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===World War II=== {{Main|List of World War II flying aces|Confirmation and overclaiming of aerial victories during World War II}} [[File:Erich Hartmann voor zijn Bf 109 (G-6).jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Erich Hartmann]], with 352 official kills, by far the highest scoring fighter pilot of all time]] In [[World War II]] many air forces adopted the British practice of crediting fractional shares of aerial victories, resulting in fractions or decimal scores, such as {{frac|11|1|2}} or 26.83. Some U.S. commands also credited aircraft destroyed on the ground as equal to aerial victories. The Soviets distinguished between solo and group kills, as did the Japanese, though the [[Imperial Japanese Navy]] stopped crediting individual victories (in favor of squadron tallies) in 1943.{{citation needed|date = May 2014}} The [[Soviet Air Forces]] has the top Allied pilots in terms of aerial victories, [[Ivan Kozhedub]] credited with 66 victories and [[Alexander Pokryshkin]] scored 65 victories. It also claimed the only female aces of the war: [[Lydia Litvyak]] scored 12 victories and [[Yekaterina Budanova]] achieved 11.<ref>Bergström 2007, p. 83.</ref> The highest scoring pilots from the Western allies against the German Luftwaffe were [[Johnnie Johnson (RAF officer)|Johnnie Johnson]] ([[Royal Air Force|RAF]], 38 kills) and [[Gabby Gabreski]] ([[United States Army Air Forces|USAAF]], 28 kills in the air and 3 on the ground).<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Sims|first=Edward H.|title=The Greatest Aces|publisher=Random House Publishing Group|year=1976|isbn=9780345253309|location=London|pages=17}}</ref> In the Pacific theater [[Richard Bong]] became the top American fighter ace with 40 kills. In the Mediterranean theater [[Pat Pattle]] achieved at least 40 kills, mainly against Italian planes, and became the top fighter ace of the [[Commonwealth of Nations|British Commonwealth]] in the war. Fighting on different sides, the French pilot [[Pierre Le Gloan]] had the unusual distinction of shooting down four German, seven Italian and seven British aircraft, the latter while he was flying for [[Vichy France]] in [[Syria]].{{citation needed|date = May 2014}} [[File:Ilmari Juutilainen 26.6.1942.jpg|thumb|[[Ilmari Juutilainen]], the top Finnish flying ace with 94 confirmed kills]] The German [[Luftwaffe]] continued the tradition of "one pilot, one kill", and now referred to top scorers as ''Experten''.{{refn|For the award of decorations, the Germans initiated a points system to equal up achievements between the aces flying on the Eastern front with those on other, more demanding, fronts: one for a fighter, two for a twin-engine bomber, three for a four-engine bomber; night victories counted double; Mosquitoes counted double, due to the difficulty of bringing them down.<ref>Johnson 1967, p. 264.</ref>|group=N}} Some Luftwaffe pilots achieved very high scores, such as [[Erich Hartmann]] (352 kills) or [[Gerhard Barkhorn]] (301 kills).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Mitcham|first=Samuel W.|title=Eagles of the Third Reich - Men of the Luftwaffe in World War II|publisher=Stackpole Books|year=2007|isbn=9780811734059|pages=217}}</ref> There were 107 German pilots with more than 100 kills. Most of these were won against the [[Soviet Air Forces|Soviet Air Force]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Murray|first=Williamson|title=The Luftwaffe, 1933-45 - Strategy for Defeat|publisher=Brassey's|year=1996|isbn=9781574881257|pages=82}}</ref> The highest scoring fighter ace against Western allied forces were [[Hans-Joachim Marseille]] (158 kills)<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Heaton |first1=Colin D. |author2=Anne-Marie Lewis |title=The Star of Africa - The Story of Hans Marseille, the Rogue Luftwaffe Ace Who Dominated the WWII Skies|publisher=MBI Publishing Company|year=2012|isbn=9780760343937}}</ref> and [[Heinrich Bär|Heinz Bär]] (208 kills, of which 124 in the west). Notable are also [[Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer]], with 121 kills the highest-scoring [[Night fighter|night-fighter]] ace, and [[Werner Mölders]], the first pilot to claim more than 100 kills in the history of [[aerial warfare]].<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite book|last=Jackson|first=Robert|title=Air Aces of World War II|publisher=Airlife|year=2003|isbn=9781840374124}}</ref> Pilots of other Axis powers also achieved high scores, such as [[Ilmari Juutilainen]] ([[Finnish Air Force]], 94 kills), [[Constantin Cantacuzino (aviator)|Constantin Cantacuzino]] ([[Romanian Air Force]], 69 kills) or [[Mato Dukovac]] ([[Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia|Croatian Air Force]], 44 kills). The highest scoring Japanese fighter pilot was [[Tetsuzō Iwamoto]], who achieved 216 kills. [[File:Ivan_Kozhedub_1.jpg|thumb|[[Ivan Kozhedub]], the top Soviet and Allied flying ace in the war, with 60 solo victories to his credit]] A number of factors probably contributed to the very high totals of the top German aces. For a limited period (especially during [[Operation Barbarossa]]), many Axis victories were over obsolescent aircraft and either poorly trained or inexperienced Allied pilots.<ref>Shores 1983, pp. 94–95.</ref> In addition, Luftwaffe pilots generally flew many more individual [[sortie]]s (sometimes well over 1000) than their Allied counterparts. Moreover, they often kept flying combat missions until they were captured, incapacitated, or killed, while successful Allied pilots were usually either promoted to positions involving less combat flying or routinely rotated back to training bases to pass their valuable combat knowledge to younger pilots.{{citation needed|date = May 2014}} An imbalance in the number of targets available also contributed to the apparently lower numbers on the Allied side, since the [[Luftwaffe serviceable aircraft strengths (1940–45)|number of operational Luftwaffe fighters]] was normally well below 1,500, with the total aircraft number never exceeding 5,000, and [[World War II aircraft production|the total aircraft production of the Allies being nearly triple that of the other side]]. A difference in tactics might have been a factor as well; [[Erich Hartmann]], for example, stated "See if there is a straggler or an uncertain pilot among the enemy... Shoot him down",<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Toliver |first1=Raymond F. |last2=Constable |first2=Trevor J. |author-link2=Trevor James Constable |year=1986 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4LrKkp7ynFcC |title=The Blond Knight of Germany |location=New York |publisher=McGraw-Hill |isbn=978-0-8306-8189-1}}</ref> which would have been an efficient and relatively low-risk way of increasing the number of kills. At the same time, the Soviet 1943 "Instruction For Air Combat" stated that the first priority must be the enemy commander, which was a much riskier task, but one giving the highest return in case of a success.
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