Largest Single Fighter Airbattle of WWII

Operation Rutter was planned for May 1942.
Canceled on July 7
Was re planned for 11 July as Operation JUBILEE.

With that much delay between the actual attack after it had been dropped...I don't have anything that tells of them being kept in the dark abour thier target or in isolation. It's well know fact that both the Germans and British had intelligence agents in enemy areas to spy.

 

German army casualties (killed wounded, and missing) were 333 (132 KIA); German navy 113 (78 KIA); and Luftwaffe 162 (104 dead) ground and air.

I have one source that gives RAF/RCAF aircraft losses as 120 (mostly Spitfires) destroyed or written off due to damage and Luftwaffe aircraft losses as 48 (24 bombers) with 24 damaged.

 

Whatever the actual number it seems the Allies took more losses than the Axis guys.

How the heck did we get to this from the biggest fighter airbattle?

 

Actually, if you look at it from a numerical perspective both the Western Allies and the Soviets have ALWAYS suffered greater losses than their German combatants (on each respective front) as did the Chinese in Manchuria... It seems that, in full-scale modern warfare at least, the victorious side always suffers the largest human toll... WW1, WW2, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the list goes on with few exceptions... I assume that in WW2's case this was because that the necessity of pushing all the way to Berlin meant that the Allies had to overcome a largely defensive Germany army, and what is the doctrine of defense? Kill as many attacking forces as possible until they retreat. In the end though strategic flexibility and numbers overcame the smaller force of slightly-technologically-superior Germans, but at a higher military price...

 

there were a hundred lw aces with more than 100 kills each...the top us and raf pilots had close to 40 kills....capt priller shot down some 70 spitfires alone,not counting his other kills...many of these lw guys had to bail out of or crash land their burning fighters 10 or 15 times!...many were hospitalized for 4 or 8 months and retured to combat on crutches apparently post traumatic stress was not allowed in the german military..these surviveing lw aces continued to knock down the very latest mustangs ,spits and typhoons as fast as they could bring their guns to bear right up to the last day of the war...no allied air force has anyone that came remotely close to the acheivments of the lw fighter top guns ...of course the young lw pilots that filled the ranks of the squadrens the experts led were easy meat for the raf and aac veterans.late in the war,,,..and the shear weight of numbers finally won the day...still the disparity of combat successes between lw and allied pilots is quite astouding...the same rules seem to applie to tank aces as well btw....

 

How many times...


Rotation out of combat
Target-rich environment
And a list of other stuff.

 

maj:woody:

for your benefit... from acepilots.com.
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Not long before he passed away in December, 1998, Robert S. Johnson was interviewed by Colin D. Heaton, of Military History magazine. Excerpts of that interview follow:

Military History: Tell us about some of the types of missions that the 56th Fighter Group performed.

Johnson: We started flying bomber escort. The first missions were just flights over the coastline into France to get a feel for the terrain and the enemy-controlled area. We occasionally met the enemy over the North Sea, and sometimes they came over to visit us. They would strafe the fields and that type of thing. As time went on, we pushed them back from the coastline, but that comes later in the story. That was where I received my combat and aerial gunnery training, against the best the Germans had.

MH: That's true, you were flying against Jagdgeschwader 2 (JG.2) and JG.26 a lot--and they were definitely a sharp group of pilots.

Johnson: Yes, that's correct. They were at Abbeville and along the coast, right across from us.

MH: I understand that Oberstleutnant Hans Philipp, leader of JG.1, was one of your victories?

