Aces – Achilles the Heel

In the spring of 1944, two American pilots from the US 4th Fighter Group, operating together, began to destroy flights of German fighters, right over the Nazi heartland — representing a remarkable turn for the relatively inexperienced US fighter force. (Akhil Kadidal)

The American fighter pilots of the US 8th Air Force who fought and destroyed the German Luftwaffe have largely been given a bum deal by history. Sure, reams of paper have been written about them but scant have they been portrayed by the celluloid or the digital screen. I started thinking about this post while watching “Masters of Air” (detailed in a separate post) and especially about two ace pilots, John Godfrey and Don Gentile, who are nearly forgotten now, but who played their part (however modest) in the final Allied victory. Their combat careers are the subject of the infographic above and some of the text below.

“The ordinary air fighter
is an extraordinary man and
the extraordinary air fighter
stands as one in a million
among his fellows.”

Theodore Roosevelt

In the skies over World War II Europe, relatively green American fighter pilots met their battle-hardened opponents in the Luftwaffe and the result was an astounding test of arms, driven by small groups of talented survivors and stone-cold killers who earned the right to be called “aces.”

Fighter pilots of WWII were like some type of superhumans who went to war, wielding a battery of heavy machineguns and/or cannons. Not all survived the crucible of combat. In any squadron in World War II, a gifted 30% of pilots roughly accounted for 60% of all squadron kills. Another 15-20% of squadron pilots in a given squadron were so much cannon-fodder.

To be called an “ace” in the western air forces of WWII, one needed to have shot down five aircraft (this basic requirement has continued). The Germans did not recognize the term “ace” but instead used the word “expert” (experte). But if measured by the Allied yardstick, the German Luftwaffe had a monopoly on aces during the war — with over 2,880 of them, out of which 104 pilots racked up an hitherto unprecedented number of aerial kills (over 100 each).

The US had 1,200 aces during the war, but none in Europe scored more 28 aerial victories. No Allied pilot (including the British commonwealth and Soviet) exceeded 62 in the war. But as the European air war showed, Allied and US pilots were no welterweights in comparison to their Luftwaffe counterparts. The disparity in scores boiled down to how many opportunities for combat Allied pilots had, shorter tours of operational duty and different operational procedures.

Having fed on the obsolete aircraft of the French and Polish Air Forces in 1940 and then romping through the largely inept Soviet Air Force from 1941, the Luftwaffe was stunned to discover that American fighter pilots could actually shoot them down in combat.

A typical example was in early 1944, in the sky over Berlin, when two American fighter pilots in the US 8th Air Force began a deadly partnership during a strategic bombing raid on the city.

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