Warbird Information Exchange

James Swett
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EadMxLad ... ed&search=

Aye, Rudorffer must have been lethal. Did he ever write his memoirs I wonder?

I'm surprised that none of the Canadians have piped up and mentioned Dick Audet.

http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/content/collections/virtualmem/photoview.cfm?casualty=1083086&photo=8820

Jim

But the first was probably Ltn. Fritz Otto Bernert, who shot down five aircraft in 20 minutes on April 24, 1917!

Info from Greg Van Wyngarden:

"My candidate would have to be the bespectacled Ltn Fritz Otto Bernert of Jasta Boelcke, who I've been writing about just now! He was already an "ace" with 19 victories by 24 April 1917, so these weren't his first five victories. He had already achieved a "triple" on 9 November 1916 with 2 DH 2s and an FE 8. On 3 April '17 he torched two balloons, then on the 8th he was credited with 2 airplanes, then two again on the 11th. He really outdid himself on the 24th, however - apparently one day after he won his "Blue Max" (though some say he got it on the 25th). There has been some discussion about why did he get a Pour le Merite with "only" 19 victories - if so, he sure showed everybody he'd earned it on the 24th. Everyone of his 5 victories is documented and identified - no doubts about them.

At 0830 hrs (German time) he shot down a 70 Sqn Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter in flames. Ten minutes later he found a flight of No 9 Sqn BE 2e's out on a bombing raid. As if flying BE 2e's wasn't bad enough, they were flying without observers in order to carry a heavy bomb load. This was an open invitation to Bernert, who shot down three of them in five minutes (only one pilot survived as a POW). Then at 0750 he shot down a DH 4 - certainly a fast and defendable new type - from No 55 Sqn, wounding the pilot and killing the observer. He did this all in 20 minutes, and all but the DH 4 came down in German territory. According to German historians, Bernert had suffered a bayonet wound in the infantry that disabled his left arm, leaving him with only limited use of it."


And of course the famous French WW1 pilot Rene Fonck twice shot down six aircraft in one day, and there were a number of others in the "Great War".

First American pilot to do it was Frank Luke, who got 5 victories on September 18, 1918, although two were observation balloons, which were counted at kills back then.

Being a Finn, Lt Jorma Sarvanto comes to mind. During the "Winter War" between Russia and Finland, flying a Fokker D.XXI he single handed attacked a formation of seven Ilyushin DB-3 bombers, shooting down six of them within five minutes. See www.elknet.pl/acestory/sarvan/sarvan.htm for a complete story of the battle.