I have just seen Reach for the Sky and made me wonder how good Douglas Bader was. Was he overated or was he one of the best.
Superb leader, bit of a numpty when it came to either strategy or tactics. Did his best to lose us the Battle of Britain but fortunately failed.
Bader had 22.5 kills when her was captured in mid 1941- in 1 year from the commencement of the Battle of Britain. The war lasted 4 more years. At the rate proportunate to that he should have claimed 5 times his 22.5 kills or 112.5 since he would have had been flying/fighting for 5 years. Certainly logistics and postings away from the heat of action would have contributed to a lesser score.
There were several aces with even more victories that were halted by death as early in the war as Bader was. Statistically they too could have gone on to triple digit tallies. We can’t conclude that there were no kills to be had by RAF aces late in the war either since Frenchman Pierre Clostermann with the RAF scored heavily at this time.
Remember Marmaduke Paddle had scored ALL of his 50+ kills before the BoB even began. You can estimate his probable score had he continued in combat throughout the war. Johnnie Johnson who did fly throughout the entire war scored “only” 38 statistically putting him far below a Bader in combat for 4 more years.
But all these guys were or would have been promoted into positions that allowed less flying where the Luftwaffe could not afford such frivolusness.
One of the major reasons the RAF won and the Luftwaffe lost. By the end of the war the Luftwaffe had a small number of the best pilots on the planet and a large number of incompetents. Furthermore, the number of people who understood modern air warfare working in the Luftwaffe high command was very limited indeed.
The RAF and USAAF in contrast used their best pilots to train the next generation of new pilots, as well as placing them in command appointments. And that’s one of the biggest reasons they won…
Pattle didn’t score his first victory until August 1940, and his last just before his death in April 1941
Phfft! Red- I was reading my dates wrong. Mistook his KIA date as 4-1940 instead of 4-1941.
All of the countries of the world had the same philosophy in the 1930s of a elite cadre of airmen. The US and GB never had plans for a large service force of airmen. They couldn’t afford it! The Luftwaffe, the Imperial Japanese Navy and AF, plus the other European airforces were miniscule having few planes with a handfull of expert airmen.
The theory to hone a force of pilots that are the best of the best is admirable. Given anything like equal odds should result in decimation of any enemies. The Japanese and the Germans both expected short duration conflicts when they instigated war.
Had GB been stunned into neutrality after Germany’s lunges to the east and had the pacifists of the US felt it was in our best interest to sue for peace and concede to whatever the Empire of Japan wanted, we’d be looking back 65+ years later agreeing that a supertalented small force of pilots and average number of planes was a decisive factor of aerial warfare.
While the US and GB had no better training than the IJN or Luftwaffe it had a different take on the subject entirely. Instead of failing all but, say, the top 5% of airmen, passing 15% still gave a mix of excellent and very good ones. The simple disparity in number, of course, did no good until production supplied sufficient aircraft for them to fly.
If that top 5% was, for example, 50,000 men the top 15% meant 150,000 men. GB and the US also had superior organizational skills in creating training facilities and programs that would produce what was needed. With the inherrent inter-branch distrust in Japan and Germany along with upper leadership instigated rivalries on purpose, these systems were inferior for the long haul of the scope of the war.
It is amusing though as cost of aircraft manufacture has escalated and contracts have resulted in smaller production, that we are ending up with smaller more elite forces due to budgetary reasons rather than operational philosophies.
The UK did, but nobody told the politicians. If you look at what Sir Hugh Trenchard spent the whole of the 1920s and 1930s doing with the RAF, it was all about building the groundwork to enable him to expand fast in wartime. He didn’t spend very much on the cutting edge of the air force, but a hell of a lot on training and infrastructure. That’s why there are so many 1920s and 30s airfield around the UK with well built buildings still in use today by the armed forces (I stay in the mess at the former RAF Spitalgate regularly). IIRC the Empire Air Training Scheme was also his work.
Another thing he did was the “Short Service Commission” (IIRC that was his work, although the RAF doesn’t use it much any more). This meant that pilots were only in the RAF for a couple of years and left as soon as they were fully trained, pretty much. However, they then had a substantial commitment in the reserve - in effect, a way of increasing the number of pilots available by two or three fold without increasing the headcount of active duty pilots which is what the Treasury would look at.
While in peacetime the RAF was based on a small elite cadre of airmen, the British government and RAF were fully aware that in the event of a major war a rapid and sustained expansion would be required, and unlike the Luftwffe took steps to ensure that it would have the capabilty if needed
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IBO/is_4_24/ai_74582443/pg_1