Late War German vs Japanese Pilot Quality

DarrenW said:

I'm trying to quantify in some way why it's often said on this forum and elsewhere that by 1944 a 'kill' in the Pacific theater was on average easier to obtain (not that I feel one way or the other). Outside of the ill-trained and equipped Kamikaze, were the Japanese that far behind in ability when compared to their German counterparts?

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For most air forces, the "kill" system wasn't particularly fair - a victory over an enemy ace following a 20 minute bare-knuckles dogfight gets counted the same as the more typical scenario - a successful "bounce" attack against an average pilot who never saw what hit him. Kill stats have to be taken with a grain of salt, there are plenty of excellent pilots who only scored 1-2 kills due to lack of targets (typical for US pilots in late 1944-45) as well as highly skilled ground attack pilots who should be counted as aces due to the number of aircraft they destroyed on the ground, usually braving heavy AAA fire in the process. There are also plenty of cases where seemingly "confirmed" kills turn out to be false (The pilot of a "killed" airplane is able to recover his plane and return to base), as well as situations where "probable" kills are only confirmed years or decades after the fact by historians and archeologists.

The meat behind the argument that it was easier to get kills in the Pacific vs. the ETO is this:

Most of the kills the USN scored in the Pacific in 1944-45 were in defensive battles - CAP flights protecting the US Fleet. USN pilots were often directed to their targets by fighter control, didn't have to spend that much time in the air, and engaged their targets in better, warmer, weather conditions. Kamikazes often didn't maneuver, or couldn't maneuver due to bomb loads, and usually came in at 10-15k feet ASL. Pilots who were shot down had a pretty good chance of being rescued - either by surface ships or submarines on rescue duty. And, although they had to ditch or bail out over water, at least the water was warm (waters around Japan excepted). Downed airmen could survive for days in the water, or weeks if they could make it into a life raft. They might be in terrible shape at the end of their ordeal, but at least they were alive. Pilots who spent less than 24 hours in the water had a pretty good chance of returning to their units.

By comparison, USAAF pilots in the ETO were usually flying long-range strike or escort missions. If assigned as scouts ahead of the bomber formation, or as escorts, they had to fly near the same heights as the bombers - 20-25k ASL and flew missions which stretched the endurance of their aircraft - sometimes 8 or more hours in the cockpit. They didn't have fighter control to guide them to targets. The European weather was often very bad and very cold - especially in winter. German flak was plentiful, accurate, and especially murderous around the airfields which were the targets of "ramrod" fighter strikes. German fighters were guided to their targets by more or less accurate ground control. German pilots could and did maneuver, and were usually armed with weapons designed to destroy bombers, meaning that they had the potential to destroy a fighter with just a couple of cannon shell hits. Allied pilots who bailed out over Germany were lucky to be captured by the military rather than beaten to death by enraged civilians. Those who bailed out over water or ditched faced slim odds of rescue from the North Sea or English Channel, particularly in winter. (By 1944-45, there was a decent ASR system in place, but they had a lot of ocean to cover and a man can die of hypothermia after just a few minutes in very cold water.)

That's not to say that US pilots in the PTO or CBI didn't face skilled opponents and difficult conditions, USAAF and USN fighter pilots doing fighter sweeps or bomber escort missions over Japan or occupied China faced conditions very similar to those found in the ETO. The Japanese in China and in the Home Islands had some excellent planes and a few highly skilled veterans mixed in among the rookies, their flak was pretty good, and any pilot captured by the Japanese faced a horrific fate.

My impression is that both the German and Japanese air forces crumbled about as quickly and for the same reasons - attrition of skilled pilots, lack of fuel, and progressive resource starvation due to bombing and other factors. Both Germany and Japan had excellent pre-war pilot training programs which were designed to produce smaller cadres of highly-trained career pilots. For various reasons, they couldn't or didn't adapt their programs to produce massive numbers of "good enough" pilots like the Allies did.

In addition to counting the hours of flight instruction, you also have to look at hours spent on other aspects of combat flying - like gunnery and navigation. Gunnery training for most air forces was pretty bad, but by 1944 neither Germany or Japan had the resources to properly train their fighter pilots in the art of deflection shooting, much less aerial tactics or advanced combat maneuvers. When you consider that just 10% of all WW2 fighter pilots got a single confirmed kill, and just 1-2% got multiple kills, you can see just how bad the situation was!

