During World War II, hundreds and thousands of fighter pilots from different countries fought in the skies on both sides of the front line. As in any field of activity, someone fought mediocre, someone above average, and only some had a chance to do their job much better than others.
THE BEST OF THE BEST
In the British Royal Air Force, James Edgar Johnson is officially considered the best fighter pilot of World War II - with 38 aircraft shot down, most of which were fighters.
Johnson was born in 1916 to a police inspector. Since childhood, he dreamed of the sky and even took private flying lessons, but his path to fighter aviation was not easy. Only in the spring of 1940 he completed his studies and was certified as a "qualified pilot" (in Western Europe, the Germans were just starting a blitzkrieg), after which he underwent an advanced training course and at the end of August 1940 was sent to a combat unit. He was then transferred to the Fighter Wing, commanded by the then legendary British Air Force pilot, Douglas Bader. Johnson opened his score of victories in May 1941, shooting down the Messerschmitt-109, and destroyed the last aircraft in September 1944 in the skies over the Rhine. And again it turned out to be "Messerschmitt-109".
Johnson fought in the skies over France, escorting British bombers on their way to targets on the continent, or patrolling in the air with other wing pilots.
He and his comrades covered the Allied landing at Dieppe from the air in August 1942, and attacked ground targets after the Allied landings in Normandy in June 1944. The wing, which he commanded, worked hard on ground targets in the winter of 1944-1945, contributing to the frustration of the desperate German offensive in the Ardennes. From March 1945 until the end of the war, he commanded another wing, armed with the new Spitfire Mk. fourteen; the pilots of his wing in the last weeks of the war shot down 140 enemy aircraft of all types.
After the war, he continued to serve in command and staff positions in the British Air Force and retired in the late 1960s as Air Vice Marshal and Commander of the British Air Force in the Middle East.
By September 1943, when Johnson had only 25 aircraft, he was awarded the British Distinguished Service Order, the Distinguished Flying Service Cross and Bar, and the American Distinguished Flying Service Cross. He received an American award for escorting bombers of the US 8th Air Force (VA) to targets operating from British airfields.
It is noteworthy that during air battles his plane was damaged only once by enemy fire - a fact that can be rightfully proud of.
DIE IN THE BLOOM OF FORCES
Paddy Finucane, who had 32 downed aircraft on his account, died on July 15, 1942, when his plane, returning after completing a mission in the skies of France, flashed a machine-gun burst over the English Channel, fired from the coast occupied by the Nazis. He was then 21 years old, he commanded a fighter wing and was a national hero of England.
Paddy Finucane's father was Irish, his mother was English, and Paddy was the oldest of five children in the family. When he was 16 years old, the family moved from Ireland to England. As soon as they settled in a new place, Paddy began working as an assistant accountant in London. This is not to say that he did not like his job - he had a talent for working with numbers, and later, already in the service in the British Air Force, Paddy often said that after the war he would return to accounting.
And yet, the sky and flights were in his blood, so as soon as he reached the minimum age of 17 and a half years, he submitted documents to enlist in the Royal Air Force. He was accepted, sent to study, and exactly one year later he was sent to a combat squadron. In early June 1940, he made his first combat patrol in the skies over the French coast, from where the evacuation of the remnants of the British Expeditionary Force continued. On his first flight, he was so anxious not to lose his place in the ranks that he did not have time to observe the sky.
Combat experience soon came, but Paddy shot down his first plane only on August 12, 1940. In the early hours of the morning, Operation Battle of Britain began with a powerful Luftwaffe blitzkrieg against the forward fighter airfields of the British Air Force and radar on the south coast of England. On this day, Paddy chalked up the Messerschmitt-109, and the next plane, the Junkers-88 bomber, was shot down by him together with another pilot on January 19, 1941. Shortly thereafter, Finucane was appointed deputy flight commander for the 452 fighter squadron of the Australian Air Force - the first Australian squadron in Europe, which in 9 months of fighting destroyed 62 enemy aircraft, "probably destroyed" 7 more and damaged 17 aircraft.
Finucane's assignment to the Australian squadron was a sensible command decision. The Australians immediately became attached to the young Irishman, who was laconic, never raised his voice in conversation and was judicious beyond his years, possessing that natural charm that is characteristic of the Irish. Anyone who communicated with him could not help but appreciate the inner and almost hypnotic strength of the leader emanating from him. Finucane, like any other pilot in the squadron, enjoyed partying in the flight canteen, but drank little himself and encouraged his subordinates to do the same. Sometimes in the evenings, on the eve of upcoming flights, he could stand alone in the bar of the flight canteen and, immersed in his thoughts, slowly sip on the pipe. Then, without saying a word, he knocked out the pipe and went to bed. A couple of minutes later, other pilots followed suit. He was far from religion - if we interpret faith in the usual sense of the word, but he was present at Mass whenever the opportunity was given. The rude Australians genuinely respected him for this behavior.
