What makes an ace?

[CobberKane]

"... He wasn't only very good, he used up quite a bit more than his allocation of luck."

He was quite a devout Christian - in an unorthodox way - so I doubt he would call it "luck".

".... ill disciplined Canadians" ......?

MM

Buerling was an interesting case in that he was in many ways the antithesis of what a good fighter pilot should be. He eschewed teamwork rushed alone into high risk situations, getting himself shot down a number of times. He was wilfully insubordinate and if not for his high profile and propaganda value as the highest scoring Canadian ace he would probably have been busted back to kitchen hand status early in the piece. He happily machine-gunned enemy aircrew in a life raft on at least one occasion and on a war bond tour gleefully described to a stunned audience how he had blown an enemy pilots head off at close range and watched the stump painting the inside of the canopy with blood. He was from all accounts and exceptional pilot and marksman, and quite possibly a sociopath – it the most productive sense of the term.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... He was from all accounts and exceptional pilot and marksman, and quite possibly a sociopath – it the most productive sense of the term."

What's your point ..... that sociopaths are "interesting cases" ...?

Billy Bishop, Canada's most-celebrated WW1 Ace, is similar in some ways to Buzz - small town loner, a game shooter, dead eye [but he was an in-the-back-at-close-range] shooter, not a deflection shooter. Bishop used alcohol, IIRC, Beuring used his Christian Faith.

War brings out the sociopaths - if that's what you want to call them - I prefer to think of them as skilled warriors for whom there probably is no place for in peaceful, civil society.

Michael Whitman and Hans U Rudel were both sons of Lutheran pastors. Adolph Galland was a French Huguenot whose ancestors escaped from France to Germany to seek religious freedom.

MM

 

[CobberKane]

[What's your point ..... that sociopaths are "interesting cases" ...?

No, my point is that Buerling is an interesting case. Most fighter pilots were gregarious with their comrades, valued their status as members of a team and were ambiivlant about the business of kiling. Buerling was none of these things.
My comment about Buerling possibly being sociopathic was lifted from a biography read of the man I read - sorry, don't have the details to hand. I wasn't making a moral judgement.
Buerling had physical attributes that made him an outstanding fighter pilot. He didn't seem to care much who he was fighting so long as there was someone to shoot at - he tried to get to China and Finland before making it to the UK and joining the RAF – and he apparently lacked any empathy for those he killed, to the point of stating that he found it 'satisfying'. He also avoided taking any responsibility for his fellow pilots. He was perfectly honest about this and strenuously avoided being commissioned as an officer.
I'd say Buerlings personality, with his lack of empathy and disinclination to form friendships – dictated his lone wolf approach to warfare but it also deprived the RAF of utilising his skills in a leadership role, where his experience could have had great value. The extreme conditions of Malta suited his specific skills and proclivities perfectly, but sadly, once the war was over he was all at sea. Whereas most aces went on to typical peacetime lives, with many of them also achieving highly after the war, Buerling quickly wound up alone and destitute, and died attempting to re-enter combat in the new conflict in Palestine.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... Most fighter pilots were gregarious with their comrades, valued their status as members of a team and were ambiivlant about the business of kiling. "

Most fighter pilots aren't Aces. All Aces aren't sociopaths. But all Aces are exceptional in some way or other.

MM

 

[CobberKane]

"... Most fighter pilots were gregarious with their comrades, valued their status as members of a team and were ambiivlant about the business of kiling. "

Most fighter pilots aren't Aces. All Aces aren't sociopaths. But all Aces are exceptional in some way or other.

MM

But all aces are pilots, so I thinks the general observation stands. There certainly doesn't seem to be anything about being gregarious and a team player that diminishes the odds of becoming an ace - quite the opposite. The fact that Beurling excelled without displaying these characteristics speaks volumes for his individual abilities and, I suspect, luck.
I think most aces had most of the following attributes
1. Excellent situational awareness - they knew where they were relative to other aircraft in combat
2. The ability to calculate deflection - the degree to which late war computing sights improved gunnery results indicates how important this was
3. Aggression - they knew when to get stuck in
4. Caution - they knew when not to get stuck in
5. Flying ability - they could take their aircraft to the limit and they understood the limits of thier aircraft relative to thier opponents
6. Luck -the one absolutely essential element. Or at the very least an absence of bad luck. None one the above will protect frm a single stray bullet fired from a thousand yards away.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... But all aces are pilots, so I thinks the general observation stands."

So, no U Boat Aces or Panzer Aces - like Michael Whitman ..... just pilots ...?

MM

 

[CobberKane]

"... But all aces are pilots, so I thinks the general observation stands."

So, no U Boat Aces or Panzer Aces - like Michael Whitman ..... just pilots ...?

MM

Sorry, I thought with this being an aviation forum I could use the term 'ace' and it would be taken in that context. I'll be sure to explicitly exclude U-boats and panzers in all future comments. Jeez...

 

[tyrodtom]

Even in the aviation world all aces are not pilots, there's gunners.
There might be a lot of doubts about the 8th AF gunners because of the way credits were handed out. But with all the other aircraft with gunners there have got to be some who got at least 5 aircraft. There were several gunner aces in WW1.

One British WW1 gunner is credited with 39 aircraft, 17 kills, and 22 observed to be out of control.

 

[michaelmaltby]

US Bomber Gunner Aces of WW2

And this .. an account of B-52 tail gunners:

The B-52 Gunners

MM

 

[CobberKane]

I think I read somewhere that the first Mig-17 destroyed in Korea was shot down by a B-29 tail gunner. But ascribing kills to bombers was often a fraught affair as often multiple gunners were engaging the same target.
My understanding of the term ace is that it originally applied to a pilot who destroyed five enemy aircraft. With the advent of radar equipped night fighters, radar operators too could become aces; both the pilot and the operator were awarded a kill for each enemy downed.
With bombers, were gunners with five kills referred to as aces? Or was the kill ascribed to the aircraft? Obviously flying a B-17 is a team effort, but it is not an effort directed towards destroying enemy aircraft in the air, and creating eleven aces for the destruction of five enemy aircraft, as would be the case if the night fighter system was adopted, seems a bit extreme.

 

[tyrodtom]

Ace is in the dictionary, " someone expert in his field" also it states about fighter pilots too. If you looked in a dictionary in 1910, I wonder what the definition would be ?
I think some of the old gunfighters were called aces in the old turn of the century dime novels, like John Westly Hardin.

My dad's middle name was ACE, and he was born in 1910, long before the word had anything to do with aviation.

 

[fastmongrel]

I think this justifies the term Ace

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RBSkq-_St8

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