Not only the fuel to be used for training was in the Luftwaffe extremely scarce, but so were the training airplanes, being factories stretched to the limits for the production of fighting models. So, after 8th Sept. 1943 Luftwaffe put eagerly their hands not only to very valuable Italian airplanes like SM-82, but also to training tipes, of wich there was in Italy a certain number.

For what it's worth I spent a couple years of my life researching matters relating to land and air war in the Pacific. (Touched with Fire; Fire in the Sky.) So I certainly ran into the questions concerning the Japanese situation. Let's start with one comment - whenever you start looking at subjects that have large numbers attached, you're going to be dealing with estimates. What were Japanese air losses? You can find several figures but they are almost certainly from the Strategic Bombing Survey. Almost all of the SBS reports were written by Japanese officers, but many were based on estimates or even guesstimates. Some smaller campaigns have contemporary records and those are more accurate: Jon Lundstrom's "First Team" books give you a very precise picture of the air war in the Pacific from Midway to the end of Guadalcanal. Lundstrom once told me that he couldn't carry the story farther because the number of aircraft involved began to skyrocket after Guadalcanal. So cross your fingers. Concerning Japan:
1. There is no question pilot quality was going down by January 1943. The cream of Japanese Naval Aviation (always considered better than the JAAF by US pilots) was mauled during Guadalcanal and during the tense and large battles during the New Georgia campaign. In the fall of 43 the IJN sent their next generation carrier pilots to Rabaul where half of them died in about six weeks. When they were withdrawn, the air war in the Solomons basically ended. When the IJN pulled pilots out of a theater it was go give several hundred intensive training and thus rebuild their carrier air groups that had been decimated in the carrier battles and then over Guadalcanal. Admiral Ugaki (Yamamoto's chief of staff - in the second plane destroyed by US fighters in April 43) wrote in the summer of 43 that Japan's growing collapse in the Solomons was largely because of the declining quality of IJN pilots. American observers often commented on the IJ decline in the Solomons and also in New Guinea. The first generation US fighters - Wildcat and P40 - gradually gained a favorable kill ratio over IJ aircraft by early 43.
2. Japanese industry was not deep and modern aircraft pushed it beyond its limits. They had fine aviation engineers, but building reliable engines over a certain size was a never ending problem. That's why both the Zero and Oscar were the most numerous aircraft for both services in 1945. Neither could match the second generation US fighters (P-38, Corsair, Hellcat) and by 1944 the US increasingly had superiority in numbers. Japan was in a downward spiral which was graphically illustrated during the Turkey Shoot and in the 5th AF mega raids against IJAAF fields on New Guinea. (No wonder that the P-38 aces got such big scores. The Japanese Army sent a sizeable force to NG and kept them up to strength for a few months, (stripping China and Manchuria to do it). A P40 could handle an Oscar - a P38 was a serious mismatch especially as US pilots had better training. They also used better tactics. The weakness in Japanese industry meant that no really good second generation fighters were fielded in large numbers. Planes like the Tony, Frank, George and Jack were all hangar queens. (When we captured Clark field there were nearly 200 IJ planes grounded for the lack of very simple repairs or parts. A similar situation was seen at Atsugi after the surrender.) The quality of the planes did improve as the war went along, but no IJ plane had reliability rates that would have been accepted by the US. Part of the problem was ground crew. Very few Japanese in the 1930s drove or used machinery powered by internal combustion. This meant that ground crew were often simply following instructions when servicing planes without really understanding what they were doing. The opposite was true in the US. On these matters the Germans were in much better shape. German ground crew were pretty good - but going down because air bases became prime targets for Jabo attacks in both East and West. Planes like the Dora, or any of the late model FW190s or 109s were better than Japanese counterparts and they could stay in the air, although by 1945 the airfield attacks were decreasing the ability of the LW to operate at will.
2. Training. Well, why didn't the Japanese simply train a lot more pilots? They did. But because of growing US superiority there was a constant call for replacements. The Japanese had already seen that their prewar standards had been too high. Because they aimed for high quality the training infrastructure was very small and had to be increased - which took exactly the people you wanted at the front. In any case, the number of hours flown went down steadily. Similar problems were facing the LW when the Red AF fielded fine fighters after 43 and the US brought over the P-51 and P-38L. (The Jug was a fierce plane, but was hampered by a lack of range after D-Day when the fight moved over Germany. 8th AF only kept Jugs for the Wolfpack. All other groups flew 51s.) Galland discusses this problem in his memoir. Both Germany and Japan suffered from growing shortages of petrol. By late 44 you didn't have adequate fuel to give young pilots their 100 hours. Years back I had a talk with a prof who had flown for the LW in 1945. He said US fighter pilots treated the LW pilots like "the children we were." (He was also grateful for the P51 pilot that wounded him and got him out of action: he was certain death was coming quickly.) Another quality/quantity spiral. Also the obvious explanation for the kill totals of the LW "Experten" - an allied pilot could fly for weeks and never see a German fighter. If a German pilot wanted to find allied planes, that was one task easily accomplished - a "target rich environment" for those alive to fly in it. Ditto for late war IJ pilots. Some late war home defense squadrons did very well because the HQ made sure they had a good supply of everything required so their planes were reasonably reliable and got support. There were also only a handful of these squadrons. And even the best were mauled by the P51s as they came into the PTO.
3. Kill ratios in the PTO would have been higher for US pilots because they had so many advantages. The Japanese, for instance, never developed a sophisticated air defense system. But we must remember that "kills" are tricky matters. One USN ace told me that after coming back from the sorties during the Turkey Shoot there was a rush by pilots to get to the squadron intelligence officer. And confirming a kill over water is even harder than over land. I do not confirm the claim, but USAF pilots were very suspicious of the claims made by the USN carrier pilots. And when you start seeing claims of 10-1 kill ratios of one plane over another, you should be suspicious too. In any major air engagement a mistake could cost any pilot their life. The Japanese and Germans had fine pilots to the end and the US had many well trained but poor pilots in the air. The air war in WWII was never a joust and it was never fought without cost. This was especially true if US fighters engaged in ground attack - this was a much more dangerous task in either theater than fighter escort/sweeps.
4. A lot of research has been done on Kamikazes. I think the post above that claims 10,000 trained and 60% killed is pretty close - I've read casualties of about 50%. Every week the war went on, more potential Kamikaze pilots were trained. So, ironically, you were safe in the Kamikaze corps than in a German submarine. What a war.