The first combat contact of the squadron with the enemy happened on July 11, 1941, and Finukane shot down the Messerschmitt-109, recording the first victory on the squadron's account. In total, during the period from late July to late October 1941, he shot down 18 Messerschmitts, two more aircraft were destroyed together with other pilots and three aircraft were damaged. For these successes, the pilot was awarded the Order of Distinguished Service in Service and two planks for the Distinguished Flight Merit Cross, which he had received earlier.
In January 1942, he was appointed commander of another squadron, and on February 20, 1942, when he and his wingman were attacking an enemy ship near Dunkirk, a pair of Focke-Wulf-190 entered their foreheads, and Finucane was wounded in the leg and hip. Covered by his wingman, who, with targeted fire, forced one enemy plane to make an emergency landing on the water, and the second to leave the battle, Finucane somehow crossed the English Channel and landed at his airfield. He returned to service in mid-March 1942 and by the end of June had shot down 6 more aircraft.
Finucane explained his successes simply: “I was gifted with a pair of good eyes, and I learned to shoot. The first requirement in battle is to see the enemy before he sees you or takes advantage of his tactical advantage. The second requirement is to hit the enemy when shooting. You may not have another chance."
On July 15, 1942, Finucane's plane came under fire from the ground and fell into the English Channel.
More than 3 thousand people gathered for the mourning mass in Westminster, telegrams and letters of condolence to his parents came from all over the world, including from two of the best Soviet fighter pilots.
IN THE FAR BIRM
At 11 a.m. on January 19, 1942, British Air Force ground personnel at Mingladon airbase near Rangoon (Burma), fleeing a Japanese air raid in narrow trenches, overcoming the fear of being killed by a bomb explosion, lifted their heads and watched the exciting battle that took place in just a few hundreds of feet over their heads.
There, as if on a racing platform, the Japanese fighter "Nakajima" Ki rushed in circles. 27, a few yards behind which, as if tethered, was the Hurricane, whose machine guns fired at the Japanese in short bursts. In the cockpit of the British plane was squadron commander Frank Carey, who spewed curses. Carey saw his bullets rip through the skin of an enemy fighter over and over again, but the little nimble Japanese plane stubbornly refuses to fall. Finally he jerked, entered a gentle dive and fell into the British Blenheim bombers' parking lot, exploding and blowing one of them to shreds. Then British military medics examined the body of the deceased Japanese pilot and removed at least 27 bullets from it. It was almost impossible to believe that a Japanese pilot could fly his plane for so long with so many injuries.
For Frank Carey, this was the first combat aircraft shot down in an Asian theater of operations.
At 30, Carey was significantly older than a typical British Air Force fighter pilot. After leaving school, he managed to work for three years as a mechanic in one of the fighter units of the Air Force, then completed engineering courses and entered flight training courses, which he graduated with high marks in 1935. After he was sent to the position of a pilot in the same unit where he once worked as a mechanic. He quickly made a name for himself piloting small biplane fighters "Fury" and performing aerobatics on all kinds of air festivals, which was common in the British Air Force in the mid-peace 30s of the twentieth century. However, the clouds of war were gathering on the horizon, and the British fighter units needed something more modern, so in 1938 Carey's squadron was re-equipped with Hurricanes.
In the outbreak of World War II, Carey shot down his first enemy aircraft, the Heinkel-111, together with another pilot on February 3, 1940. A few days later, he destroyed another Heinkel over the North Sea, and at the end of February was awarded the Distinguished Flight Service medal. In March he was promoted to officer and transferred to another wing, which was transferred to France in early May 1940.
On May 10, the Germans launched an offensive against France, Belgium, and fierce air battles broke out over Belgium and northern France. Carey shot down one Heinkel that day and damaged three other enemy aircraft. On May 12 and 13, he shot down two Junkers-87s and reported two more, "probably shot down." On May 14, he shot down the Dornier 17. Moreover, the rear gunner of the German plane fired at Carey even when his plane was falling in flames, and damaged the engine of Carey's plane, wounding him in the leg. Carey, despite being wounded, successfully made an emergency landing near Brussels and soon after wandering around military hospitals was discharged.
