[Epapazian]

The elite of most countries engaged in WWII gravitated to their air arms and fighter pilots were often considered "the cream of the crop". In their prime and irrespective of the quality of the planes they flew or the overall outcome of the war, which of these air forces fielded the best fighter pilots---man for man--- during WWII? U.S. Army Air Force, U.S. Navy/Marines, Great Britain's RAF, Frances Armee de l'Air, Italy's Regia Aeronautica,Germany's Luftwaffe, the Russian air force, the Finnish air force, Japan's naval air arm or Japan's army air arm?

[Aircrafty]

Initially the Luftwaffe, RAF and Japanese Navy had the better trained pilots as a group but individuals from a variety of countries such as Pat Pattle from South Africa gained high scores. However as the war progressed most of the better axis pilots were lost by attrition via air battles and aircraft carrier losses. The allied pilots steadily gained experience and used better tactics and were matched against poorer pilots as the war progressed, allowing for such one sided battles as the Marianas Turkey Shoot: http://www.vf31.com/sorties/marianas_turkey_shoot.html

[FormerViperDriver]

Plus, the Zero was a piece of junk.

FVD

[Aircrafty]

Hi FVD, have you just had another handfull of Patriot Pep Pills

[wnsolomon]

Good question, the problem revolves around developing adequate criteria for the analysis. Such an analysis would have to account for a multitude of factors. How do you control for different tour lengths? Does a victory of an F4F over and A6M2 count for more than an F4U over over and A6M5? Or is a Bf-109 over a Yak-3 worth less than a Bf-109 over a Spit? How do you control for numbers? For example, were US aces diluted by the sheer numbers of pilots the US was able to put in the sky? This isn't to say the question is unanswerable but it is certainly a difficult one. Any answer that doesn't attempt to take some of these factors into consideration is really just speculation.

[Shawn 507]

Those who won WW2!!

[Epapazian]

Originally Posted by wnsolomon

Good question, the problem revolves around developing adequate criteria for the analysis. Such an analysis would have to account for a multitude of factors. How do you control for different tour lengths? Does a victory of an F4F over and A6M2 count for more than an F4U over over and A6M5? Or is a Bf-109 over a Yak-3 worth less than a Bf-109 over a Spit? How do you control for numbers? For example, were US aces diluted by the sheer numbers of pilots the US was able to put in the sky? This isn't to say the question is unanswerable but it is certainly a difficult one. Any answer that doesn't attempt to take some of these factors into consideration is really just speculation.

A fair point. One way to level the playing field would be to assume equal numbers for each side and to select specific points during the war as a basis for comparison. For example, say the U.S. Army and Navy/Marines were judged as of 1944, Say the RAF was judged in 1940, France, also in 1940 and Italy in 1941. As for the Luftwaffe, we might take two points, 1940 and 1944 and the fairest time frame for the Soviets is probably 1944 as well. I don't think it matters for the plucky Finns, but both Japanese air arms probably should be evaluated on their 1941-42 performance. The question then would go something like this: Is the RAF fighter pilot of 1940 better--- relative to that era ---than his Japanese naval counterpart in 1941-42, relative to his competitive situation?

[Aircrafty]

Originally Posted by Shawn 507

Those who won WW2!!

The Russians, god bless em

[bsmith13]

Oh goody. Another one of these subjects that pits the knowledge of Aircrafty against the rest of us ignorant amateurs who believe that the west had anything to do with defeating Germany.

Prior to WWII, Japan and Germany had the best trained fighter pilots. Their highly competitive and lengthy training programs were further leavened by operational experience in China and Spain respectively. However, the US Navy is the only service in the world that taught deflection shooting as part of advanced fighter training. As the war progressed, all services cut the time of the training programs in an effort to field more pilots. Axis training became worse as the war progressed. For the most part, Allied training was never stellar except for the fact that new allied pilots were being trained by veterans who had been rotated home. None of the Axis air forces had such a policy. Toward the end of the war, US Navy training time had increased again, with the result that pilots trained from late 1943 to 1945 were on the average better than pilots trained from 1942 to late 1943. I don't know if this was across the board, but I have read several sources that indicate that Soviet Russia had an outstanding policy of not allowing new pilots into combat until they had completed a long period of familiarization training in a combat squadron, usually conducted by the squadron C.O. and other senior pilots.

[Berkut76]

Like previous posters have stated this is a question impossible to answer as the quality of a fighter pilot by itself is just one of the variables. For example, in 1939 - 1942 German Luftwaffe pilots were superior to Allies because they had numerical superiority in modern equipment, tactics and experience dating back to Spanish war, and absolutely superior training stemming from the above. Yet, Luftwaffe event at that period, Luftwaffe proved to be incapable of delivering strategic victories when it came up against fully integrated and well led air defense organizations such as was the case in Battle of Britain, and little known in the West air battles over Moscow and Leningrad.

Furthermore, Luftwaffe proved to be intransigent later in the war, when it didn't adopt Soviet methods of training new pilots as described by bsmith13, while the Soviets had no qualms about copying Luftwaffe tactics wholesale.

In short, in protracted conflicts its organizational resilience that counts most, and, thanks god, Axis ones were not up to stuff.

Regards,

Sergey