Bill Yenne - Aces: True Stories of Victory and Valor in the Skies of World War II

French aviator Adolphe Pgoud was probably the first man to down five enemy aircraft, and is the founding member of this lineage of heroes. He was first to be described in the newspapers as lAs (the Ace). He downed six between February 5 and August 31, 1915, when he himself was shot down and killed. Authors Collection

In World War II, aces were equally colorful, though aerial combat had become more sophisticated technologically, more routine and much more deadly. Far more individuals were involved in aerial combat and far more became aces. Also in World War II, the recording of aerial victory data became an official part of air force record keeping. It had been so with the German and the French in World War I, but it was much more informal with the air services of other countries.

While the maintaining of data relative to aerial victories was more formalized in World War II, there were still differences and variations from one air force to another. An ace was universally accepted as someone who has scored five aerial victories, but each of the air forces involved in World War II had a different method for calculating exactly what constituted an aerial victory.

In World War II, as in World War I, Germany had a strict one pilot, one victory rule. One pilot was given a victory credit for each enemy aircraft shot down. If he was assisted by another pilot, the other pilot got no credit to his overall score for the assist. If two pilots shared equally, then the credit went to the staffel (squadron) and to the overall tally of neither pilot. To claim a victory in the German Luftwaffe, the claimant had to have a witnesspreferably twoand he had to formally fill out a comprehensive victory report which was followed by a combat report. For this reason, German victory totals in World War II are considered very accurate, and in cases where there might have been a discrepancy, the totals are definitely on the low side. The Germans even went so far as to recognize only pilots with 10 or more victories. Such pilots were referred to as an experte.

The Americans are considered to have been the most precise in their accounting, because, through most of World War II, American fighters were equipped with gun cameras, and no scores were recognized as confirmed without gun camera film footage as proof. American victory totals are often qualified by the mention of probables or damaged enemy aircraft, which are those which were probably shot down, but which cannot be confirmed. These are often mentioned parenthetically, but are not included in official victory totals. In World War I, Americans had assigned whole numbers to several pilots participating in downing a single enemy, but this practice was not followed in World War II. Whereas the German practice was to simply not award any scores for assists, the Americans developed a system during World War II for giving appropriate credit for assists by calling them shared victories.