Greatest combat pilot ever?

It isnt fair to compare allied victories and german victories,apart from the "fly til you die" the germans had a much more target rich envoirnment and a lot of victories would have been bombers,certainly a higher ratio of bombers compared to the allies.

LWD:He went down seven times behind enemy lines if memory serves me correctly and he was never shot down by another pilot,every time it was AA.

 

If you ask me, the greatest combat pilots ever come from Isreal during the Arab-Isreali wars.


On what grounds can we call someone the greatest of all time? if they were shot down, then theoreticlly, there is another pilot somewhere who is better than you. Germany had a large number of very good pilots. So did the Brits and Americans, as well as some of the lesser allies. What about people who trained in Germany in BF-109's only to return to, say, Bulgaria and fly in an antique WW1 Biplane fighter. I don't think we can go by number of kills, as some nations just didn't let thier pilots get that high before being rotated out of combat.

 

Migel according to the LW vets I have interviewed of which there has been a few the Reich defense was suicdie from 44-45. the LW was not overwhelmed until 45 on the Ost front and even then the German pilots still felt they had the edge over the Soviets till wars end. LW felt that since there was so much land to cover that Sopviet crates to come up against were far and few; over Germany that was another matter many felt they would be lucky even in Geschwader strength if they could form up and attack "Heavies" from behind without the ever present US P-51's seeking them out and shooting ALL of them down.
My own cousins JG 301 speaks high in this terrible regard during the fall of 44 till the end

v/r E ~ and just to make things more clear in July of 43 the twin engine Z's from the Ost front were ordered back to defend the Reich and going through an arms refit (cannon re-up's) and by the spring to summer of 44 most of the once Ost front Geschwader were now defending Reich air space only in January of 45 was this turned around for the final battle(s) for Berlin

 

Greatest combat pilot ever?

Offcourse my father,

He flew from 1939 - 1945, as Jagdpilot he flew about 5-6 different fighter typs (only props) during the war, he served at almost every theatre of the European war, he never had to bail out and he survived!!

Regards
Kruska

 

you better say that about him Kruska ~

yep the best are the ones that did survive ~

 

Hello Erich,

Yep, a to all those surviving pilots of any airforce.

Regards
Kruska

 

I can drink to that one too, they were all airmen regarless their nationality . I also drink to their mothers and wives , especially those who have lost a loved one. Only those who went through such a grief can understand such a great loss, especially when their is no known grave.

 

E. hartmann
Victories : 352
Awards : Ehrenpokal (13 September 1943)
Deutsches Kreuz in Gold (17 October 1943)
Ritterkreuz (29 October 1943)
Eichenlaub (2 March 1944)
Schwertern (2 July 1944)
Brillianten (25 August 1944)
Units : JG 52, JG 53

 

don gentile,cheers.