this video is proudly sponsored by War Thunder more on them later disorientated lost in thick Cloud engines sputtering and struggling one gun jammed another still operational holding on still in the fight but barely and then a group of dim shapes form out of the Mist to the right as they draw closer they become more distinct enemy Fighters 10 of them and only one of you they've spotted you and there's no Escape it's time to fight like you've never fought before and maybe just maybe you might liv
e to fight another day this was a reality for thousands of fighter pilots who flew during the second world war in every case the loneliness the fear the isolation must have been enormous and all of those Amon from the USA to Japan showed tremendous bravery every time they got behind the controls but then there are the extreme examples the fighter pilots who took on far more than their fair share of the action and lived to tell the tale this is our subject for today as we look at six pilots who d
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a military family the 18-year-old beta joined up with the RAF as an officer Cadet in 1928 and took to Flying rather well he gained his Commission in 1930 and showed himself to be a skillful pilot although perhaps a little overconfident this overconfidence would come back to haunt him when in 1931 still only 21 years old Bader attempted an arabaticum the resulting crash left beta with sickening injuries and both the young officers legs had to be amputated learning to walk again on artificial lim
bs wasn't enough for beta he wanted to fly Again by 1933 the central flying school reported that the young man remember he was still only in his early 20s at this point was indeed a capable flyer it wasn't enough though his disability meant the RAF could not recertify him and beta spent most of the 30s thinking about what might have been in 1939 though everything changed Britain no longer had the luxury of Turning Away skilled pilots and by November beta was back and flying in the Battle of Fran
ce a squadron leader during the Battle of Britain bad and his 242 Squadron comrades shot down 67 enemy aircraft losing six pilots in the process reports vary as to the events of August 8th 1941 what's certain is this Bader who had left the 242 Squadron in March and was now heading his own F Wing took off from Tanga to take part in a daylight raid with Squadron 616 accompanying a Detachment of bombers by now he achieved 20 confirmed victories plus another two shared with other Pilots his winning
streak would continue on August 8th as he claimed another me109 F however as his log book would record his good for Fortune ran out on that day and he collided with another German plane this is where reports differ more recent investigations say It was friendly fire that struck beta in whichever case the outcome was the same his Spitfire was shattered and the hero was going down the parachute canopy opened above him and beta drifted down toward the French Countryside there was something missing
beta's right artificial limb had become detached the wing Commander was parachuting into enemy territory with just a single leg as he would Riley recall later on the leg my Spitfire and I had all parted company The Landing knocked Bader out and he awoke to discover two German soldiers removing the harness and parachute they took him to the hospital at nearby s and even went to the trouble of recovering his leg from the shattered carcass of the Spitfire once his leg was repaired beta was up and a
bout again and he made his first attempt at Escape slithering down a rope made from bed sheets Bader made a run for it but he was captured quickly and sent off to offl 6B in vok beta was moved to stal 3 and then to Stalag 8B here he attempted another escape with four other comrades but was once again arrested this time he was sent to cit's Castle there would be no escape from cits but beta would make a nuisance of himself for the remainder of the war and when the camp was liberated in April 1945
the guards were probably quite pleased to see him go a larger than life Persona with a remarkable story Douglas beta has rightly become ingrained into Britain's psyche he spent the rest of his life working to improve the lives of those with disabilities was knighted in 1976 and died in 1982 aged 72 France Fon Vera was born a Swiss Baron in 1914 in the stately Castle Leo in the Canton of valis and yet he upbringing in his first years was sparse his parents wrecked by poverty gave France and his
sister up for adoption but his German adoptive parents could not provide for the children either the young France Keen to make his way in the world joined the Air Force training at potam before flying as part of the Alp Squadron and then joining the staff Squadron of the second Fighter Wing under G luto fona loved flying and the swashbuckling idea of being a fighter Ace 1940 found him flying bomber escort missions over Southern England with reported nine victories to his name which earned him th
e Iron Cross first class but in September of that year he would find himself in a brutal dog fight over Cen South London taking down one of the Spitfires fona decided to make a run for it he'd made it as far as maidon Kent within sight of the coast when he came down and was taken prisoner imprisoned at gdale Hall fona wasted no time and escaping but his October bid for Freedom resulted in recapture and solitary confinement months later on December 17th he'd have another chance but once again he
was captured and this time shipped off to Canada as the train trundled toward the prison camp on the Northern shore of Lake Superior Ontario fona suddenly realized how close he was to the still neutral the United States and freedom fona decided to LEAP from the train and make a run for it but the frigid January temperatures had fused the doors and windows shut gathering together a group of fellow prisoners fva and his companions used the heat of their own bodies to Thor the Frozen joints after a
