Aces

[Louis]

Col. Clarence Emil "Bud" Anderson (born Jan 13, 1922) is a retired officer in the USAF, a triple ace of WW2, and the highest scoring living American fighter ace.

During WW2, he served two combat tours with the renowned 357th Fighter Group based in England from Nov 1943 through Jan 1945, escorting heavy bombers over Europe in the P-51 Mustang. He flew 116 combat missions totaling 480 hours and destroyed 16 and ¼ (shared with three other flight members) enemy aircraft in aerial combat, in addition to another one on the ground.

Anderson earned more than 25 awards during his military career. Following the war, he flew and led flight test programs in Ohio and California, and also led fighter squadrons during post-war Korea and in Vietnam. After retiring from the United States Air Force in 1972, Anderson worked for more than a decade in flight test operations for McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. He was inducted into the EAA Warbirds of America Hall of Fame in 2017.

Anderson celebrates his 100th Birthday on January 13, 2022.

 

[Louis]

Dominic Salvatore Gentile (1920/1951) known as "Ace of Aces" and his P-51 named “Shangri-La”. On April 5, 1944, Gentile shot down his 27th plane and broke the record of 26 kills by WWI ace Eddie Rickenbacker. By the end of the war this “Ace of Aces” achieved a total of 30 kills.

Gentile died in a accident on January 28, 1951, when he crashed in a T-33A-1-LO Shooting Star trainer, in Forestville, Maryland.

 

[Louis]

Flyshing ace Major Helmut Paul Emil Wick (born 5 Aug 1915) was the fourth recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves.
Wick was credited with 56 victories achieved flying 168 combat missions aboard his Bf-109. In his score are 24 Spitfires.

Major Wick failed to return from a mission over the English Channel on 28 November 1940 and is listed as missing to this day. With fifty-six victories had become -in this moment- the leading German fighter pilot.

 

[Louis]

Flying officer Geoffrey Fisken (1916/2011) beside his P40 Kittyhawk at Guadalcanal in July 1943. Fisken was the top NZ ace in the Pacific. The RNZAF museum says he had 11 confirmed kills, Fisken said three were in one day.

Fisken pictured with his Wairarapa Wild Cat, with 11 Japanese kills registered on the fuselage.

 

[Louis]

In Oct 1941, sixteen-year-old Vasily Kurka (born 1925) joined the Red Army units retreating from Mariupol and asked to be enlisted in the 395th Infantry Division. Given his young age, Vasily was not sent to the frontline, but was kept in the rear services. Having learnt that soldiers were being recruited for sniper training, he convinced his commanding officers to give him a chance. It turned out that Kurka was a born sniper. He rose to the rank of a junior lieutenant, became the commander of a sniper platoon and even a sniper school instructor.

Before he was killed in Jan 1945 fighting for Poland, Vasily had shot 179 enemy soldiers and officers, making it one of the best sniper records in the Red Army.

 

[Gunner]

Mariupol.....

 

[Louis]

On June 1942, Lt. Mikhail Baranov (1921/1943) made 176 sorties, personally shot down 20 enemy aircraft and destroyed 6 during ground attack on airfields. He died in an accident on 15 Jan 1943 while testing a Yak-1 fighter while performing aerobatic figures at 3,000 meters, his aircraft rolled inverted and plunged to the ground, killing him. Awarded the Order of Lenin, 2 orders of the Red Banner.

 

[Gunner]

FYI, a Yak-1

 

[Nort]

That is a lot of kills.

 

[Louis]

Finnish ace Hans Henrik "Hasse" Wind (1919/1995) stands next to the cockpit of his Brewster B 239.
He finished the WW2 with a total of 302 combat sorties, scoring 75 kills, and is ranked second on the Finnish aces list.
Wind was considered one of the most skillful aerial tacticians in the Finnish Air Force, and Wind's 'Lectures on Fighter Tactics' were written in 1943 and used in the training of new pilots for decades to come.

 

[Gnarly]

Holy cow! 75!!!!

 

[Gunner]

Brewster (Buffalo) B-239

 

[Louis]

The then Lt. Alex Vraciu (1918/2015) celebrates his downing of six Japanese aircraft (all Yokosuka D4Y "Judies") during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, June 19, 1944.

Vraciu ranked fourth among the U.S. Navy's flying aces, with 19 enemy planes downed during flight and 21 destroyed on the ground. He retired from the U.S. Navy with the rank of commander on 1963.

 

[Louis]

German Luftwaffe pilot Josef “Sepp” Wurmheller (1917/1944) achieved 102 victories. He recorded nine victories over the Eastern Front. Of the 93 victories recorded over the Western Front, at least 20 were four-engine bombers and at least 56 RAF Spitfire fighters.

But despite his ability in aerial combat, Wurmheller was accidentally killed: on 22 June 1944 during aerial combat with Allied fighters near Alençon when he collided with his wingman.
He was posthumously awarded the Schwerten (Nr 108) and promoted to the rank of Major on 24 Oct.

 

[Louis]

Stoyan Iliev Stoyanov (1913/1997), the highest scoring Bulgarian fighter ace of the Royal Bulgarian Air Force in WW2 with 15 victories.

 

[Gunner]

Nice. He looks quite dashing with his jaunty tilt of his hat.
He's very lucky to have lived such a long life.

 

[Louis]

Gerhard "Herd" Barkhorn flew more than 1,104 sorties and shot down 301 enemy aircraft on the Eastern Front, as part of the famous 52nd Squadron, along with Erich Hartmann and Gunther Rall. He surviving the war and retired as a Lt. Gen.
On Jan 6, 1983, he and his wife, Kristl, were in a car accident on a snowy highway in the Cologne area. Kristl died immediately, and Gerhard Barkhorn died in hospital two days later.

 

[Louis]

Better late than never...

Clarence Smoyer he gained a reputation for deadly accuracy as a tank gunner.
On 2019 Smoyer was the last living member of his crew manning a Pershing tank destroyed a German Panther tank in a pivotal battle. Was part of a famous March 6, 1945, battle in Cologne, Germany. Smoyer has been credited with destroying five tanks in the war.

Smoyer (top middle, no helmet) sits with fellow tank crew members in Cologne, 1945.

Smoyer was told soon after that he would receive the Bronze Star, but a few days later he ran afoul of a minor disciplinary issue that cost him his medal. A military police officer saw him searching his pockets for bubble gum to give to a crowd of German children and charged him with fraternization with the enemy. Meanwhile, Smoyer's tank commander and the military cameraman who filmed the battle received Bronze Stars of their own.

75 years after, on Sept. 18, 2019, Smoyer, 96, receiving the Bronze Star in Washington.

Clarence Smoyer, the last surviving member of the U.S. Army’s E-Company, 32nd Armored Regiment, 3rd Armored Div, died on Friday 30 Sept. He celebrated his 99th birthday on June 25.

 

[mTk]

Oh, my. That is some seriously bad karma.
Barkhorn risks his life 1104 times and then he gets shot down by a car.

 

[Louis]

Kaname Harada (1916/2016), a former Japanese fighter ace who was believed to be the last surviving combat pilot to fly for Japan at Pearl Harbor, and -post war- who became an apostle of pacifism out of remorse over the deaths he caused.

He was credited with shooting down as many as 19 Allied aircraft between late 1941 and when he was himself downed -and surviving- in Oct 1942. After recovering from the injuries sustained in this incident, Harada served as a flying instructor for the remainder of the war.