I'm a little envious he could even get in the cockpit.

Teruhiko Kobayashi (1920/1957) a Japanese flying ace, leader of the 244th Sentai, making him the youngest sentai leader in the IJAAF when he took command in Nov 1944. While leading this unit he achieved five kills (three B-29 and two F6F Hellcats). Kobayashi He survived the war but died in 1957 when he was crewing an American plane - irony of life - T-33 Shooting Star during training.
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Looks like he had a few more since that pic was taken.


Kobayashi with aircrew in front of a Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien of 244th Sentai May 1945

Gunner said:

Looks like he had a few more since that pic was taken.


Kobayashi with aircrew in front of a Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien of 244th Sentai May 1945

Teruhiko Kobayashi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Click to expand...

Interesting markings on the fuselage: the Rising Sun and a Cross. Also, that sure is a lot of kill markings. I wonder if those are from the China Theater?

The REAL War Daddy.
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Rudolf-Heinz Ruffer (1920/1944), a Luftwaffe ground-attack ace and recipient of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, achieved most of his 80 tank kills while piloting an Henschel 129. His record made Ruffer was one of history’s most successful tank-killing pilots.
But his love affair with the Hs 129 did not end well. In 1944, Soviet flak hit Ruffer’s aircraft while he was flying a mission over Poland.



Yep, on 16 July 1944, Ruffer's aircraft was hit by Soviet flak over Poland while attacking Soviet armoured formations. The machine exploded and he was killed instantly. At the time of his death he had recorded 80 tank kills. Was only 24 y.o.
Overall, he graduated from the approximately 300 combat missions and destroyed about 80 tanks.

Was not familiar with the Hs 128....

"One of the best-known ’129 examples was this Hs 129B captured at El Aouina airfield, Tunisia, during May 1943 and shipped to the US, where it received the evaluation identification code FE-4600. It had been serving with 8.(Pz)/SchG 2. Although later scrapped, its forward fuselage was subsequently preserved in Australia."

Roger Sauvage (1917/1977), WW2 veteran. One the few pilots of African descent to fly in both the French and Russian Air Forces in WW2. He became the highest scoring black pilot of WW2 with 17 comfirmed kills. He received the Croix de Guerre 39-45, and he is a recipient of the Order of Alexander Nevsky, 1945.

Curious about French Pilots flying in Russia I found an article on the “Warfare History Network”.

An excerpt:

“After the fall of France, Sauvage considered escaping to Gibraltar and then to England, but his squadron was grounded by the new Vichy government who suspected that some of the pilots might have Gaullist beliefs that France should fight on. He was transferred to another squadron and sent first to Morocco and then Algeria where, for over a year, he was assigned to a lonely air base at Aïn Sefra in the desert with little chance to fly except in trainers and gliders.

It wasn’t until the Allies had occupied all of North Africa that his fortunes changed. In September 1943, he and two fellow pilots were summoned to Algiers to meet with Free French recruiters including his longtime friend, Ukrainian born and Russian speaking Constantin Feldzer and Jacques Casaneuve, who offered the Gaullist minded pilots the opportunity to resume the fight against Germany.

Sauvage was given the choice of flying for the RAF or going to Russia, where he could join the Normandie squadron (GC3) already famous for its role in the Battle of Kursk in the skies over Orel.….

Despite the terrible privations in Russia, Sauvage chose to fly with the Normandie squadron. He and the other volunteers soon found their way to Cairo, where they were met by an unrelenting round of parties and dinners in their honor...

In Russia, Roger stood out not only for the color of his skin but also because of his height, over six feet. This was unusual for a fighter pilot, especially since cockpits were always short on space.”

Roger Sauvage sits at far right in this photograph of Free French pilots belonging to the Normandie Niemen squadron.
A Yak fighter plane serves as the backdrop for the image.



