What WW2 ace do you look up to?

[DaddyAck]

I look up to Adolf Galland.
He was the man

[Charge]

Lieutenant Colonel Eino Luukkanen.

http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/WW2History-LuukkanenEnglish.html

-C+

[Makoyouidiot]

Robin Olds...His flying style is close to mine. Except he lived through diving after 40+ enemies.

[Makoyouidiot]

Originally posted by BaDkaRmA158Th
Tell you what, if i was put into the position to kill people, and 80 years later some dip **** looks upto me for my deed,ill call him a retard.

And like i said before,you can justify it anyway you want,the rule is the rule.
you TAKE life,you are murder.
does not matter if the life you took WAS a murderer.

Just because you can justify something will never make it right.

"you killed my brother there for that grants me right to slaughter every member of your family."
understand?


and looking upto someone because they killed more people!?
you are nuts, did you ever think most pilots hoped to holy hell the people they shot down made it out alive?
any soldier or pilot preys for peace, because it is them who suffers most.
for the taking of life.
Period.

Now i do not begrudge these people, im just trying to hit two sides of the coin here.



What is amazing is how these people found a way to live past the war with taking life without enough guilt to blow themselfs away.
"and many did,however unknown to there friends/family/community/country"



Life IS such.
Bu|| $|-|17 your selfs otherwise all you want.

While portions of that may be true, I tend to think that, because of their age, most folks forget about them, and they probably like to be remembered from time to time, since without their contributions, we'd all be speaking different languages.

Let's put it this way. If you did something 80 years ago, and someone looks up to you for it now, but nobody else even remembers that you were there, would you feel the same way? I'm only 18, but I'd like to think that I'd be happy for the company.

<>
MakoShrk

[PanzerIV]

An Ace you may want to hear about(Not an fighter pilot, more of a Stuka pilot) who fought World War Two is  Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

According to official Luftwaffe figures in total, Rudel flew some 2,530 combat missions (a world record), during which he destroyed almost 2,000 ground targets (among them 519 tanks, 70 assault craft/landing boats, 150 self-propelled guns, 4 armoured trains and 800 other vehicles; as well as 9 planes (2 Il-2's and 7 fighters).In addition, Rudel's input was used during the development of the A-10 ground attack aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel

Quite an amazing person. I dont really look up to people,(or down).

[Shifty]

Originally posted by PanzerIV
An Ace you may want to hear about(Not an fighter pilot, more of a Stuka pilot) who fought World War Two is  Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

According to official Luftwaffe figures in total, Rudel flew some 2,530 combat missions (a world record), during which he destroyed almost 2,000 ground targets (among them 519 tanks, 70 assault craft/landing boats, 150 self-propelled guns, 4 armoured trains and 800 other vehicles; as well as 9 planes (2 Il-2's and 7 fighters).In addition, Rudel's input was used during the development of the A-10 ground attack aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel

Quite an amazing person. I dont really look up to people,(or down).

Tool Shedder.

[Spiffing]

Name: Douglas Bader
Born: 1910
Died: 1982
Place of Birth: London
Information: Douglas Bader was the son of a soldier killed in the first world war.  Bader won a scholarship to St Edwards School in Oxford after Oxford he went on to the RAF college in Cranwell, where he captained the Rugby team and was a champion boxer.  In 1930 Bader was commissioned as an officer in the RAF but after only 18 months he crashed his plane and as a result he lost both his legs. He was discharged from the RAF and he found work with the Asiatic Petroleum Company.  He learnt to find using artificial legs and at the outbreak of World War 2 he was allowed to rejoin the RAF As a member of 222 squadron Bader took part in an operation over Dunkirk  and showed his ability by bringing down a Messerschmitt Bf109 and a Heinkel He111.  He was promoted and given command of 242 squadron the squadrons first sortie was in the Battle of Britain on the 30th of August 1940 resulted in the shooting down of 12 German planes in just over an hour, Bader claiming two Messerschmitt 110.  In the summer of 1941 he obtained 12 kills and he was shot down on the 9th of August 1941 by a Messerschmitt Bf109 near Le Touquet, France.  He parachuted out and badly damaged both his artificial legs, he was taken to a French hospital and with the help of a nurse he escaped, he was later recaptured and sent to colditz where he remained for the rest of the war.  After the war he left the RAF in 1946 and became the managing director of Shell Aircraft until 1969 when he left to become a member of the Civil Aviation Authority Board.  Douglas Bader was knighted in 1976 and he died in 1982.

