Any American kid who becomes interested in World War 2 fighter pilots quickly learns that Richard Bong was the American Ace of Aces, with 40 enemy planes to his credit. And that seems like an impressively large number, perched proudly above numbers like 38 (Tom McGuire), 34 (David McCampbell), and 28 (Francis Gabreski). But then our young lad will do some more research, and discover some numbers which look something like this (with some variation in the exact numbers attributed to some of the individuals):
It turns out that, among all the major nations involved in the war, America's greatest ace had the lowest score of them all, except for Britain. (But some say that another British ace had 50, but that has not been confirmed.)
Our lad might then wonder, Why were the American and British aces' scores so low compared to the rest? Were the German pilots that much better than anyone else?
Further digging, however, will lead to the discovery that pilots from different countries flew under very different conditions. Most notably, German, Japanese, and Soviet pilots were expected to fly until they died or the war ended. American and British pilots only served for a defined tour of duty and then were rotated home. Also, the American system included taking the best of the returning pilots and allowing them the opportunity to become trainers, thus imparting their hard-won wisdom to the new pilots coming up. Finally, some pilots operated in theaters where there were substantially more enemy planes in the air (a situation that is euphemistically described as "target-rich"). This was especially true on the Eastern Front in Europe.
In other words, there is more to those scores than meets the eye. And since there are still many things about flying conditions in those days that I don't know, I'm opening up a conversation about a comparison not just of pilot skill, but of training practices (both in details and in overall philosophy), as well as other topics that relate to how well (or poorly) a nation's pilots were treated. For example, the U.S. invested considerable equipment and manpower—including search aircraft and submarines—in rescuing downed American pilots in the Pacific. (A future President of the United States, George H.W. Bush, was a beneficiary of this program.) Japan had nothing comparable to it.
What else may have both contributed to the success of American (and British) pilots, while at the same time have kept their scores lower than if the system had been more like the German system?
Top fighter aces by nationality | ||
Country | Pilot | Score |
Britain | James Johnson | 38 |
United States | Richard Bong | 40 |
Soviet Union | Grigory Rechkalov | 65 |
Finland | Ilmari Juutilainen | 94 |
Japan | Tetsuzō Iwamoto | 94 |
Germany | Erich Hartmann | 352 |
It turns out that, among all the major nations involved in the war, America's greatest ace had the lowest score of them all, except for Britain. (But some say that another British ace had 50, but that has not been confirmed.)
Our lad might then wonder, Why were the American and British aces' scores so low compared to the rest? Were the German pilots that much better than anyone else?
Further digging, however, will lead to the discovery that pilots from different countries flew under very different conditions. Most notably, German, Japanese, and Soviet pilots were expected to fly until they died or the war ended. American and British pilots only served for a defined tour of duty and then were rotated home. Also, the American system included taking the best of the returning pilots and allowing them the opportunity to become trainers, thus imparting their hard-won wisdom to the new pilots coming up. Finally, some pilots operated in theaters where there were substantially more enemy planes in the air (a situation that is euphemistically described as "target-rich"). This was especially true on the Eastern Front in Europe.
In other words, there is more to those scores than meets the eye. And since there are still many things about flying conditions in those days that I don't know, I'm opening up a conversation about a comparison not just of pilot skill, but of training practices (both in details and in overall philosophy), as well as other topics that relate to how well (or poorly) a nation's pilots were treated. For example, the U.S. invested considerable equipment and manpower—including search aircraft and submarines—in rescuing downed American pilots in the Pacific. (A future President of the United States, George H.W. Bush, was a beneficiary of this program.) Japan had nothing comparable to it.
What else may have both contributed to the success of American (and British) pilots, while at the same time have kept their scores lower than if the system had been more like the German system?
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