Carey, along with his fellow pilots from downed planes, found a flightable transport aircraft and flew to England, where he was considered missing and, probably, dead. When Carey returned to service, the "Battle of France" campaign was practically over, and the Luftwaffe began to shift their activities to the other side of the English Channel.
On June 19, Carey shot down Messerschmitt-109, in July - Messerschmitt-110 and Messerschmitt-109. Then, in August, when Battle of Britain began, Carey shot down two Junkers 88s and four Junkers 87s, with the last four destroyed in one sortie. He soon shot down another plane, but was wounded in action and spent a couple of weeks in the hospital. When Carey recovered and returned to service, his squadron was transferred to rest in the north of England. By this time, the Royal Air Force fighter pilots had once and for all dashed the Luftwaffe's hopes of achieving air superiority over the British Isles.
Carey had 18 shot down aircraft on his account, in 6 months he rose from sergeant to squadron commander and was awarded the Distinguished Flight Merit Medal, the Distinguished Flight Merit Cross and a plank to the cross. At the end of 1940, he was transferred to a combat training center, where he spent several months as an instructor, then was appointed commander of a newly formed squadron armed with "Hurricane", which sailed to Burma. By the end of February 1942, he had shot down five planes in Burma, bringing his total since the beginning of the war to 23, and was awarded a second plank to the cross.
On March 8, 1942, the Japanese occupied the Burma capital of Rangoon, and the main task of the battered British fighter units was to cover the retreat of the Allied forces, which the Japanese stubbornly pushed north to the border with India. The 40-mile columns of retreating troops were covered only by a handful of British Hurricanes and P-40s from a group of American volunteer pilots who had fought the Japanese in China long before Pearl Harbor. Carey's squadron eventually became based in Chittagong, where Carey's last skirmish with the Japanese took place in May 1943. Then Carey returned to England, graduated from the aerial shooting school, after which he headed the training centers for fighter aircraft in Calcutta (India) and Abu Zubeir (Egypt), and met the end of the war as a colonel at the Center for Fighter Aviation, where he oversaw tactics.
According to official figures, Carey ended the war with 28 downed aircraft, although the pilot himself believes there were more. The problem is that if he shot down several Japanese planes during the long retreat of British troops from Burma in 1942, then this cannot be documented, since the entire archive of his unit was lost or destroyed. Some historians believe that Carey is responsible for 50 aircraft downed. If so, then Carey is the highest scoring fighter pilot of any British Commonwealth and United States fighter pilot in World War II. Unfortunately, no one can confirm the above figure.
Wonderful speaker
Best Fighter Pilot British Air Force - James Edgar Johnson. Normandy, 1944. Photo from the site www.iwm.org
If we talk about George Berling (33 and 1/3 of the enemy aircraft shot down), then in relation to him the word "wonderful" will probably be an underestimation. Few are born pilots, but Burling was. And he also showed himself to be disobedient and peculiar, with disdain for regulations and instructions, which more than once caused the displeasure of senior officers and nevertheless lifted him to the pinnacle of success in the air war. In four months of fighting in the skies over Malta, he shot down 27 German and Italian aircraft of various types.
Burling was born near Montreal, Canada in 1922. His path to combat aviation was rather winding. When he was 6 years old, his father presented a model of an airplane, and from that time flying became the only hobby of young George. By the age of 10, he had read every book he could read about World War I fighter pilots and spent all his free time at the local airport watching flights. The unforgettable first flight took place shortly before he was 11 years old: during one of the frequent excursions to the airfield, he got caught in the rain and, taking advantage of the suggestion of one of the local pilots, took refuge in a hangar. Noticing the teenager's obvious interest in airplanes, the pilot promised to give him a ride on the plane - provided that his parents would agree to it. George's father and mother thought it was a joke and gave the go-ahead, and a few hours later George was in the air.
From that day on, all of George's thoughts were directed towards one goal - to raise money in order to learn to fly. He did not sit idly by - in any weather he sold newspapers on the street, made model airplanes and sold them, took on any job. When he was 15 years old, against the will of his parents, he dropped out of school and began to work in order to save money for training for a pilot. He cut his expenses for food and other necessities to the absolute minimum, and at the end of each week he had enough money to pay for an hour of training flights. When he was 16 years old and had more than 150 flight hours behind him, he passed all the exams to obtain the civil pilot qualification, but then it turned out that he was still too young to obtain a license. This did not stop Beurling - he decided to leave for China, which was at war with Japan: the Chinese needed pilots very much, and they did not particularly find fault with their age. He crossed the US border on his way to San Francisco, where he was about to earn some money to travel to China, but was arrested as an illegal migrant and sent home.
