Top Fighter Squadrons of WWII

As you can imagine, Materiel losses during world war 2 were massive. According to one source, Germany produced a staggering 119,907 aircraft of all types and most were destroyed or damaged during the war. The United States lost 52,951 of their 95,000 aircraft in operations over Europe and the Pacific. The Soviet Union lost 46,100 of their aircraft in combat, and the incredible statistics go on and on.
In the middle of all this carnage in the air, were the fighter squadrons of the Allied and Axis powers. In this video we take a look at a dozen remarkable fighter units of world war 2.
CONTENTS
00:00 Intro
00:57 RAF 303 SQN
03:32 USMC VMF-121 ‘The Green Knights’
05:08 USAAF 431 Fighter SQN
07:04 Our Sponsor REC Watches
09:02 USAAF 61st Pursuit SQN
10:49 USAAF 487th Pursuit SQN
12:36 RAF 85 SQN
14:22 US Navy VF15
16:07 RAF 92 SQN
18:48 RAF 249 SQN
20:44 Jagdgeschwader intro
21:18 JG 51
23:45 JG 54
27:38 JG 52
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____________ Disclaimer ____________
Original footage and recreated scenes may not be 100% accurate to the event being described but has been used for dramatic effect. This is because there may not have been original footage of a particular event available, or copyright prevents us from showing it. Our aim is to be as historically true as we can be given the materials available.
Copyright disclaimer under fair dealing sections ss 40/103C, ss 41/103A,ss 42/103B of the Copyright Act which includes research, study, criticism, review, and reporting of news. Copyright remains with the respective owners. These videos are made for educational purposes only.
The Australian Military Aviation History Association is a not-for-profit association with the intent of recording, preserving and promoting Australian military aviation history.

[@kryolis]

Honorable mention to VMF-214 with 203 Kills. Baa, baa, Pappy.

[@thomasgumersell9607]

I enjoyed your video on the Squadron's and Pilots of WW2. The number of losses of such young servicemen both Allied and Axis. Truly brought to life the dangers of being a Pilot in WW2. 💪🏻🙏🏻✨

[@icewaterslim7260]

Excellent post! I thank you for making these groups known to young audiences. The 431st often escorted my dad's A20 parafrag missions against Imperial Japanese Army airfields. . The 56th Fighter Group also innovated the change of fighter escort tactics to go with Jimmy Doolittles change of 8th AAF priority to destroying the Luftwaffe.. Destroying the Luftwaffe before D-day was an Allied goal that Doolittle's predecessor in command had failed at, in part because of Hap Arnold's failure to have drop tanks manufactured and delivered to be fitted to escort fighters to provide cover into Germany. . Readying stateside manufactures for wartime equipment was a part of General Arnold's job description. The P47D equipped 56th Fighter Group did this with drop tanks belatedly fitted, at a time in early '44 when only 2 fighter groups were equipped with their new Mustangs, by actually disobeying the previous command directive to stay with the bombers. Instead they lead the bomber formations to break up the oncoming Luftwaffe head-on attacks. They had top cover fighters dive on and pick off separated Luftwaffe fighters. Doolittle made those tactics his new directive for the entire 8th AAF escort fighters. . I think one other Allied group that deserves honorable mention is the RAAF 75th Squadron for holding down Port Moresby early on before the US had gotten into New Guinea and with green pilots in P40s using the correct tactics against crack veteran Aces loaded Imperial Japanese Navy Pilots out of Rabaul. It was a small newly formed group that doesn't have the count of victories as later squadrons were able to rack up but they and Chennault's AVG were the only success stories in the time before the Battle of the Coral Sea when the Japanese were otherwise having their way. The RAAF 75th gets overlooked for accolades from American historians when they cover the Australian early victories over the Japanese in Papua New Guinea . . . when they occasionally do..

[@raafdocumentaries]

Agreeing with you on the point about RAAF 75SQN, and we've got a few videos highlighting the defence of New Guinea, and this one on the Battle of Milne Bay kzbin.info/www/bejne/j2a4gWxtpK6NfJI

[@kryolis]

The greatest ace of JG54 is missing - Walter Nowotny, the first ace, reached 250 kills. All in all, great video - thanks! Every of the mentioned squadrons deserved a dedicated video - just saying :)

[@williamkoppos7039]

Finland's LLV 24? Only "claimed" 877 victories. Divide by three you still have 292.

[@raafdocumentaries]

Awesome! Will have to look into them.

