FASTEST AND DEADLIEST PILOT?

30 Victories in 12 days-that's not a bad effort!!!

 

30 Victories in 12 days-that's not a bad effort!!!

 

Well - let's not forget 'Buzz' Beurling with 27 Axis aircraft in 14 days.....

 

Not a pilot´s favourite battle this...

"Olli Puhakka and victory without a shot!"

Lieutenant Puhakka was a pilot of FAF 1/HleLv 26, flying a Fiat G.50. On August 1941 the flight was based in Wartsila. The summer weather was warm, and the pilots used to sleep under the tailplane of their fighters in full gear to be ready for quick takeoff.

The enemy provided a rude awakening on the 13th of August. About at 05:00 a.m. I-16 fighters launched a strafing raid on the base. Thanks to AA there was no damage to the fighter aircraft. All airworthy Fiats scrambled to punish the insolent enemy.

Lt. Olli Puhakka had a technical problem in his "FA-1". The mechanics worked hard to fix it, and Puhakka took off alone some 15 min later, without any test flight after repairs.

He was already in enemy territory flying at 3000 m as five "Ishaks" attacked him. He dodged and to his horror found that the G force pulled out the undercarriage of his "FA". He managed to pull them back in, but the wheels kept coming out, the locking system was out of order.

Finnish pilot kept flying with his undercarriage out, pursued by five I-16, doing the most imaginative manouvers: fast horizontal rolls, spins, inverted flying. The Fiat G.50 had a tendency to do fast uncontrolled horizontal roll if the laminar flow was separated from the wingtips by a too tight pull of the stick combined with the application of rudder, and Puhakka kept doing this, allowing his machine spin quite freely, descending all the time.

Enemy pilots saw his problem and four of the I-16 left, leaving just one to finish off the apparently defenseless fighter flown by inept pilot.

Olli looked over his shoulder, estimating when the enemy was within range and would open fire. At that moment he pulled his machine in a tight curve. The enemy pilot fired, but missed, not being able to follow the "FA-1". The I-16 pulled up and prepared for another firing pass.

The same was repeated several times. Puhakka was able to dodge the bullets of the I-16 every time, but he could not disengage, and no help was to be expected. The "Ishak" pilot must have been even more frustrated. The enemy changed his tactics: now he decided to get his certain victory by flying at slow speed, thus being able to curve more tightly and having more time to sight accurately.The two fighters were now trying to out-curve each other at the height of treetops. Then the Fiat spontaneously spun upside down, but the pilot stopped it and controlledly returned to normal position. In his hunger for victory, or absorbed by the opponent's aerobatics the I-16 pilot allowed the airspeed of his fighter decrease too much: the Soviet fighter stalled!
It was with relief that Finnish pilot saw the enemy fighter crash the trees and explode on the ground... Another victory to his credit, no.7, this time without a single shot, though not an easy one.

Puhakka returned to the base. His fighter was properly repaired and he flew another mission that day, shooting down one more I-16 and one SB-2.

http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/puhak/puhak.htm

 

Hello everyone,
My compliments on a fine forum. As a lifelong WW2phile, It is great to find so many others out there. Thank you to all who have sent welcome messages.

While all WW2 theaters interest me, the Pacific theater is my focus. In the days before family and work and mortgages etc., I was lucky to have had the chance to travel pretty extensively around the central Pacific and visited many interesting sites. The experience of standing on the beach at Midway or diving on wrecks in Truk Lagoon or standing on the end of the runway on Tinian can make the war "real" in a very special and emotional way. I have many photos and accounts of these trips and look forward to sharing them with all of you in the future.

I was also lucky enough to have worked as a manager at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington right out of college. The pure history in that building (and Silver Hill storage facility) literally takes your breath away! If any of you have not visited.....GO, NOW!

With that said, I would like to contribute to this topic (at least its original premise) by putting in a word for my beloved U.S.N. and mention the Navy ace of aces, Capt. David McCampbell. In October 1944, he downed 9 enemy planes on a single mission while calmly checking each off with a flick of his pencil on his instrument panel. After seven months of service in the Pacific, McCampbell had destroyed 34 enemy planes in the air, the greatest number of enemy planes ever shot down by an American pilot during a single tour of combat duty, as well as 20 planes on the ground. David McCampbell is the top scoring Naval fighter pilot of World War II. As a result of this, McCampbell received the Congressional Medal of Honor. McCampbell also received the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, and the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was a career navy man and retired in 1964 as a Captain. He sadly died in 1996.

