| Flying ace | |
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| The "first ace", Frenchman Adolphe Pégoud being awarded the Croix de guerre. |
A flying ace or fighter ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down several enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The actual number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an "ace" has varied, but is usually considered to be five or more. The few aces among combat pilots have historically accounted for the majority of air to air victories in military history.
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World War I began the historical experience that has shown that approximately five percent of combat pilots account for the majority of air to air victories in warfare.[1] Use of the term “ace” to describe these pilots began in World War I, when French newspapers described Adolphe Pégoud, as l'as (French for "Ace") after he became the first pilot to down five German aircraft. The British did not initially use the term very much – ace pilots often being designated as “star-turns” (using show business rather than sporting terminology), while the Germans described their elite fighter pilots as Überkanonen (which roughly translates to “big gun”).
The systematic use of true single-seat fighter aircraft, with enough speed and agility to catch and maintain contact with targets in the air, and sufficiently powerful armament to destroy them, really dates from the period of the Fokker Scourge (the last half of 1915). The successes of such ace pilots as Max Immelmann and Oswald Boelcke were much publicised for the benefit of civilian morale, and the Pour le Mérite, Germany’s highest award for gallantry, became part of the uniform of a leading German ace. In the Luftstreitkräfte the medal was nicknamed ("Der blaue Max"/"The Blue Max"), after Max Immelmann, who was the first fighter pilot to receive this award. Initially aviators who had destroyed eight Allied aircraft received this distinction,[2] as time went by, the qualification for the Pour le Mérite was progressively raised,[2] but German fighter pilots continued to be officially hailed as national heroes for the remainder of the war,
As the Jagdstaffeln (German single-seat fighter squadrons) usually fought well within German lines, it was practicable to establish and maintain very strict guidelines for the official recognition of victory claims by German pilots. “Shared” victories were either credited to one of the pilots concerned, or to the unit as a whole – the destruction of the aircraft had to be physically confirmed by locating its wreckage - or an independent witness to the destruction had to be found. Victories were also counted of course, for aircraft “forced down” within German lines, and this usually resulted in the capture or death of the enemy aircrew.
British (and Commonwealth) fighter pilots fought mostly in enemy (German held) airspace[3][4] and while on offensive patrol miles over the German lines were often not in a position to confirm that an apparently destroyed enemy aircraft had in fact crashed, so that victories were frequently claimed as "driven down", "forced to land", or "out of control" - what would in later wars have been described as "probables". These "victories" were, however, usually included in a pilot's totals in (for instance) citations for decorations.[5]
“Excessive” praise of fighter pilots, to the detriment of equally brave bomber and reconnaissance aircrew was considered unfair by the British high command – so that the British air services did not publish official statistics on the successes of individuals. Nonetheless some pilots did become famous through press coverage.[2] In this context the whole British "system" for the recognition of successful fighter pilots was much more informal, not to mention inconsistent.
In one instance, Royal Flying Corps pilot Arthur Gould Lee described his own score in a letter to his wife as "Eleven, five by me solo - the rest shared". He went on to say, "so I am miles from being an ace".[6] This has several interesting implications. Lee’s unit (46 Sqn RFC) obviously counted shared kills, but separately from "solo" ones. This is one of a number of factors that seems to have varied from unit to unit, possibly depending on the whim of the commanding officer. Also evident is that a considerably higher figure than five kills was considered as the requisite total for "ace" status, again, at least in No. 46.
Other Allied countries, such as France and Italy, fell somewhere in between the very strict German approach and the relatively casual British one. For instance they usually demanded independent witnessing of the actual destruction of an aircraft, [7] making confirmation of victories scored in enemy territory very difficult. On the other hand the Belgian crediting system sometimes included "out of control" to be counted as a victory. [8]
The United States Army Air Service adopted French standards for evaluating victories, with two exceptions – during the summer of 1918, while flying under operational control of the British, the 17th Aero Squadron and the 148th Aero Squadron used British standards.[9] American newsmen, in their correspondence to their papers, decided that five victories were the minimum needed to become an ace.[10]
While "ace" status was generally won only by fighter pilots, bomber and reconnaissance crews on both sides also destroyed some enemy aircraft, typically in defending themselves from attack. A prime example is John Stevenson Stubbs, an Airco DH.9 bomber pilot credited with 11 aerial victories, including one over a German observation balloon.[11]
There were two theaters of war that produced flying aces between the two World Wars. They were the Spanish Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Part of the outside intervention of "volunteers" to both sides in the Spanish Civil War involved the supply of foreign pilots to the air forces of both the Spanish Republicans and the opposing Nationalists. Both Russian and American aces aided their Spanish colleagues in the Republican air force; the Nationalists included Germans and Italians along with their Spanish aces.
The Soviet Volunteer Group began operations in the Second Sino-Japanese war as early as 2 December 1937; as a result, there were 28 Soviet aces in the Group.[12] The Flying Tigers were American military pilots recruited in a sub rosa effort to aid the Chinese Nationalists. They spent the summer and autumn of 1941 in transit to China, but did not begin flying combat until 20 December 1941.
In World War II, many air forces adopted the British practice of crediting fractional shares of aerial victories, resulting in fractions or decimal scores, such as 11½ or 26.83. Some U.S. commands also credited aircraft destroyed on the ground as equal to aerial victories. The Soviets distinguished between solo and group kills, as did the Japanese, though the Imperial Japanese Navy stopped crediting individual victories (in favor of squadron tallies) in 1943.