I gave you a Bacon above, but I must disagree about Navy claims. In the ETO, there were thousand-plane raids, with 1,000 bombers escorted by 700 - 800 fighters. Keeping track of that is nearly impossible for one person or maybe even several people trying to do that and nothing more.

In the PTO, on the other hand, you have a lot of 4-on-4, or 4-on-8, or 8-on-8 clashes. Rarely were there more airplanes over water since nearly all came from carriers, at least in Naval battles. It is MUCH easier to track that many than the numerically-large raids in the ETO, and Navy pilots were mostly concerned with only a fighter pair or perhaps 4 planes at most on your own side. Others may come up in your vision, but you can safely ignore friendlies (most of the time, anyway).

I trust Navy claims a LOT more than USAAF claims because of the generally much lower numbers of planes involved in any particular action. It is natural for USAAF pilots to doubt the Navy. Interservice rivalry is a fact of life. But keeping track of Naval engagements is more than an order of magnitude easier in many cases; certainly not all as there were 4-on-4 or at least few-on few encounters in the ETO, too. Just not nearly as many as in the PTO. Usually, when the Germans scrambled, it was after a bomber stream, not a flight of 4 fighters. The ETO was a target-rich environment. It was not uncommon in the Navy to fly CAP for an entire cruise and never SEE a Japanese plane.

The ocean is a BIG place when you are in a fighter cockpit. Ask ANY Naval aviator who is even momentarily lost.

I appreciate the insightful information shared thus far, and I can now see that the Luftwaffe definitely had a couple more "tricks up their sleeves" than either the Japanese IJN or IJAAF were able to offer. So in reality it really wasn't the German or Japanese pilot flying the airplane, as they were for the most part on par with one another, but rather the many other variables factored in which made things seem a bit more dicey in the ETO. The Nazi air defense system was probably the biggest reason for the disparity, with radar and early warning systems far in advance of Japanese technology of the time, which made survival from flak and interceptors extremely problematic.

