Is Spitfire Mk V still the dominat spit mark in mid war?

[Angus]

Crumpp: If you spotted a mistake on my post, PLEASE POINT IT OUT instead of making snide remarks. I did not post feelings, I posted straight from memory, and it has the nasty habbit of being 90%+ correct. However, your reply seems to have been rather from....feeling.
I rather suspect you didn't look up.
From the back of my head I do remember "Rosie" making a bellylanding, just not sure if it was due to enemy fire.
The other should hold water.
Erich Hartmann was forced down, and more than once, apart for trashing an aircraft on takeoff (well that can always happen).
He ditched in enemy territory and escaped after being captured by being a good actor! He also bailed after being gangbanged by P51's. No escape, there, if he hadn't done it, he'd have been toast.
Again from memory, but I have the book in German and I read it a year ago.
So, -  there, - Ces't la vie.
The 7 times shot down RAF pilot in the BoB might be less, I would think it was Al Deere, and then counting from the Battle of France through the BoB, including when he got bombed on takeoff. If it isn't Deere (his autobiography is named "nine lives"), I'll be all ears!

Then, this famos guy had a scruffle with another famous guy.
The LW pilot, using superb tactics got on the Spitfire Pilots tail after the Spitfire pilot shot his wingman. It developed into a turnfight where the Spitfire Pilot absolutely reversed the situation, filled the 109 with lead, and due to his somewhat strange moral habit, left the wounded LW pilot to leave for home with a ruined aircraft......

I'll reveil, that this is none the less THAN:

My favourite character of all WW2 fighter pilots:

[Angus]

Sidenote. His brother was also a fighter pilot, but was shot down and captured by the British. After that, he spent some 6 years in Canada. Must be worth his weight in gold for the tales he could tell. I have an interview with him in the Jaegerblatt. He may be alive still.

[Angus]

Oh, Adi Glunz got out without a scratch.
So did Tony Jonsson, with 2 exceptions.
1. Getting cut on a tincan in a ditch while evading enemy strafing.
2. Getting scabies from some dirty stuff in N-Africa, as well as flees.

His main worries were not the LW aircraft, but the ack and flak, for he was doing a lot of ground attack. V-1 & V-2 sites, bridges, rails and that stuff.

Just for cakes

[Crumpp]

By mid-August, he had doubled his score to 10, when VMF-124 moved over to the newly captured airbase at Munda.  On the 12th, Walsh's wingman, Lt. Johnston,  saved his life by getting a Zero off Walsh's tail.  Walsh had been badly shot up, his plane was on fire, and the Zero was about to finish him off when Johnston flicked him off.

http://www.acepilots.com/usmc_aces2.html

Bong got shot up pretty good by an Oscar at one point IIRC.

This is rather typical:

It would be something of an exaggeration to say that Col. Charles H. MacDonald has been slighted by history. He is, after all, the highest-scoring P-38 pilot to survive World War II.

MacDonald was the first to attack the enemy armada. In a wild melee, he shot down two fighters and was lining up on a third when he was hit hard from the rear, damaging the hydraulics and knocking out one engine, his electrical systems, and most of his coolant. Everything held together for a wave-top return to land over 40 miles of uninviting water, ending in a belly landing.

http://www.afa.org/magazine/valor/0393valor.asp

Did he get shot down?

Guess it just depends on your perspective.

Tony Jonsson

Do you think his number of times entering combat compares with Adolf Glunz?

All the best,

Crumpp

[Angus]

Hehe, knew you'd ask:
"Do you think his number of times entering combat compares with Adolf Glunz?"

Not far from it in the context of facing enemy fire. Lots of flak.

[Crumpp]

I wasn't aware the allies kept pilots in combat from the day the war started until the end.

That will certainly shake some historians up!

All the best,

Crumpp

[Kurfürst]

I think its a bit of a myth about 'allied pilots' not serving long terms. The US certainly rotated it's pilots in tours, but it's seems to be a special case. The other 'allied', the RAF certainly kept the pilots serving until from day 1 till the end. J J Johnson certainly still served in 1945, then there's Closterman, and I am sure dozens of others. They served in the frontlines, with more or less time spent to rest, but that isn't any different from their LW collagues. Ditto for the Soviets. It seems the US habit of rotating/retiring pilots (they could afford it) is misatkenly applied for all Allied countries.