Johnson: That was on October 8, 1943. My wingman and I had become separated, as sometimes happens in combat. We were trying to find some friendly airplanes to fly home with. I had just shot down a Messerschmitt Bf-110, which was my fourth kill. As I pulled up from that dive I saw four FW-190s attacking the bombers. I rolled over until I was upside down so I could watch them, as they were some 5,000 feet below me. I was inverted and continued my dive, shooting while pushing the nose forward to give the necessary lead for my bullets to intercept one of the planes. I was shooting at the leader, and his number three or four man pulled his nose up, shooting at me as I was coming down. I continued the attack, and just as I hit the leader, knocking him down, I felt a thump in my airplane. How badly I was hit I didn't know, as I was very busy. I leveled out after that, and I found out 50 years later that my fifth victory was Hans Philipp, a 206-victory ace from the Russian Front. I pulled up right in the path of a group of Bf-110s and FW-190s coming in behind the four I had engaged. I immediately threw the stick left and dropped the nose. Nothing happened when I hit left rudder, and then I knew that my rudder cable was shot away. I had no rudder control at all, only trim tabs.
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Yes, Robert Johnsons' (5th) fifth victory was Hans Philipp, a 206-victory ace from the Russian Front.
'Seems to me it speaks highly of both the pilot, his skill and training... and the aircraft he was flying. Robert Johnsons' outfit was in combat against JG2 and JG 26... "The Abbeville Boys" were certainly not green, inexperienced pilots.
Again... in response to your arguement, I'll reply with
"THAT DOG DON'T HUNT."

Tim

 

OK Woody, I really can't put it any better than Tim already has.

Different roles, different duties, different targets, different structures, different rotations.

You cannot compare the two and yet you insist on doing so.

The RAF and USAAF pilots had the skill and had the flying experience, they were however flying and fighting a very different war from their Luftwaffe counterparts, yet you completely refuse to acknowledge any difference between the two. Why?

 

johnson was one of the best jug pilots in the eto,i much of my childhood kicking arround the same wind swept grasslands and dirt lots where bob johnson grew up arround ft sill okl. i know that lw aces could be shot down ...most jumped from or crash landed their planes a dozen times or more,,,to say that johnson shot down a 200 kill ace and there for he is just as good as any 200 kill lw ace is kinda silly though is it not ...if i dropped a brick from a second storie window on to mike tysons head would that mean i was just as tuff as mike tyson? i know the lw aces had more combat sorties ,more targets and they never rotated out to sell war bonds ...the lw did escort missions ,fighter sweeps and ground attacks i belive ..they like all combat pilots were fugatives from the law of averages were they not? isnt it the main job of fighter pilots to sweep all enemy aircraft from the skies? why should lw kills count for less than those of allied pilots?had johnson and phillipp passed wingtip to wingtip at 20000 feet each of them alone do you think johnson would have won that duel ,really?

 

They don't. But you have to take them in context. Simply looking at lists of numbers without looking at their context can give very misleading impressions.

Quite probably. But then Phillipp might.
We can never know because it never happened - and that type of combat rarely happened. Most kills resulted from planes being 'bounced' rather than through dogfights. If you happen to be a good shot and be on the defensive with a good ground controller, you *could* rack up quite a good score without having to actually throw your plane around much.

 

cmon ricky ,you cant be serious...johnson had a total of 4 kills under his belt ,had he made a steep looping turn to engage phillipp he would have soon intersected the cannon shells of the 190 and died like hundreds before him ...his only hope of survival would have been a steep dive to the treetops ,depending on the 190 ,even that may not have saved him.......a ground controller could sometimes get a fighter to the general area of the e.a.s but it came down to eyeballs after that..im sure johnsons eyesight was very good ...i think we can rest assured that philipps was phenominal..

 

I agree with woody here... No matter what elements you factor in to the equation, the Luftwaffe aces did far more military damage than any USAF or RAF pilot... Who cares if they weren't as skillful or well supported? Frankly I don't doubt that Johnson might shoot down Phillip mano y mano, that doesn't change the fact that Phillip was a more valuable pilot.

The fact remains that Luftwaffe pilots were more valuable to their respective militaries for inflicting heavier losses; the primary job of an fighter... Essentially, as individuals, they had a greater bearing upon the outcome of the airwar; whether or not they were more skilled is not the question... Skill does not necessarily win wars (as the Luftwaffe aces discovered)

Rather than saying that Luftwaffe pilots were more 'skilled' (which I do not necessarily believe) I like to say that individually, they posessed greater tactical importance than any RAF or USAF pilot in WW2

 

Again, it depends on how you determine value.

