Warbird Information Exchange

Ok, question.

Why does it seem that in WWII that German "ACES" had 40x more kills then American "ACES".

Does that mean that we had more pilots with less kills and they had less pilots with more kills , or did the Germans inflate kill ratios?

This just came up, because everything I read about a German ACE, the dude has like 37, 40, 80, kills.

The Germans fought until the end of the war, they didn't go home after certain no. of missions.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

IMHO, I think the main reason is that the German's were fighting air combat long before the U.S. got into the scrap. Their pilots didn't get sent home either. They just kept flying with no "mission" requirements to be rotated back home. If the US was in as long and didn't take good care of our pilots, we might have had aces with a lot higher scores, but many of them would probably have been killed before the war was over.
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

At the start of the war, the Germans had experienced pilots from the Spanish war and the ME 109 was far better then Russian planes, and about equal to Spitfire or Hurricane. When the Americans came in the 109 was superior to P-40 and P-38, especially.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Who started the classification of "Ace" and when? Was there an international agreement that 5 kills constituted an Ace?

Were the Germans considered Aces after 5 kills or 20 kills? Did each nation fielding pilots determine their own "Ace" criteria?

Thanks,

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

300 hour or 50 mission combat tours and we wern't fighting the Russians.
The Germans flew until they were dead.
Ray Toliver compared Bob Johnson with Molders (I think). When Johnson ended his tour with 27 kills Molders at the same point had 6-8 kills but then kept flying 100s of more missions.

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Don't touch my junk!!

When a German pilot was shot downover Germany, if they survived, they would be back in te plane as soon as they could. When an Allied pilot was shot sown over Germany, they spent the rest of the war in a prison camp.

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John, I did not get a chance to get his book when he was there. What do you think of it? I spoke to him once at breakfast years ago at a forum and he seems an impressive guy. I got a chuckle when he talked at EAA about earning his private pilot license a few years after the war. It might be wading in pretty deep water for some young post war instructor to be "teaching" a man with 275 victories, who has flow both 109 and 262. He definitely said at the start of the war the Russians were inferior in both planes and tactics and it was almost like slaughter. Some of the top aces fought against Brits and Yanks in Mustangs, P-47s, Spitfires at the end of the war and proved their ability.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

There is no formal international "ace" requirement. Different countries rewarded victories in different ways.

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Phil K.
Yankee Air Museum
Systems Admin / Ramp Crew / Professional Photo Ruiner

the term "ace" dates back to ww 1 & was 1st applied to roland garros. the word "ace" was popular in france & applied to about anyone who was good at something, "like this person is an ace athelete" or this person is an ace game player. when garros's flying exploits hit the papers in france they used the term ace & it stuck. as to the ww 2 axis & all the mega victories, the pilots simply weren't rotated home. they flew till they died, or luckily lived to see the end of the war, so many racked up amazing tallies because they were literally stuck at the front.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

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You won't meet a nicer gentleman "ace" then C.E. Bud Anderson. When I first started volunteering at OSH, I had the honor to "guide" him several times while volunteering on the line crew, not like he needed a lot of my attempt at direction. Always polite, always gracious. He flew with some other rather ornery guy quite often...

I read once that the average of kills per missions flown would have given American pilots similar scores if they had flown as much as the Germans.

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com