This a link to the article but you may have to subscribe to read it:

Ernst Kupfer, (born 2 July 1907 in Coburg – killed in aircraft accident on 6 Nov 1943, 60 km north of Thessaloniki in the Kerkini mountain range), WW2 Luftwaffe Stuka ace. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade Oak Leaves and Swords was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership.
He visited Oberstleutnant Kurt Kuhlmey, commander of Schlachtgeschwader 3, in early Nov 1943 and was killed when his Heinkel He 111 crashed returning to his base in bad weather on Nov 6 1943. His body lay undiscovered until Nov 17.

Posted in "German Aviation" on Oct 9, 2017

Serious looking dude.

Herman Friedrich Joppien, 70 kills, a Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves.
On 25 Aug 1941, Joppien was shot down and killed near Yelnya, southwest of Bryansk in his Bf 109 by a Soviet Polikarpov I-16 fighter. Joppien was age 29.

"...Hermann-Friedrich Joppien (19 July 1912 – 25 August 1941) was a German Luftwaffe
military aviator during World War II, a fighter ace who claimed 70 enemy aircraft shot down
in roughly 270 combat missions. He claimed 42 victories over the Western Front, of which 23
were Supermarine Spitfires, the remaining victories were recorded over the Eastern Front." - Wiki
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Seems a little embarrassing to be shot down by this piece of crap plane.

"Its main opponent in the sky in 1941 was the German Messerschmitt Bf 109. The I-16 was slightly more maneuverable
than the early Bf 109s and could fight the Messerschmitt Bf 109E, or Emil, on equal terms in turns. Skilled Soviet pilots took
advantage of the Polikarpov's superior horizontal maneuverability and liked it enough to resist the switch to more modern
fighters. The German aircraft, however, outclassed its Soviet opponent in service ceiling, rate of climb, acceleration and, crucially,
in horizontal and diving speed, due to better aerodynamics and a more powerful engine. The main versions of the I-16 had a
maximum speed of 450–470 km/h (279–291 mph), while the Bf 109E had a maximum speed of 560–570 km/h (347–353 mph),
the more streamlined Bf 109F Friedrich could hit 615–630 km/h (372-390plus mph). So German pilots held the initiative and could
decide if they wanted to chase their opponents, could attack them from above and behind and then gain altitude for a new attack.
Meanwhile, Polikarpovs could only defend each other by forming a defensive circle or via horizontal maneuverability." - Wiki

Got a little too cocky maybe?

In center, Max-Hellmuth Ostermann, in Poland, 1940.
Born on 1917 Ostermann was a Luftwaffe fighter ace. He is credited with 102 enemy aircraft shot down claimed in over 300 combat missions. Ostermann was of such short height that wooden blocks had to be attached to his rudder pedals for him to engage in tight turning aerial combat.
Ostermann was killed in action on 9 Aug 1942 when his Bf 109G-2 was hit in the cockpit by a Soviet fighter aircraft LaGG-3.
After Werner Mölders and Leopold Steinbatz, Ostermann was the third of 45 recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords to die in the war.

This is a downed Heinkel HE-111 by Archibald Ashmore 'Archie' McKellar, a Scottish pilot.



McKellar, was who shot down the first German aircraft on British soil during WWII. It crash landed intact over Humbie, near Edinburgh, which meant it could be studied to understand German aircraft and their engine design.



The following year he was promoted to flight lieutenant, and became one of The Few - the airmen who fought in the Battle of Britain. They were celebrated in the speech by W. Churchill which included the famous line: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

Flt Lt McKellar was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar and the Distinguished Service Order for shooting down 21 enemy aircraft, including five Bf 109 fighters in one day.

However, the following year he was killed in action after being shot down over Kent on 1 Nov 1940, when his Hurricane crashed near Adisham in Kent. It is believed that he was shot down by Hauptmann Wolfgang Lippert, who was flying (coincidentally) a Bf109 fighter. McKellar was aged 28.

Lippert, for his part, would die the following year.