Marseille was a lousy officer…
Well you could add Johnnie Johnson to this list, while I dont think he scored any air-to-air kills in korea he did fly in an american squadron flying ground attack.
Andrew
My vote is for Heinz Bar; over 1000 combat missions, fought in all major theaters and became a jet ace in the Me262 as well. While i’ll admit he wasn’t the most gifted"leader" per se, he was well liked and respected by his peers, helped less experienced pilots and led by example.
Great point, Hans…His CO, on the other hand, had very few kills but is considered to have been a very gifted leader: Eduard ‘Edu’ Neumann…
I agree with jschlechty ww1 thoes guys had it the hardest short life span no parachutes wooden airplanes so I have to say Rickenbacker, VonRichtofen etc. ACESES5[proplr]
Hub Zemke has got to rate up there…
Stanley “Swede” Vejtasa all the way man. He took on three zeros with a dauntless! How many pilots can do that? He also scored 7 more kills in a day.
I think there are so many other Great aces though, Gabreski, Rudorffer, Anderson, McCambell, Dalhberg, and many more.
Adolf Galland, youngest general in the Luftwaffe 100+ kills, Flew in the Condor Legion and 262’s at the end…
Priller, all his kills were against the West…
David McCambell, 34 kills and 9 in one sortie, all off a carrier…
What a great brain teaser Mr. Manstein. You could argue the criteria, plusses and minuses, service time, target environments, equipment available, longer than you could actually come up with names. I’m more familiar with US pilots than Axis flyers, so weigh in my Richard Bong for what its worth. Rick.
Rudel did lose a leg late in the war to Russian flak…he has a great bigraphy entitled “Stuka Pilot” that is a great read…Molders was definately a great pilot and a legendary leader…IMO, he was far superior in both regards to Galland, who IMO was more of a publicity hound and self-promoter than a fighter pilot…
ok, well here’s my [2cnts],
Richard Bong
Tommy MacGuire
Adolf Galland, ( I read his autobiography, and have seen him give some interviews on some documentarys I have, he seemed a Gentleman)
Henry T Elrod.
another I like, just cause, is Pappy Boyington… I met a guy once who delivered replacement Corsairs to the various fighter squadrons in the Pacific area, met Pappy a few times… said he was just as nutty as anything you read or heard… I know he had his issues, and other items of repute, but he still did the job…
I remember reading that Marseilles’ CO pretty much let him do what he wanted. I don’t know how the troops
felt about him. Rudel on the other hand, was a SUPERB Officer in EVERY respect.
One name I haven’t seen so far on this list of legendary aviators is Saburo Sakai who flew one of the
greatest flights in aviation history after tangleing with six Hellcats near Guadalcanal.
Ray
Me. I got 5 stink bugs while reading this.
That happened to a lot of the WW2 aces, they fought in Korea and / or Vietnam but were not assigned to fighter squadrons so had little opportunity for air to air. Similarly many of the Korean war aces were not assigned to fighter squadrons in WW2, or were in relative backwaters late in the war where they rarely saw the enemy. The top US ace in Korea was Joseph McConnell, but he was a B-24 navigator in WW2, #2 was James Jabara, he flew P-51s in 1944 (9th AF performing ground attack) and 8th Af in 1945, he scored 1.5 kills.
I don’t believe any of the Vietnam aces served in WW2 or Korea, most being to young to have been in those wars, and the WW2 / Korea vets were in command positions that offered little opportunity to tangle with enemy aircraft.
I found a list with the US WW2 / Korea aces, it doesn’t appear that the Soviets have any official WW2 / Korea aces. Ivan Kozhedub was the top Soviet and Allied WW2 ace, he was also in Korea commanding a fighter group. He was not authorized to engage UN aircraft, but it is claimed he did and scored several kills which were then credited to others in his unit since he wasn’t supposed to be there.
The 7 US WW2 / Korea aces are
George Davis 7 / 14
Vermont Garrison 7.3 / 10 (also served in Vietnam)
James Hagerstrom 8.5 / 6
Francis Gabreski 6.5 / 28
John Bolt 6 / 6 (USMC, flew F-86 in a USAF exchange program)
William Whisner 5.5 / 15.5
Harrison Thyng 5 / 5
WW2 US aces who scored kills in Korea but did not acheive ace status
John Mitchell 4 / 11
Brooks Liles 4 / 5
Phillip Colman 4 / 5
Walker Mahurin 3.5 / 20.5
Edwin Heller 3.5 / 5.5
Van Chandler 3 / 5
Glenn Eagleston 2 / 18.5
Phillip DeLong 2 / 11
William Hovde 1 / 11
James Little 1 / 5
Hands down, Colonel Greg Boyington, he built a squadron out of the replacement pool of pilots, reactivated VMF-214 (it was deactivated at the time) he also proved the theory of the fighter sweep to the Marine Corps and the Navy he developed VMF-214 into such an effective fighting force that Japanese pilots wouldn’t fly against them unless they flew in a bomber formation and switched to a known bomber radio channel, when the japanese pilots became aware of this he would taunt them on their own frequency until they came up to fight! he also proved that the F4U Corsair was a extremely effective fighter against the A6M Zero which led to modifications which made it suitable for carrier operations (it was deemed unsuitable for carrier ops by the Navy) all of this in just SIX MONTHS!! of combat operations in which he personally shot down 26 enemy fighters (28 if you include the 2 from china with the AVG) for which he received the Congressional Medal Of Honor. besides the multiple books and the tv show (as inaccurate as it was) tamiya’ “navy” pilots set of figures was based on a actual photo of him![8o|][snYea][D]
Going another way how about John “Jimmy” Thatch, he was only credited with 6 kills before being transferred to training. He definately left his mark on the US Navy developing the “Thatch” weave and literally implementing it on the fly during the Battle of Midway to good effect.
My vote must go to Oswald Boelcke, who is considered the father of the German fighter air force, as well as the “Father of Air Fighting Tactics”. He chalked up 40 air victories flying notoriously poor handling aircraft, and his students (Richtofen and Bohme, to name a few) became some of the best known and most successful pilots of WWI.
For those whose war fighting careers spanned more than one war and technology there are only a few choices… of course the top one being Robin Olds, but also Bud Anderson, Robert L Scott, Bud Manhurin, Ivan Kozhedub and Gabby Gabreski come to mind. Leaders and aces who went from stick and rudder to the jet age bringing leadership and experience where it was needed.
While growing up,Greg Boyington was THE MAN,and still is for me!