I can also see that it's hard to compare apples to apples when speaking of the PTO vs ETO as both theaters had their own unique challenges that had to be dealt with. I really wouldn't want to be forced to pick between floating in a life raft a thousand mile from nowhere in shark infested waters, or dangling from a chute deep in enemy territory, hoping that you'd get down in time to evade German soldiers bent on your capture and eventual incarceration (or worse).

Hi eburgurud

Really enjoyed the narrative you posted and more or less agree.

FWIW I was involved in the development of several PTO and also ETO games in earlier times. Ive played a LOT, including WITP (both editions) , WIFP, Pearl Habour, the old grandad Pacific War, and at least three or four other lesser known titles. Ive designed, and developed (but not published my own system which was playtested for 6 years at RANC and found to be accurate (but unfortunately for me and the team that helped, not publishable) . Ive fought various battles of the era as a trainee PWO using the RAN state of the art tactical warfare school 9a huge computer, and yes they still have data on these older a/c) There is always a certain amount of guesswork involved. some bits of information are more reliable than others. Repeated playtesting of a myriad of different systems revealed that in order to recreate the overall strategic situation that developed, even making the players adopt the historical decisions and force structures, you could either not recreate the USSBS loss claims and remain within the range of plausible results, or the Japanese were forced to the surrender table at least two years before they did historically...... With any known game system it is impossible to emulate the loss claims made in the USSBS and achieve an historical approximation of the real world. And a lot of very smart people, backed by a lot of very advanced computing power, at both the commercial games level and by the real present day military have been trying for about 45 years to do just that....

This leads me to the strong belief that the USSBS claims are over-estimating Japanese losses by a wide margin. Let me tell you that is a sensitive issue in these parts.

parsifal said:

This leads me to the strong belief that the USSBS claims are over-estimating Japanese losses by a wide margin

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Hmmmmm. So again using the data found in the USSBS, how did the USAAF fair concerning claims verses actual German losses? Any figures for that?

I'm hesitant to give a definitive figure, but in the playtesting we did for a few games, based on the US survey data, we could het more or less historical results. I don't know what you can do with that, other than to say the loss figures are "plausible".

I can appreciate that. So you found that after crunching the numbers that claim vs loss ratios are more believable in ETO. That is definitely food for thought. Thanks for sharing your analysis as it's an interesting concept to use research data that you compiled for video games and find out in the end that things just don't add up in the same way for the PTO.

Germany (west front) and Japan had lost the technical air war by 1944, from unreliable or low quantity new designs or reduced production quality. But what made it worse was the growing force disparity. The pilots were all merely men on all sides Facing 5:1 odds for any pilot (and if in a slower plane) is not really a valid measure of pilot quality.

From the USSBS (scaled more accurately with fine scale grid thanks to PaintShop)


The side with the most planes is winning!

Unfortunately this comparison is not accurate because it fails to take into account the strength of all allied forces.

The RAAF for example fielded about 900 a/c in the PTO and ABDA commands in December 1941. In 1943, the air power resources committed to the SWPA were 60% Australian. In 1945, in the whole of the PTO, 5500 aircraft flew under the RAAF banner.

Other air forces involved in the fighting at some stage or other included the AVG 9not part of the US inventory), the RAF, the IAF, RNZAF, the NEIAF (the Dutch), the Russians.

Japan was outnumbered from day1 of the conflict. That they could fight the allies to a standstill in the opening battles was quite astounding. What is true is that as the war progressed, the odds became longer and longer. By the time of Guadacanal (at the beginning) there were just over 50 Japanese fighters deployed, to over 900 allied a/c in various places. What prevented the Allies from absolutely steam rolling the Japanese at that time were the lack of airfields and the very limited logistics that hamstrung the allies ability to bring all their forces to bear.

It was never the case the Japanese held the numbers advantage. ,

parsifal said:

It was never the case the Japanese held the numbers advantage.

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According to your research, would you say that the Luftwaffe was in the very same predicament? Counting the entire allied air armada in ETO of course....