In September 1939, World War II broke out, and 17-year-old Burling applied to join the Canadian Air Force, but was refused due to lack of required educational credentials. Then Berling signed up as a volunteer in the Finnish Air Force, which urgently recruited pilots in connection with the growing tensions in her relations with the USSR, and was accepted on the condition that he gave his father's consent, which was unrealistic.
Deeply disappointed, Burling continued his private flights, and by the spring of 1940 he had flown 250 hours. Now he was thinking about early admission to the British Air Force and began attending night school, trying to adjust his educational level to the required standards. In May 1940, he signed up as a deckhand on a Swedish merchant ship, on which he arrived in Glasgow, where he immediately went to the recruiting center in the Air Force. There he was told that a birth certificate and parental consent are required to consider admission to the Air Force. The unshakable Burling sailed to Canada by steamer and a week later crossed the Atlantic again, now in the opposite direction.
On September 7, 1940, he was selected for flight training in the RAF and exactly one year later he was assigned to his first squadron, after which he was transferred to another squadron. In the end, he volunteered for a business trip and on June 9, 1941, together with his brand new Spitfire Mk. V found himself on the deck of the aircraft carrier Eagle, heading for Malta. At the time, Malta was under a combined attack by the German and Italian air forces, whose bases were in Sicily, just 70 miles from Malta.
The arrival of the Canadian in Malta in June 1942 was dramatic. He took off from an aircraft carrier and barely landed his plane on the strip of the Luca base, as the raid of German and Italian planes began. Beurling was unceremoniously dragged out of the cockpit and dragged into cover, and he watched what was happening with wide open eyes - here it is, finally, a real thing, a real war. After so many years of efforts on the way to his cherished goal, he will soon have to fight the enemy and prove that he is a really cool pilot.
The battle began even earlier than he expected. At 15.30 on the same day, he, along with the other pilots of his squadron, sat in the cockpit of his plane, ready to take off; of clothing they wore only shorts and shirts, as wearing bulkier flight clothing could cause heatstroke on the hot Malta land. Soon they took off to intercept a group of 20 Junkers-88 and 40 Messerschmitov-109. Burling shot down one Junkers, one Messerschmitt and damaged the unexpectedly appeared Italian Makki-202 fighter with the fire of his machine guns, and then sat down on the airfield to replenish ammunition and fuel. Soon he was again in the air over La Valetta, along with his comrades, who were repelling a raid of 30 Junkers 87 dive bombers on British ships docked. The bombing raid was covered by at least 130 German fighters. Burling shot down one Messerschmitt-109 and seriously damaged one Junkers, the debris of which hit the propeller of Berling's plane and forced him to land the Spitfire on its belly near the steep coast. On the first day of the fighting, Burling shot down three enemy aircraft and "probably shot down" two more. This was a promising start. Fierce aerial combat resumed in July, and on July 11 Burling shot down three McKee-202s and was nominated for the Distinguished Flight Service medal. By the end of July, he shot down 6 more enemy aircraft and damaged two, in August he shot down one Messerschmitt-109 and, together with two other pilots, shot down Junkers-88.
Beurling's success was determined by three important factors - his phenomenal vision, excellent shooting and preference to do his job as he saw fit, and not as written in the textbook.
Even before the trip to Malta, Berling was twice offered to be promoted to officers, but he refused, saying that he was not from the test that officers are made of. In Malta, however, Burling unwittingly turned out to be the leader - his ability to see enemy planes earlier than others attracted other pilots to him like a magnet - where Burling, there will soon be a battle. His superiors quickly figured out how to make the best use of this powerful potential, and informed Berling that he would be promoted to officer, whether he liked it or not. Burling protested unsuccessfully, but ended up making himself an officer's uniform.
Malta for most of Berling's colleagues was a nightmare, he also enjoyed every minute of his stay on the island and asked for an extension of the trip, to which he received the consent of his superiors. October 15, 1942 turned out to be another hot and, as it turned out, the last day of the war on the island for Berling. He attacked "Junkers-88" and shot it down, but the German bomber gunner managed to fire a burst at Beurling's plane and wound him in the heel. Despite being wounded, he shot down two more Messerschmites and only after that he left the plane with a parachute, splashed down at sea and was picked up by a rescue boat.