I know some of you Luftwaffe guys might not be too impressed with a measly 34 kills but given the "send them home for a bond tour" mentality of the United States, it is pretty impressive.

 

Actually I am more interested in Luftwaffe pilots that scored 30 victories or less and towards the end of the war when everything imaginable was against them. Not some high scorer who took on an administrative job in late 44-45. There is no discounting the fact that these high scorers were excellent pilots and most did fly till they were either wounded or KIA.
Your story is very impressive......thanks

E

 

Indeed Eric, any German pilot who just got airborne in 44-45 should have been awarded several medals. I am sure this was especially difficult for the remaining pilots who could still remember the earlier professional and technological vanguard the luftwaffe once was.

You made me grab an album of pics I took during the debut rollout of the Fw 190F-8/R-1 at the silver hill facility for NASM in the late 80's. I remember speaking to some of the people who worked on this plane and them telling me how they overcame some of the late war "improvisations" shall we say. Definition of German technology? "If it does not fit, WE WILL MAKE IT FIT!" It drove them nuts.

I will scan and post. thanks

 

Many awards for day and night fighters pilots were not presented except in paper form, and then on the other hadn during the first week of May 1945, there are many instances of awarded EK I and II's as well as DK in Gold but the paper work was not completed and thus at least with several night fighter pilots I have interviewed they have no documentation but were given the award. All very strange, and trying to find out just when the award was presented and by whom is almost impossible to trace as even the books written in German on DK awards do even mention the award winners names.....at least 8 that I know of.

E

 

Ok. That is more information and more web sites than the ones Friedrich actually can see...

 

Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer on December,on the 16th 1943 takes off even in foggy weather.After breaking through the clouds, he found a lonely flighter bomber!
This could only be a pathfinder, in which the "Zeremonienmeister" (master of ceremonies), the commander of the bombers was in! This plane was the most important of the whole bomber mission, because after marking the target, this plane circles and lead´s the bombardment.
Schnaufer slowly drew near to the Lancaster. In the distance of 150 feet he start´s his attack. It was crushing for the Lancaster!
After this downing, Schnaufer looked around. He saw another Lancaster with same course. He got him with his "Schraege Musik" (slanting music), which was a machine gun, shooting from behind the cockpit in an angle of 70 ° above.
Two more downings he had in this night......
In the following, he shot down 4 bombers, too.
He became a expert in shooting the Zeremonienmeister, and he saved the live´s of more cilvilian´s then any other fighter pilot.
His most downings he got were on May, 25th, 1944, when he shoot´s down 5 Lancaster within 14 minutes; and on February, the 21st 1945, he shoot´s down 2 Lancaster´s before dawn, and 7 more Lancasters till midnight!
There were not many day-fighters who got 9 downings on 1 day!
The british pilots and civilian´s knew him now. They spoke about him with respect and fear. The allied pilots gave him a nickname....the " nightghost of St. Trond" ( this was his base). He got greetings from the british soldier broadcast Calais on his birthday at February, the 16th 1945.
On October, the 16th 1944 he got the knightcross with brilliants, oakleave´s and swords. His crew, Gaensler and Rumpelhardt got as the only operator and tail-shooter of the night-fighters the knight´s cross.

http://www.germanfighteraces.com/uk/Schnaufer_uk.htm







[ 25. November 2002, 05:32 PM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

 

Finnish Ace Eino "Illu" Juutilainen scored 94 1/6 kills against the Russians, making him the top scoring Finnish Ace of WW2. He became one of only two Finnish aviators to be decorated with the Mannerheim Cross twice. During his 437 combat missions, Juutilainen scored victories against 22 different types of Soviet, British, and American built aircraft flown by the Russians; more remarkably, his aircraft was never hit by enemy fire.(??)

During World War 2, Finnish pilots destroyed 1,808 Russian aircraft in aerial combat and achieved an overall 7.5:1 "kill" ratio, all while never operating more than 150 fighters at one time.

http://users.senet.com.au/~wingman/illu.html

[ 04. December 2002, 03:51 PM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

 

Some more quick victories:

"Aleksandr Konstantinovich Gorovets flew seventy-three missions between June 1942 and July 5th, 1943, encountering German aircraft ten times, shooting down two and sharing in the destruction of six others - a perfectly respectable record. On July 6th, 1943, on his seventy-fourth mission, he became separated from his comrades in the Vladimirovka-Olkhovatska sector, ran into a formation of twenty German Junkers Ju 87 dive-bombers and shot down nine in ten minutes."

The Soviet Air Force versus the Luftwaffe, History Today
Harvey, A D

 

Blast from the past series...

 

Wow! Thats amazing!