The Soviet Air Forces claimed the only female aces of the war: Lydia Litvyak scored 12 victories and Yekaterina Budanova achieved 11.[13] Fighting on different sides, the French pilot Pierre Le Gloan had the unusual distinction of shooting down four German, seven Italian and seven British planes, the latter while he was flying for Vichy France in Syria.
The Luftwaffe continued the tradition of "one pilot, one kill", and now referred to top scorers as Experten.[14] During the war, and for some years after, the very high victory totals of some experten were considered to be coloured by grandiose Nazi propaganda. Historical research has since shown this generally not to have been the case - although overclaiming undoubtedly occurred, this was by no means confined to the Luftwaffe.
A number of factors probably contributed to the very high totals of the top German aces. For a limited period (especially during Operation Barbarossa), many Axis kills were over obsolescent aircraft and either poorly-trained or inexperienced Allied pilots, especially Soviet ones.[15] In addition, Luftwaffe pilots generally flew many more individual sorties (sometimes up to 1000) than their Allied counterparts. Moreover, they often returned to the cockpit until they were captured, incapacitated, or killed, while successful Allied pilots were usually either promoted to positions involving less combat flying or routinely rotated back to training bases to pass their valuable combat knowledge to younger pilots.
The Korean War of 1950 - 1953 marked the transition from piston-engined propeller driven aircraft to more modern jet aircraft. As such, it saw the world's first jet vs jet aces.
During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Muhammad Mahmood Alam of the Pakistan Air Force was credited with nine aerial victories and two probable victories.[16]
Air to air combat during the Vietnam War generally matched intruding United States fighter-bombers against the radar-directed integrated North Vietnamese air defense systems. American F-4, F-8, and F-105 fighter crews usually had to contend with both surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery and machine gun fire before opposing fighters attacked them. The long-running conflict produced 22 aces: 16 North Vietnamese, five American (two of whom were Weapons Systems Officers or WSOs and one Radar Intercept Officer or RIO), and one Russian instructor pilot.
The series of wars and conflicts between Israel and its neighbors began with Israeli independence in 1948 and continued for over three decades. Of the 50 known aces during these battles, one was Egyptian, three Syrian, and the rest Israeli.
The most recent known flying ace is Jalal Zandi of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force; he scored his fifth of nine victories on 29 August 1987.[17]
Realistic assessment of enemy casualties is important for intelligence purposes,[18] so most air forces expend considerable effort to ensure accuracy in victory claims. In World War II, the aircraft gun camera came into general usage, partly in hope of alleviating inaccurate victory claims.
And yet, to quote an extreme example, in the Korean War, both the U.S. and Communist air arms claimed a 10 to 1 victory-loss ratio.[19][20] Without delving too deeply into these claims, they are obviously mutually incompatible. Arguably, few recognized aces actually shot down as many aircraft as credited to them.[21] The primary reason for inaccurate victory claims is the inherent confusion of three-dimensional, high speed combat between large numbers of aircraft, but competitiveness and the desire for recognition (not to mention sheer optimistic enthusiasm) also figure in certain inflated claims, especially when the attainment of a specific total is required for a particular decoration or promotion.[22]
The most accurate figures usually belong to the air arm fighting over its own territory, where many wrecks can be located, and even identified, and where shot down enemy are either killed or captured. It is for this reason that at least 76 of the 80 planes credited to Manfred von Richthofen can be tied to known British losses[23] — the German Jagdstaffeln flew defensively, on their own side of the lines, in part due to General Hugh Trenchard's policy of offensive patrol.
On the other hand, losses (especially in terms of aircraft as opposed to personnel) are sometimes recorded inaccurately, for various reasons. Nearly 50% of RAF victories in the Battle of Britain, for instance, do not tally statistically with recorded German losses - but some at least of this apparent over-claiming can be tallied with known wrecks, and aircrew known to have been in British PoW camps.[24] There are a number of reasons why reported losses may be understated - including poor reporting procedures and loss of records due to enemy action or wartime confusion.
While aces are generally thought of exclusively as fighter pilots, some have accorded this status to gunners on bombers or reconnaissance aircraft, and observers/gunners in two-seater fighters such as the Bristol F.2b. Because pilots often teamed with different air crew members, an observer or gunner might have been an ace while his pilot was not, or vice versa. Observer aces constitute a sizable minority in many lists. World War I observer Charles George Gass, who tallied 39 victories, was the highest scoring observer ace in World War I.[25]
In World War II United States Army Air Forces B-17 tail gunner Michael Arooth is credited with 17 victories.
With the advent of more advanced technology, a third category of ace appeared. Charles B. DeBellevue became not only the first U.S. Air Force Weapon Systems Officer (WSO) to become an ace, but also the top American ace of the Vietnam War, with six victories.[26] Close behind with five were fellow WSO Jeffrey Feinstein and Radar Intercept Officer William P. Driscoll.
The first military aviators to score five or more victories on the same date, thus becoming "ace in a day", were pilot Julius Arigi and observer/gunner Johann Lasi of the Austro-Hungarian air force, on 22 August 1916, when they downed five Italian planes.[27] The feat would be repeated five more times during World War I.[28][29][30]
Becoming an ace in a day became fairly common during World War II; for instance, 68 U.S. pilots—43 Army Air Forces, 18 Navy, and seven Marine Corps—were credited with the feat. The list of Luftwaffe aces in a day is much longer.
On 6 September 1965, during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Muhammad Mahmood Alam of the Pakistan Air Force shot down five Indian Air Force Hawker Hunter Mk.56 fighters in less than a minute, four being within 30 seconds. He was awarded the Sitara-e-Jurat ("The star of courage") and bar for his actions.[31][32]
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