[@kryolis]

Speaking of USAAF 487th - the defining event of the legend of Y-29 is completely missing. It was one of the greatest aerial battles of WW2 to my liking. Certainly small by the overall impact but great in context.

[@smokincrater]

Where is 3 Sqn RAAF with it's 217 enemy aircraft kills?

[@raafdocumentaries]

We've recently done a story on Bobby Gibbes and are working on a more detailed video about 3SQN in WW2 with personal interviews, so featuring some other squadrons in this video. But don't worry, we will be covering a lot more RAAF content moving forward. There's so many outstanding squadrons that we could have included here, and no doubt we will upset a lot of people because we didn't include a certain squadron, but give us time, we will cover a lot more. Also that figure of 217 I'll have to double check (I'm guessing you got that from Wikipedia), as I was told it was 192.5 by a 3SQN historian. But again, I'll double check that as it's part of the feature length piece we are doing on 3SQN.

[@smokincrater]

@@raafdocumentaries Thank you.

[@GK-sh7ck]

No RCAF Squadron mentioned!

[@CajunMarine33445]

Amazing Documentary

[@peterclark6290]

303 first, well-researched.

[@jonathansteadman7935]

Recommend a BBC film on KZbin of First Light : Geoffrey Wellum, it's from 2015, about the 18 year old 'Boy' Wellum's experience flying a Spitfire in the Battle of Britain.

[@manricobianchini5276]

Sicily IS the Italian Campaign. Italy is Italy, and that includes Sicily and Sardinia.

[@fgcasey]

176th guards Fighter Aviation Division deserves a mention. It was one of the most successful Soviet fighter squadrons. Ivan Kozhedub flew with them and was the Red Army's highest scoring ace with 64 kills incl. a ME262. His 324th fighter Division claimed 216 victories in 1 year of operations in Korea under his command.

[@MDzmitry]

And also the 3rd Fighter Aviation Wing (3 IAK), or if we were to pick one - the 402nd Fighter Squadron (402 IAP). 402 IAP is actually credited with the most "victories" of all Soviet fighter squadrons. Another distinguished one is 5th Guard Fighter Squadron (5 GvIAP). And if we look at the number of aces (and Heroes of SU) produced - 9th Guard Fighter Aviation Division (9 GvIAD), which included 16th GvIAP where Pokryshkin served (and he later got into the command of the entire division).

[@misterbig9025]

How come German aces scored a lot more than ours?

[@JohnSmith-gd2fg]

A number of reasons, which include the length of the war for Germany, the sheer number of targets they had (USAAF, RAF, VVF) , and quite importantly, unlike Allied squadrons where pilots were rotated back to training squadrons to pass on their experience, german pilots kept fighting until they were stopped through either lack of a plane or fuel, injury or death. Adolf Galland for example, a pilot during the invasion of Poland, fighting until the surrender in 1945.

[@user-bd5ux2tu7tlsuhater]

They fought longer and most kills were against the soviets who had many poor pilots

[@carlosspiceyweiner3305]

Fighter pilots are the reason the gun camera was designed, because proof matters.

[@bobsakamanos4469]

developing gun camera film wasn't available everywhere. Lots of claims in the PTO and MTO without gun film.

[@rkc62]

It is interesting the way the Luftwaffe stats are recorded as "claims" but the US and RAF claims are "kills". I don't know if it has ever been done, but I suspect if one added up all the German "claims" it would significantly exceed the total losses by US, RAF, Soviet and other allied air forces. Even at the time, it was widely known that anything claimed by German pilots was treated as confirmed, which in turn led to exaggeration by other pilots as they tried to "keep up" with their Staffel kamerade.

[@JasonSnow-zq2ve]

The Luftwaffe was often stricter in its claims criteria than allied air forces. Requiring time, location, number of rounds expended and collaborative confirmation for kills to be awarded which are difficult things to keep track of in combat. What the newspapers claim for either side versus the actual combat claims is propaganda vs reality. The units of either side submitted their claims in good faith, not for personal glorification. In either case it is typical that the pilots underclaimed their victories since it does not matter if an administrative officer lets you paint a kill on your aircraft. An aircraft destroyed remains destroyed despite whatever propaganda might say it was or was not.

[@roderernst9990]

and before D day the US fighter & bomber squadrons had shot down the german airforce twice!

[@harrygriffiths-iy5gb]

What was Australia’s

[@raafdocumentaries]

It was 3SQN, but we are doing something separate for them.

