Originally Posted by
Douglas89
I can not imagine the difficulty and fear of a young/low time american getting into a dog fight with a battle hardened luftwaffe pilot.
The fact that these guys could navigate as well as they did at night, or other adverse conditions behind enemy lines to drop bombs, etc. Really incredible.
Meanwhile, here I am trying to fly a little 172 and I am at around 30 hours. I wonder how many hours a typical fighter pilot had during WWII prior to being deployed?
By late in ‘43, ‘44 the Luftwaffe was running out of combat experienced pilots. They never replaced their losses and kept the experience at the front lines, inevitably the odds killed them.