There was a mention in" what did you get for christmas" of a book about Germany's top ace in WW2. But now I cant find it, does anyone know the title and/or author so I can find it on amazon?

I thought it was Eric Hartmann... The ace that is not the author... or was that ww 1

thats the one thanks Zane.

iceman wrote:I thought it was Eric Hartmann... The ace that is not the author... or was that ww 1

Nope your right, Eric Hartman is the highest scoring Ace of all time, The Blond Knight. I've got a signed print of him and Adolph Galland that when I lived in Germany, the Germans thought odd to say the least.
If your an old Attack guy like me Stuka Pilot is a good book.
I spent some time in Germany tracking down and talking to as many of the Luftwaffe pilots as I could. Even got to meet and talk with Adolph Galland who did not grant interviews. A friend and I had a "precautionary landing" in a field next to where he lived and I think he wanted to see the helicopter, and we were military aviators .
The Germans do not appreciate their war veterans, I don't know if it's because they are ashamed because of the atrocities or ashamed because they lost or both.
The Russians really made the Germans pay for WWII, and I think Hartmans book brings that out.

I have a book titled "Stuka Pilot" by Hans Ulrich Rudel. Most of his time was on the Russian front. According to the book they had to invent medals to award him. Interesting reading. My copy is by Bantam.(1979) The first edition was by Ballantine December 1958.

Get a copy of the Blond Knight, the story of Eric Hartman. It is a fascinating read. He not only was the top scoring ace of all time, and all countries, but he was shot down six times as well. As the war neared its end, and the Russians were pushing the Germans back, many of the German pilots on the eastern front jumped in their planes and flew back to Germany, where they would be captured by the Americans, leaving their ground crews to the Russians as they advanced. Hartman, on the other hand, went out one morning and dropped a grenade in the cockpit of each of his squadron's planes, then he, all his pilots AND all his ground crews drove toward the rear, and surrendered to the Americans.

Hartman was turned over to the Russians by the US at the end of the war, and spent ten years in a Siberian concentration camp. He finished his flying career as a Luftwaffe Colonel flying F-104's.

He was a very interesting gentleman, with some VERY practical fighting techniques, and impeccable ethics.

A great read.

MTV

aussieaviator wrote:I received an autographed copy of Gunther Rall's memoirs ( the German ace with 275 kills) and a home brew kit. Both are appreciated.
Brian

This ^^ is the post from the Christmas thread, so that's what I was addressing.

So who was the ace of aces? Hartmann or Rall?

About 20 years ago...

....I was having conversation with an airline mechanic as he worked on my airplane. He was a former Air Force mechanic and a private pilot who spent several years based in West Germany, during the late 1960s.

He told me about a love affair that he had with a German girl and her appreciation for his interest in aviation. One weekend she invited him to her grandfather's farm, explaining that he had been a German Fighter pilot during WW-1.

After dinner she asked her grandfather to show our airman "what he had stored" in the barn. After moving tons of old equipment, hay bales, dust, dirt and canvas....there it was ....a WW-1 Fokker Triplane....engine and machine gun still attached.

The elderly gentlemen stated at as WW-1 drew to a close....he was advised to fly the Fokker back to the farm: put it in storage and save it for further aerial conflict. Further combat came too late for the Fokker and it's aging pilot.

The fabric was rotted but otherwise it was a complete aircraft. Then the old flyer shocked everyone and asked my mechanic if he would like to have the airplane.

Without further consideration he said "hell yes." Over the next few months he disassembled the Fokker and crated it, in numerous pieces, for shipment back to the U.S. , as personal equipment. After arriving back home and discharging from the Air Force....he waited for his prize to appear.

What a shock when the FBI knocked on his door and educated him about importing weapons of war. Long story short.....he barely got out of the scrape and the West German government reclaimed their property.

Now....this may be a pure fabrication. But I believe the mechanic who relayed it to me. It is too good of a tale to lie about.

Reckon there are any more laying around in a barn somewhere?

Bob

Zane,

Erich Hartmann was the ace of aces. His record was 352. Here's a short youtube link, with some great historic video: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=LofmuZoIp ... re=related

It is also interesting to me to learn from several recent documents that actual "kills" were much more accurately reported by the Luftwaffe than by the US Army Air Corps. Much of this for the AAC was publicity, of course.

In any case, after the war, the German records of losses were compared to the US claims of kills, and the numbers didn't jibe well at all.....many more claims of kills than of actual losses. Of course, kills were based on a lot of potentially flawed information sources.

It turns out that the German records of kills claimed were actually pretty close to matching the Allied record of aircraft lost, as to where, how many on on what date.

Hartmann flew almost exclusively on the Eastern front, against the Russians--345 of his kills were Russian aircraft. There were many aircraft out there, and many of the Russian pilots were fairly inexperienced.

The other difference between our fighter pilots and the Germans was that our pilots flew a set number of sorties (which varied over the course of the war) then were returned home, and celebrated as heros, selling war bonds, etc. They were too valuable in that role to risk in combat again. Few of our top fighter pilots flew more than a year in combat, most far less than that. Richard Bong, the top scoring US ace, was in that category, and ironically was killed in a flight test aircraft.

On the other hand, the Luftwaffe pilots flew throughout the war. Most of the top Luftwaffe aces started flying in the Spanish Civil War, and flew throughout, till the end of hostilities, so they had MUCH longer time and many more combat sorties to build their scores.

MTV

A FLIGHT OF PASSAGE is an excellent (true) book about two teenagers who rebuilt their dads Cub and decided to fly it cross country (from Morristown, NJ). I enjoyed every page. A personal favorite.

http://www.amazon.com/Flight-Passage-Me ... 57&sr=1-10

MTV, I think Herr Oberst Eric Hartman would take offense to your claim of him having been shot down . I believe he claimed to have had his aircraft damaged enough from flying debris from his victims etc. to have had to jump, but one of his claims to fame was to have never have been taken down due to enemy action.
Hartman was known to be an ambush type of predator and would get so close before he fired if possible that he couldn't miss, so his claim of being damaged by his victims airplanes several times is plausable.

You're right about his tactics. His comment on his tactic was to get in VERY close, fire a long burst, then run like hell. He said he never tried to dogfight anyone if he could possibly avoid it. His comment was that it could always be that the fellow you chose to dogfight happened to be better than you.

Another of his policies that I thought was remarkable was that as a squadron commander, his policy was that any flight leader who lost a wingman automatically became a wing man himself--no longer fit to lead.

Hartmann never lost a wingman in all his combat time.

I'll look at the book again, but you may be correct. I thought the book (which was written long before he passed away) said he was shot down, but you could be right.

In any case, a remarkable individual. I knew a couple of Air Force fighter pilots in AK who met him in his later years with the Luftwaffe, flying F-4's. They said he was very humble and very much a gentleman, and you'd never know who you were talking to if you didn't know his history. They also said he was a really good pilot in the jets.

MTV

Here is a real good article. Read the "summary of Career" towards the last of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Hartmann An absolutely incredible pilot that shot down as many as ten or eleven aircraft in a single mission.
This is the print I had hanging in my living room in Germany http://www.vonryansexpress.com/p-DiamondsSky-2.html most Germans couldn't understand why I had it, thought it odd to say the least. But a couple of times I had old men that were former Luftwaffe pilots over and you could tell it made them proud.
You must know the Eric Hartman and almost all of the Professional military were not Nazi's. If I'm not mistaken that Military Officers were forbidden to be in the Nazi party.