[Angus]

Rather on the spot Kurfurst.
As for Tony Jonsson, his service was from 1941 to 1945, and included in a rough order, Rhubarbs, Circuses (ETO), Scrambles and allsorts (MTO), then on to instructing (the closest he got to bail out when a student chopped his rudder off), further training and testing, transfer, then D-Day, Sweeps, jabo, crossbow and deep escort, as well as some doodlebug hunting and some other stuff.
Ended up on multi engined aircraft, and as a trainer and tug-tower!
His combat hours were some 500-600 I belive (he generously filled his quota of a ToD 200 hrs twice).

The allied cleverly did NOT keep their pilot in combat untill they either fell or became legends, - they methodically used veterans in their training programme, which proved to be quite a benefit. Still, some flew and fought for quite long, like Johhny who started in the same period as Tony, and was still at it as a wingco ober Berlin in 1941. But no pilots flew longer periods than the LW pilots, make no mistake.
Another nice & snide remark anyway.

Oh, and by pointing out the lead thrown at some of those pilots, it is interesting to know how many allied aces were downed by flak vs how many LW aces ended their career by that cause.
I can't remember a LW ace in an instance although I am sure that there were some. But many an allied ace ended his career as a WW2 combat pilot due to the German flak. First in mind comes Robert Stanford-Tuck, but they were indeed many.
How did Gabreski go down? Or Yeager?

[Crumpp]

The allied cleverly did NOT keep their pilot in combat untill they either fell or became legends, - they methodically used veterans in their training programme, which proved to be quite a benefit.

Therein lies the BIG difference.  A training billet is NOT combat.


200 hours is a drop in the bucket compared to those Luftwaffe pilots who fought the whole war.

While allied pilots had the "option" to "volunteer" for continued combat duty this is nothing on the scale the German pilots experienced.  Huge difference pyschologically between having an option and not having an option.

There is no comparision whatsoever.

Oh, and by pointing out the lead thrown at some of those pilots, it is interesting to know how many allied aces were downed by flak vs how many LW aces ended their career by that cause.

That is one of the silliest comparisions I have ever seen written.  Look up "Bodenplatte".

These are nothing but more "gaming" logic and a silly attempt to imply some performance conclusions based on junk history.  

All the best,

Crumpp

[Angus]

I don't have to look up operation Bodenplatte, 1/1 45.
As for training, are you implying that the allies failed at their programme.
Full training+ 250 combat hours should be enough for an updated instructor.
Many LW pilots from the bucket didn't even last that long, and nevermind anyway, Even Hartmann was not an instructor.
Rall was though, for he had a wounded hand.....

[Crumpp]

As for training, are you implying that the allies failed at their programme.

Where in the world do you see that???

Many LW pilots from the bucket didn't even last that long,

Very true.  Scores of allied pilots died as well before their tour was up.  Combat is like that.

What is your point?

All the best,

Crumpp

[Angus]

Lol, I was hunting your point.
Anyway, Happy new year!!

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by Kurfürst
See Rule #4

Comp has been down the last couple days and I return to see this.

Ah well.  Let me try spell it out more clearly for you Kurfurst.  I thought you'd get the inference when referencing real world issues without my naming it since you had replied back September when someone posted about what happened.

One of the results of the death of my two kids last August, is to reinforce how unimportant this stuff is.  I wish I could get worked up about it, but I can't and don't.  It just doesn't matter in the overall.

Am I broken?  Yeah that's a fair assessment.  A part of me is broken.  Am I dealing with it?  Yep. Don't have much choice.  It's a part of what I deal with day to day.  I'd dearly love not to have to.

When I refer to escaping, it's to forget about that for a minute or two and try and hide in something that can give me some joy.  

Fantasy world?  Nope.  My fantasies involve my kids walking back in the door some day.  Sadly that fantasy can't happen.  I have to deal with the real world.

The only thing I am fanatical about is being a good husband and father.  I have one daughter left, and my wife and I put our energies into helping her get back into college and on with her life.

So yeah, it's tough to see myself as a zealot about anything in AH.  I like talking history.  I like to learn about it and have learned tons from folks here.

I'm not looking for your sympathy.  Trust me on that.  Just understand clearly, that nothing here is worth me getting worked up about.

And I will 'spare you the BS' from here on out.  It's isn't worth the time

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Guppy35
Comp has been down the last couple days and I return to see this.

He's an ignorant moron, Dan, ignore the SOB.

- oldman

[Widewing]

Originally posted by Oldman731
He's an ignorant moron, Dan, ignore the SOB.

- oldman

Indeed.

Do what I did, cut and paste his vile comments into an e-mail along with a link to HTC and include a brief discription of Dan's recent tragedy. No one should get away with that level of evil....

My regards,

Widewing