DarrenW said:

According to your research, would you say that the Luftwaffe was in the very same predicament? Counting the entire allied air armada in ETO of course....

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The situation fluctuated up until June 1941. After that the ratios swung permanently in favour of the allies.

These numbers are very approximate and will change depending on the point of reference….what to keep in the tally and what to exclude

September 1939

Axis: 3468 (LW)

Non-Allied (Fin) 132

Allied
3280 (Pole 680; FAF C950, RAF1660)

April 1940-June 1940
Axis Germany 2885

Allies C.4610 (RAF 2913, FAF, 1368, Ne 132, Nor 51, Belg C150,)

August 1940

Axis
C5665

LW: 3015
RA c2300
IEA c 350

Allies
RAF +CW
2064

June 1941
Axis
C7839

Ger 3451
Ita C1700
Vichy 1102
Rum C556
Hun C350
Slovak C100
Bulg: C150
Fin: 280

Allies
11,211
RAF (+CW)
3106

VVS (west):
8105

Thank you Parsifal for the very detailed explanations. I never really gave much thought to this aspect of the war, I appreciate the enlightenment.

Here's some other considerations. Pilot training for Western Allied pilots was able to maintain a higher qualification standard than their Axis adversaries. If a pilot candidate didn't demonstrate a certain minimum level of aptitude in any area, they'd be "washed out" of the pilot training program. Also, some pilot candidates will demonstrate a higher level of aptitude in one skill set, but be mediocre in others. This is true for any human endeavor, but becomes more critical when operating a high performance fighter aircraft. Age and physical shape play another factor. Most fighter pilots were young and athletic. Flying a fighter is a physically demanding job. Japanese and German pilot candidates suffered a decline in diet and physical health. Once a pilot gets a handle on the flying, navigation, emergency procedures, etcetera, involved, he then has to learn how to employ his aircraft as part of a team. This takes time, a luxury the Axis did not enjoy.

I saw these next points in some video's I'll link at the bottom.
1) Japanese pilots in particular, had the warrior mindset of attacking combat assets over supply assets in order to embolden their personal standing amongst their peers. There was more glory in attacking a heavily armed warship, and getting killed, than a lightly armed, easier to destroy supply vessel, and surviving.
2) the higher number of average pilots who shot down 1 - 4 aircraft, and/or damaged and destroyed enemy combat and supply assets on the surface, had far greater impact than the combined number of aces. In some instances, aces became focused on their personal ace status over mission accomplishment.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6WIN7Ysygc
"Why the Japanese Air Forces failed in WWII"

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR0r7yrowhU
"Why the Luftwaffe failed in WWII"

Thanks Fighterguy for your input. You've brought up some very important points. I look forward to sitting down and watching these videos after the workday is over...

The number of 100+ kill German aces lost on the Western front in the first half of 1944 is quite amazing. Many of these pilots had fought for years versus Soviet planes and had kill counts in the hundreds, then were transferred from the Eastern to Western front. Some were veterans of Spanish civil war, Poland, Battle of Britain, Mediterranean etc

2/3/44 Egon Mayer 102 kills (102WF) KIA France Fw190A-6 by high escort P-47 during B-17 intercept
15/3/44 Emil Bitsch 108 kills (104EF 4WF) KIA Holland Bf109G-6 by P-47
23/3/44 Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke 162 kills (137EF 25WF) KIA Germany Bf109G-6 by escort P-51 during B-17 attack
8/4/44 Josef Zwernemann 126 kills (106EF 20WF) KIA Italy Bf109G killed in parachute by escort P-51 after bailing out during B-17 intercept
27/4/44 Kurt Ubben 110 kills (90EF 20WF) KIA France Fw190A-8 "Sturmbock" by USAAF fighter parachute failed to open during low level bailout
11/5/44 Walter Oesau 125 kills (44EF 73WF 8S) KIA Belgium Bf109G-6/AS by P-38 (1 vs 5 at low level when attempting crash landing)
29/5/44 Friedrich-Karl Muller 140 kills (100EF 40WF) KIA Germany Bf109G-6 landing stall (due to combat damage?)
22/6/44 Joseph Wurmheller 102 kills (9EF 93WF) KIA France Fw190A-8 collision with wingman when fighting P-47 & Spitfires

I think there loss was due to the better performance of US fighters vs Soviet ones, better radio and teamwork of US pilots and the smaller front in the West that allowed the USAAF (and RAF) to have vastly superiour local air superiority in numbers.