[@harrygriffiths-iy5gb]

@@raafdocumentaries oooo I’m keen your doing awesome guys it’s good that someone is finally covering Australia in ww2

[@harrygriffiths-iy5gb]

@@raafdocumentaries can you do a vid on Australian aircraft crashes in ww2 in Australia

[@raafdocumentaries]

@@harrygriffiths-iy5gb that would be an enormous task - I'll have to see what we can do. As you can tell, even from the few comments on this video so far, whatever we do will be highly criticized for missing this, that, or the other thing, and then put down as not being good enough. So my guess is that if I cover some aircraft crashes in Australian in WW2, there will be a multitude who will come out of the woodwork to slam us for not covering XYZ crash. Anyway, I'll think about it.

[@icewaterslim7260]

I nominate the green pilots of the RAAF 75th Squadron for their early '42 defense of Port Moresby against the crack veteran Aces loaded pilots of the Imperial Japanese Navy out of Rabaul. Other than Chennault's AVG the Aussies were about the only Allied success against the Japanese in the first months of '42..

[@cat-im4vv]

Dispute the production numbers been of thank you for the video especially noticing the Germans not totally correct but close enough.. it's not that popular nowadays..it is worth notice that German's had fighter pilots more scored that allied hole squadrons..and they fly less than 2 years or even less than that...

[@martindice5424]

All these scores are ‘claims’ not confirmed kills. General rule of thumb- divide by three (at least!) This does not impugn the bravery and honesty of the pilots making those claims. Air to air combat is and 24:53 intense and confusing event

[@raafdocumentaries]

Totally agree and there's some large discrepancies when talking about claims/kills and the real impact/value of certain operations against losses, it becomes very complex - not to mention the propaganda on all sides when it comes to reporting statistics.

[@stephenbenade8907]

Check the number German pilots beat you

[@MDzmitry]

Yet check the skies - and no air supremacy since 1943.

[@ALA-uv7jq]

No mention of the Russians. Hard to take seriously.

[@WarblesOnALot]

G'day, Russia did not possess any Air Force during WW-2 You must be thinking of the United Soviet Socialist Republics..; hmmmnnn ? Hard to take you seriously, when you are ignorant of the fact that, The Czar's Air Farce didn't fly nor fight - At All..., during WW-2 ! Try opening a History Book, instead of talking Shit in the Comment Threads. Maybe ;-p Ciao !

[@rkc62]

Soviet forces never really established air superiority, and their deployment by the General staff was very much in the style of "cannon fodder". Their short life expectancy, their focus on ground attack rather than aerial combat, and the lack of easy targets like long range bombers meant they never had the sort of stats other air forces accumulated.

[@ALA-uv7jq]

@@WarblesOnALot What a petty pathetic comment. My guess is you know SFA.

[@narachi-]

literally lists the russian air losses....

[@saxonost7]

@@WarblesOnALot You seem a bit angry mate? Such superior historical knowledge must be a real burden to bear.

[@pervertt]

Tainan Kokutai (Tainan Air Group) of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Initially based in Taiwan and later moved to New Guinea. Flew A6M Zeros. Home of aces like Saburo Sakai and Hiroyoshi Nishizawa. 300 claims.

[@raafdocumentaries]

Can you point me to some good source material?

[@pervertt]

@@raafdocumentaries Not much in English, unfortunately. There is this book "Eagles of the Southern Skies" by Ruffato and Claringbould (2012) which I have not read. You could also widen your online search by pasting 台南海軍航空隊 (Tainan Kaigun Kokutai) and relying on Google to give you more results in Japanese and Chinese. Google Translate will give you a rough idea of what is written.

[@pervertt]

@@raafdocumentaries Sent you an earlier reply but it seems to have disappeared into the ether. So here goes again. There is not much available in English. Try looking for a book called "Eagles of the Southern Sky" by Ruffato and Claringbould (2012), which I have not read. You could also widen your online search by copying and pasting "台南海軍航空隊" (Tainan Kaigun Kokutai) into Google. This will provide links on the topic in Chinese and Japanese. Google Translate will give you a rough idea of what is written.

[@bobharrison7693]

You left out VF-17, the highest scoring F4U squadron?

[@oldcremona]

Try making your own video about VF-17!

[@kryolis]

VF-17 record is 152 kills, which is less than the 204 threshold. It doesn't mean Tom's irregulars were worse - they just didn't have enough operational time.