[Raptor]

Thomas McGuire

[B3YT]

i'd have to go with badder too. just for the fact that he tried to escape colditz by filling his legs with sand from tunels they were trying to build .
Plus he devised the "BIG WING" formation during the BoB

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by PanzerIV
An Ace you may want to hear about(Not an fighter pilot, more of a Stuka pilot) who fought World War Two is  Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

According to official Luftwaffe figures in total, Rudel flew some 2,530 combat missions (a world record), during which he destroyed almost 2,000 ground targets (among them 519 tanks, 70 assault craft/landing boats, 150 self-propelled guns, 4 armoured trains and 800 other vehicles; as well as 9 planes (2 Il-2's and 7 fighters).In addition, Rudel's input was used during the development of the A-10 ground attack aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel

Quite an amazing person. I dont really look up to people,(or down).

A very dedicated Nazi however, which takes him off any list of mine.

[bsdaddict]

he wasn't an ace, but my grandpa got 2 kills in a Hellcat in the PTO.  also he would tell us the story of when he landed with a hole in one of his wings big enough to crawl through.  so, he's the WW2 "pilot" I most look up to, and the Hellcat is certainly my favorite ride.  The way I see it, if the Hellcat wasn't such a tough bird I wouldn't be here today.

[Jenks]

Major General Marion E. Carl

 I met him once at the Roseburg VA hospital. I had no idea who he was. He left me with the impression of a very gentle person with a lot of class.

Only when I saw his picture in the paper a few years later, anouncing his murder did I become aware of who he was.

read about him here

[Joker312]

Originally posted by Widewing


Gabby lived about 15 minutes from me. I would see him around from time to time. His Plymouth had a vanity plate that said T-BOLT.


Widewing

I didnt know he had a home in Terryville also. Mr. Gabreski lived about 4 blocks from me in Dix Hills, NY until his death. I worked with (while with the FAA) 2 WWII fighter pilots that met with him once a month, LI Fighter Pilots Assn I believe.

He was very involved in the community but was also a private guy around the neighborhood.

[folkwufe]

Originally posted by bsdaddict
he wasn't an ace, but my grandpa got 2 kills in a Hellcat in the PTO.  also he would tell us the story of when he landed with a hole in one of his wings big enough to crawl through.  so, he's the WW2 "pilot" I most look up to, and the Hellcat is certainly my favorite ride.  The way I see it, if the Hellcat wasn't such a tough bird I wouldn't be here today.

then i wish the hellcat wasnt such a tough bird.

[Treize69]

Theres three I look up to most. Each in a different air force.

USAAF, Duane Beeson of the 4th FG; 17.333 a2a, 21 total. Would have beaten Rickenbackers record before Gentile (and had many more of them A2A) if he hadn't been downed by flak on one of the "Jackpot" missions in April '44. Had 21 when he went down and his kills before getting hit put him in the temporary lead in the 8th AAF.

He passed away in 1947 enroute to Walter Reed Army Hospital for emergency surgery on a brain tumor.



Luftwaffe, Georg-Peter Eder, JG51, 26, 1, 2, & 7; 78 victories, 36 of them 4-engined bombers. He was the one I took my old callsign from when I was known as "White13". Flew from beginning to end, scored kills in everything from the Bf-109E to the Me-262. According to legend, he was the one known as "Lucky 13" to USAAF fighter and bomber crews.



ARR, Alexandru Serbănescu, Grupuri 7 and 9 Vanatoare, 47 kills and 8 probables against the Allies. Shot down and killed on 18 August, 1944 by P-51s of the 15th AAF- only 5 days before the armistice with the Allies and on the last hostile encounter between the ARR and the USAAF. A professional soldier and fighter pilot in the pre-war ARR, he was the ranking ace at the time of his death and the commander of Grupul 9 Vanatoare. Its not known for sure who downed him, but the leading candidate is US ace John Voll.

He went into combat that day with a faulty radio (it could transmit but not receive), and led Grupul 9 into a swirling dogfight with twice their number of P-51s and P-38s. At some point he was bounced by a high pair of Mustangs, and by the time Ion Dobran and Trajan Dârjan came to his aid it was too late. His last transmission was a simple "Eu cobor." ("I'm going down.") His body was found in the wreckage later that day, and all aerial opposition to the USAAF raids were suspended after that battle.


Linking arms with lt. Ludwig Neubock. ARR and Luftwaffe personnel enjoyed very cordial relations all through their cooperation against the Russians.


The ceremony marking the 60th Anniversary of his death at the National Cemetary. He has a street named after him in Bucharest.