What I'm saying is these ace German pilots were lost because they were outnumbered and had slightly inferiour planes, no because of "pilot quality".

taly01 said:

The number of 100+ kill German aces lost on the Western front in the first half of 1944 is quite amazing. Many of these pilots had fought for years versus Soviet planes and had kill counts in the hundreds, then were transferred from the Eastern to Western front. Some were veterans of Spanish civil war, Poland, Battle of Britain, Mediterranean etc

2/3/44 Egon Mayer 102 kills (102WF) KIA France Fw190A-6 by high escort P-47 during B-17 intercept
15/3/44 Emil Bitsch 108 kills (104EF 4WF) KIA Holland Bf109G-6 by P-47
23/3/44 Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke 162 kills (137EF 25WF) KIA Germany Bf109G-6 by escort P-51 during B-17 attack
8/4/44 Josef Zwernemann 126 kills (106EF 20WF) KIA Italy Bf109G killed in parachute by escort P-51 after bailing out during B-17 intercept
27/4/44 Kurt Ubben 110 kills (90EF 20WF) KIA France Fw190A-8 "Sturmbock" by USAAF fighter parachute failed to open during low level bailout
11/5/44 Walter Oesau 125 kills (44EF 73WF 8S) KIA Belgium Bf109G-6/AS by P-38 (1 vs 5 at low level when attempting crash landing)
29/5/44 Friedrich-Karl Muller 140 kills (100EF 40WF) KIA Germany Bf109G-6 landing stall (due to combat damage?)
22/6/44 Joseph Wurmheller 102 kills (9EF 93WF) KIA France Fw190A-8 collision with wingman when fighting P-47 & Spitfires

I think there loss was due to the better performance of US fighters vs Soviet ones, better radio and teamwork of US pilots and the smaller front in the West that allowed the USAAF (and RAF) to have vastly superiour local air superiority in numbers.

What I'm saying is these ace German pilots were lost because they were outnumbered and had slightly inferiour planes, no because of "pilot quality".

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That's an amazing list of German aces KIA and it's glaringly obvious that most of them were killed as a result of American fighter involvement. It shows just how effective the allied air forces were at this stage in the war (both in skill and equipment), defeating even the best the Nazi air arm had to throw at them....

When the Thunderbolt and Mustang arrived in strength the German fighters lost their escape route that had worked for years vs. the Spitfire.

The US fighters had the numbers, the dive speed, the fuel, and the firing time to destroy 'beaten' enemy fighters whereas while the Spitfire could have gotten the better of them on many occasions - had to let them go due to the lack or one or more of those factors.

In Saburo Sakai's book he described the very poor use of pilots and training in the Japanese air forces. Experienced pilots were never sent back to train new pilots, so the tactics had to be taught or untaught at the front. At one point the highest scoring Japanese ace was instructed to escort suicide planes to crash into american ships, and to follow the planes into crashing into the ships. His life was saved when he was shot down and the planes canopy broke open (locked from the outside when he took off). Pilots were simply expenditures and there was no investment in making them better even at the start of the war.
On the German side, the reason certain pilots racked up so many kills on the eastern front was due in a great part to limited aircraft and fuel. The best pilots would fly 5 and 6 sorties a day simply to rack up kills and more efficiently use the limited resource. The less experienced pilots flew along only as planes and gas were available. As the war went on these experts eventually succumbed to the odds. On the plus side a few pilots flying under the protective wing of the experts grew a second group of experts. Near the end of the war, there were few pilots or planes left. More often a small force of German planes had to fight against larger and larger groups of enemy fighters. The P-51 being a better fighter as a factor is very naive. The late model ME-109 and FW-190 were on par with the P-51. The Me-262 superior. One on one it was pilot experience that would make the difference. two or three on one was even better. You just can't compensate lower training and experience, and four or five to one odds at every engagement. That's how dogs bring down a bear or tiger.