1943 when he proved he had mastered Marseille's "dive-and-zoom" attack on the Lufbery defense formation. His Staffel attacked 24 B17s (301st BG), 20 P38s (1st FG), 18 P40s, and a mix of Spitfires and possibly Hurricanes attacking his airfield that day. Erich, flying an FW190, repeatedly attacked a group of P40s that had formed a defensive "Lufbery" circle, and shot down six of them in about seven minutes. Then he dove on some P38s strafing below him, and shot down two of them. Erich would claim eight of his Gruppe's 16 victories that day.


Major Erich Rudorffer served with the Luftwaffe through the whole of World War II, and is the 7th most successful fighter pilot in the history. Rudorffer claimed a total of 222 victories, fighting in all the major German theaters of war, including the European and Mediterranean Theater of Operations and the Eastern Front. During the war he flew more than 1000 combat missions, was engaged in aerial combat over 300 times, was shot down by flak and enemy fighters 16 times and had to take to his parachute 9 times. His 222 aerial victories include 58 heavily armoured Il-2 Sturmovik ground attack aircraft. He was also responsible for sinking a British submarine.

The problem with Rudorffer is that he now and then overclaimed rather badly. In fact JG 2 seems ti have rather many optimistic claimer. On 9 Feb 43, in spite of that the 15 II./JG 2 claims were confirmed we know only 3 suitable allied losses, 3 P-40Fs of II/CG 5.

Juha

not to mention his claims in JG 7. Marseille seemed to be flying alone at times without a wingman who was involved in his own combats, I'll give him credit for maybe 100 mx.

popularity seems to have had it's privileges in the LW early in the war up till end of 43.

Would love to find out more of the detrails on confirming claims on the mentioned actions in this thread.

I have read the US claims were some of the worst. British I believe accepted 50% of US fighter claims, and 10% of those of US bombers for planning purposes. And many said that was too much!

Does'nt take too much imagination to visualize a large turning dogfight, a pilot landing solid hits on an enemy plane that then goes into a steep dive, the claiment pilot watches the falling plane briefly before turning to watching his ass for the next enemy plane. How many planes fell 5-10k feet, and then recovered to head home????

Hello Tom
IMHO in 8th FC claim accuracy was good, in MTO USAAF claims were generally more optimistic. RAF overclaimed badly in Channel Front in 41-42 but then put stricker control in force and their claim accuracy improved considerably. At least in LW and in Finnish AF much depended on pilots themselves, some were much more realistic in their claims than the most optimistic claimers. For ex. Rall, Galland, Lipfert and Barkhorn seemed to have been clearly more realistic claimers than for ex Rudorffer or Novotny at least early in his career.

Juha

USAAF FC credits to clams are much better than 50% based on continuous matching of existing LW loss records.

Where USAAF credits were often wrong is when a German fighter crash landed in the engagement, the credit was awarded but many of the crash landed aircraft were less than 60% damaged and considered salvagable. Otherwise credits were awarded on either combat film evaluation and/or witness and many claims for destruction were down graded to Probable or Damaged or 'no credit' simply because the aircraft was not seen to burn or explode, no major structural loss, no pilot bail out or even a burning ship disappeared from view.

As to RAF planners awarding 50% to 8th and 9th AF Fighter Command as a 'random' number for planning purposes - a.) they weren't planning USAAF missions, b.) they had no basis for any judgment whether 10% or 90%.

Bill, sorry if this is stupid, but I remember flying a scenario in a flight sim (CFS or EAW) that had IIRC two P-51s wade into a large force of LW fghters. Would this be one of the actions you previously mentioned?

My vote goes for Werner Voss from WWI.....

Werner Voss - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"After shooting down a No. 57 Squadron DH 4 bomber on 23 September, he went out on a further patrol and was engaged by six Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5s of the elite 56 Squadron. Voss fought a single-handed dogfight against several aces: Capt. James McCudden (57 victories), Lt. Richard Maybery (21), Lt. Geoffrey Hilton Bowman (32), Capt. Reginald Hoidge (28 ), Lt. Arthur Rhys Davids (23). Keith Muspratt (8 ) and Lt V.P. Cronyn, with Lt. Harold A. Hamersley (13) and Lt. Robert L. Chidlaw-Roberts (10) of 60 Squadron. The dogfight developed over Poelkapelle. Another German ace, Karl Menckhoff, attempted to assist Voss but was downed by Rhys-Davids, (though surviving). Voss fought the RFC aces for just 10 minutes, eluding them and achieving hits on SE5. Using the triplane's superior rate of climb and its ability to slip turn (using the rudder to turn quickly), Voss managed to evade his opponents. He was able to turn at high speeds and attack those behind him. After flying past McCudden in a head-on confrontation however, Voss's Fokker was hit with bullets on the starboard side by Hoidge. One round pierced his right side and passed through his lungs. Nearing death, Voss did not see Rhys-Davids approach from the 6 O'clock position, directly behind his tail.

Rhys-Davids got below him and poured two drums of Lewis fire into the underside of the triplane, then attacked again with both guns. The Fokker fell away, stalled and crashed into the British line. McCudden recalled:

"I saw him go into a fairly steep dive and so I continued to watch, and then saw the triplane hit the ground and disappear into a thousand fragments, for it seemed to me that it literally went into powder."

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Voss crashed near Plum Farm north of Frezenberg in Belgium. Only the rudder, cowling, and parts of the undercarriage were salvaged; the new type of aircraft was the subject of a intelligence report by 2nd Lieutenant G. Barfoot-Saunt.

One of the British pilots he fought that day, then-Captain James McCudden, a recipient of the Victoria Cross and who would become a leading English ace of the war, expressed sincere regret at Voss's death:

"His flying was wonderful, his courage magnificent and in my opinion he was the bravest German airman whom it has been my privilege to see fight."

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Lieutenant Arthur Rhys-Davids, who himself would fall in combat just one month later, had said to McCudden,

"If I could only have brought him down alive."

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Voss did much damage to B Flight of 56 Squadron ; Muspratt force-landed at No. 1 Squadron's aerodrome with a bullet in his radiator. Mayberry's SE5 was hit in the upper right hand longeron and badly damaged, force landing at St Marie Cappel. Hamersley and Chidlaw-Roberts' SE5s were badly damaged, whereas Hamersley's machine was eventually sent to No.1 Air Depot for repair. Cronyn's airplane was also damaged, as related in a letter he wrote to his father:

"After Mess I went up to the hangar to have a look at my machine. It was a write-off and no mistake. The right lower longeron had a bullet hole through it, while the left lower was nearly cut in two, either by "Archie" or bullets, but there was only about a quarter of an inch thickness left in one place, while about 18 inches further along three bullets had cut right through. The main spars were shot through, and one of the ribs of the tailplane was fractured, by the only bullet he had got into me while on or nearly on my tail. There were also several other bullet holes in wings and fuselage. Besides these few details, the machine was all OK! It was a miracle he didn't hit me in the engine. As a matter of fact he got one in my prop. I went to bed as soon as I had a good look over the machine, but could hardly sleep a wink. I just lay in bed perspiring, though it was quite a cold night."

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who can say what goes through Sim developer's minds Njaco.

There were several documented examples in just the 355th FG Histories where two to four guys attacked much larger forces.

Of the ones I threw on the wall, Henry Brown's action of attacking 5 Me 109s to drive them away from two of his squadron mates, then engaging in a turning fight trailing in the Lufberry and causing each one to drop out of the fight - with no ammo - rates pretty high on my list.

That ranks pretty high on the elephant balls scale in any man's air force (or navy).