Two weeks later, Berling was sent to England in a Liberator bomber. On the way to Gibraltar, where the plane was to land for refueling, some sixth sense warned Beurling about the impending disaster. In conditions of severe turbulence, the plane began to make an approach, while Burling, meanwhile, took off his flight jacket and moved to a seat next to one of the emergency exits. The landing approach was unsuccessful - the landing gear touched the ground only on the second half of the runway, and the pilot tried to go around. The climb trajectory was too steep, and the plane crashed into the sea from a height of 50 feet. Upon hitting the water, Berling threw off the emergency exit door and jumped into the sea, managing to swim to the shore with a bandaged leg. In England, he spent some time in the hospital, and then went on vacation to Canada, where he was greeted as a national hero. Returning to England, he attended the awards ceremony at Buckingham Palace, where he received four awards at once from the hands of King George VI - the Order of Distinguished Service Excellence, the Distinguished Flight Merit Cross, the Distinguished Flight Service Medal and the plank to the medal.
Burling continued to serve as a flight commander, until the end of 1943 he shot down three Focke-Wulf-190s over France, bringing his victory score to 31 and 1/3 of the aircraft; 1/3 belonged to "Junkers-88", shot down by him along with other pilots over Malta. In the summer of 1944, he was appointed an aerial shooting instructor, and in preliminary exercises he impressed everyone - first with a consistently low shooting result, and then with almost 100% hits. Burling later explained that he initially tried to act as written in the manual, but, without success, returned to his method of pre-emptive shooting, of which he was an unsurpassed master. At the end of the war, Burling officially joined the Canadian Air Force and commanded a squadron.
After the end of hostilities, demobilization followed, and Burling changed one job after another. He was completely unfit for civilian life and yearned to return to the hot excitement of combat and the fraternity of fighter pilots.
At the beginning of 1948, it seems, his expectations began to come true. Israel, who was about to declare independence, was threatened by its Arab neighbors, and was looking for planes and pilots throughout the West for its protection. The Israelis were armed with Spitfires, and Burling, following the example of some former Canadian Air Force pilots who had already been recruited by volunteers, offered his services, dreaming of how he would again find himself in the cramped and vibrating cockpit of a fighter jet.
These dreams were not destined to come true. On May 20, 1948, he was supposed to ferry a plane with medicines from Rome to Israel; the day before, he, together with another Canadian pilot, took to the air so that Berling could practically get used to a new type of aircraft for him. Eyewitnesses observed how the plane made a circle over the airfield and went to land, missed the runway and began to climb sharply to go around; after a few moments, he tore off and fell to the ground. Both pilots were killed.
George Berling was only 26 years old.
MASTER OF NIGHT COMBAT
I can't help but say a few words about Richard Stevens, who is responsible for 14 aircraft shot down between January and October 1941. Not the largest score, but in this case it is important what kind of planes they are and under what circumstances they were destroyed. So, all the downed planes were German bombers ("Dornier-17", "Heinkel-III" and "Junkers-88"), and they were destroyed in the dark by Stephens, who flew in a "harricane" not adapted for night battles, did not have an onboard radar.
Stevens was assigned to his first fighter unit in October 1940, when the Luftwaffe began to shift the power of their attacks from day to night, and in one of these first night attacks, his family was killed.
The Stevens Fighter Squadron was intended for operations during daylight hours, and with the onset of darkness, its combat mission simply came to naught. Night after night, as enemy bombers roared towards London, Stevens sat alone on the tarmac, watching the blinding fires and the flickering of searchlights, and gloomily contemplated the Hurricanes not suited for night combat. In the end, he turned to command for permission to conduct a single combat mission over London.
Stevens had one treasured quality - experience. Before the war, he was a civilian pilot and flew across the English Channel with a cargo of mail. His flight book recorded about 400 hours of night flights in all weather conditions, and his pre-war skills soon found a worthy application.
However, his first night patrols were unsuccessful - he saw nothing, although the flight director assured him that the sky was full of enemy aircraft. And then came the night of January 14-15, when he shot down his first two German bombers … By the summer of 1941, he had become the best night fighter pilot, well ahead of the pilots who fought on radar-equipped fighters.
After the German attack on the USSR, when the Luftwaffe removed a significant number of their bombers from the Western Front, there were fewer air raids on England, and Stevens was nervous that he had not seen enemy bombers in the night sky for weeks. An idea began to mature in him, which was eventually approved by the command - if it is impossible to find enemy bombers in the night sky over England, then why not take advantage of the dark time of day, slip somewhere in Belgium or France and hunt for Germans over their own airfield?
Later, in the course of the war, night offensive operations of British Air Force fighters over enemy bases became commonplace, but in December 1941 Stevens really became the founder of a new tactical technique. On the night of December 12, 1941, Stevens 'Hurricane circled for about an hour near the German bombers' base in Holland, but the Germans, it seems, were not going to fly that night. Three days later, he again went to the same goal, but did not return from the mission.