In the RAF and USAAF/USAF good pilots were often rotated into training duties to pass on their wisdom to new pilots, thus ensuring that the basic level of every new pilot was that little bit better before they even get posted to a combat squadron, which is stategically far more valuable to an air force than keeping the better pilots flying all the time, ensuring that they can only advise other pilots within their squadron, and only when they arrive at the squadron (and thus start operational flying).


I think that this is the difference between Axis and Allied in a number of areas...

Germany was very tactically minded, everything from the types of planes in their airforce to their attempts to plan a Cross-Channel invasion show this, whereas the Western Allies were more strategically-minded.

 

One more time... :roll:

The USAAF pilots on the whole flew many many more escort missions than their Luftwaffe counterparts. Escort missions where their job was not necessarily to shoot down enemy aircraft but to prevent friendly bombers being shot down. Luftwaffe pilots on the whole flew far more interception missions where their job was solely to shoot down enemy bombers.

By your standards a USAAF escort pilot who loses half the squadron he is supposed to be protecting but shoots down a few German fighters in the process is a more valuable pilot than one who doesn't shoot down a single enemy fighter but doesn't lose a single bomber either. The first pilot has been more destructive and is therefore more "Valuable".

I will repeat again, and no doubt you will ignore again. The Allied and Luftwaffe pilots fought very different wars, different targets, different roles, different opportunities. It is no surprise to me that the Luftwaffe pilots scored so highly, but equally the Allies top pilots were just as good and I have no doubt if the positions were reversed the Allied pilots would have scored just as highly. Again though, you will refuse to even consider that.

 

simon ,i understand about the aac,s escort job description...these rules applie per 8th airforce starting in earnest from about 1944...i was thinking of the lw super aces barkhorn ,kittel ,rall ,nowotney ect and all the west front lw prior to 44 ...they had little to do with jugs and b17s ,mostly ...hartmann shot down hundreds of laggs and p40s mostly ...... all fighters whatever their nationality are required to stay on station and protect their charges ,wether bombers ,recce or grnd attack..this is not a revellation to me but thanks anyway for the pointers...surely ,simon ,you would agree that johnson with 4 kills would almost certainly die if he met philipp one on one and tried to roll into him with his jug..? also ,i would suggest that the abbeville boys of 1944 had little resemblance to the original abby boys of 1940 _42

 

Unfortunately, the air warfare differed alot between western and the eastern fronts. Many times when a decorated experten with many kills got a transfer from the eastern front to the western front, it ment the doom to the said experten. Can't say that the Luftwaffe pilot was bad, he was just experienced in a different fight and he didn't cope quickly enough to the new situation.

Can you say that a World Rally Car champion would automatically win an F1 race if he's been given the chance to get a try?

 

actually the top aces could transfer from fronts without to much trouble ...they went from knocking down laggs and p39s to the west and started whacking spits and mustangs...the experts were not infallible though and could be killed anywhere any day by a lucky rookie as happened to phillipp when caught by the eight .50s in johnsons big fighter...actually tiso just posted interviews of lw aces where they state the the russian front was tougher and more deadly than the west....go figure...

 

Wasn't Johnson and his P-47 involved in anothe r air to air classic with a German ace and came out the worse, except his bug Jug kept on chugging after the Fw-190 ran out of ammo? I must get another copy of "Thunderbolt", great book.

 

Well if you would like to discredit the lufwaffe pilot's score for having been achieved from the 'easy pickings' on the eastern front, perhaps it would be wise to remember that US and RAF aces, like Bong, scored most of their kills in the Japanese theatre

 

Bong scored most (All?) of his kills in the Pacific, but I'm not aware the same is true of other RAF and USAAF pilots.

OK though, considering that, the Pacific was a target sparse environment where target opportunities were largely few and far between. The Enemy at the time Bong was in combat were still very skilled and their aircraft very nimble. Yet Bong stilled achieved nearly the same kill/sortie ratio as Hartmann.

The 8th AAF was flying mostly escort missions from the outset, 1944 and the arrival of the Mustang made the missions longer and more effective but USAAF Spitfires and Thunderbolts were flying escort for B-17 missions pretty much from the outset