nervy moment when the train was inspected just beyond Montreal fona knew the time was now he leaped from the window near Smith Falls 30 mi from the border he had the jump on his captors no one had even noticed he was gone until the following afternoon noon but between him and the United States lay the St Lawrence River Crossing the Frozen River he made his way across the ice fona eventually made his way to ogbor New York making it to the United States becoming only the third German P to do so b
ut his journey was not yet over after heading himself into the American police fona began to fear they might just hand him back to the Canadians working with the German Consul he was helping to the Mexican border where once again he escaped eventually reaching Rio de Janeiro and flying to Barcelona in neutral Spain while British and Canadian authorities negotiated with the USA for Fon F's return to captivity the OBO nut was already back in Berlin foner's remarkable life would come to an end just
a few months later however in October 1941 his new me109 F4 plane suffered engine trouble and came down over the sea between the Netherlands and England his body was never found Nikolai Gulf was the perfect hero for the Communist Soviet Union and the red Air Force from a humble beginning in axai near rostov gulv was a factory worker and part-time flyer his Aviation prowess saw him join the military in 1938 and as the German Juggernaut set its sights on the USSR gulv found himself preparing for
Action he didn't finish his training until late 194 40 and did not start flying combat missions until the following summer gulv made for lost time however scoring his first Victory on August 3rd in an unauthorized sauty reprimanded for going against orders but praised for his remarkable bravery and skill gouv was well on his way to becoming the ussr's rebellious new star in the air by January 1943 gulv was Deputy commander of the 27th fighter Aviation regiment later named as the 100 29th Gods fi
ghter Aviation regiment throughout 1943 the 25-year-old excelled in combat engaging the enemy as ground troops struggled with their foes on the battlefields of KK denier kagad and coron chevchenko below in May after exhausting his ammunition in a dog fight gouv rammed an enemy yuna's ju87 out of the sky shattering his own aircraft in the process and coming down near an Allied position on a single day in July his formation of just four Fighters engaged a force of more than 100 and brought down a
total of 16 enemy aircraft in an astonishing display of personal courage and exceptional flying ability the rising Talent was becoming a fully-fledged legend and he was awarded a hero of the Soviet Union gold star in September gulev developed a reputation as an excellent Marksman often taking down numerous aircraft in a single day in one saor in 1944 he personally brought down five enemy planes in about 4 minutes on three other occasions across the year he scored four victories in a single day o
f fighting all in all he ran 200 sorties throughout the war shooting down 55 planes and taking part in five shared victories across 69 engagements some reports put his individual Victory tally as high as 57 he may not have been the most prolific Soviet Ace that Accolade would either go to Gregor retra or Ivan kov depending on the report but his victory ratio was among the best across all the Allied Air Forces gf's final sour he ended when he crash landed at his home Airfield in Spring 1944 he wo
uld not return to combat before the end of the war golf served the Soviet Air Force for decades after the war retiring in 1979 at the rank of Colonel General he would die in 1985 aged 67 and remains a hero in his hometown of ax where a statue and plaque commemorate a remarkable life and a stellar career tetsuzo iwamoto was not interested in the Life his parents laid out for him set for a career in agriculture the smart and physically capable iwamoto rebelled joining the military and embarking on
a new adventure after initially serving as an airplane mechanic aboard riojo he soon desired to take to the skies in one of the aircraft he was working on by 1938 he was flying his first first mission over Nanchang in shangi province of central China in a Mitsubishi a5m young and inexperienced iwamoto took on the Chinese I15 and i16 Fighters that engaged him shooting down four and possibly a fifth by September he had 14 victories to his name and was the highest scoring Japanese Ace of the Chine
se campaigns IAM Moto would later be reassigned to the zoy Kaku and get to fly the state-of-the-art A6 m0 when the Harbor attack brought the United States into the second world war in 1941 ioto was present albeit in a supporting role flying cover over the carrier group now a petty offic of first class he saw significant action at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 and his unit suffered such heavy losses that they were ordered back to Japan for resupply a catastrophe at Midway the following
month forced the Japanese hand a talent like I M was too good to go to waste and he was tasked with training up a new generation of Pilots to take on the Americans but even this wasn't enough the war was going badly and Japan needed their best men in the field not simply in the classroom from November 1943 iwamoto was back at the front flying missions with the 253rd Air Group out of reol with resources stretched to an unbelievable degree ioto and his comrades were sent out on sorties on a daily
basis the pressure would be enough to crush a normal man but iwamoto thrived in just over 6 months of fighting iwamoto claimed an astonishing 142 victories as Japan's territory across the Pacific Slipped Away iamot was back in the skies in Autumn 1944 battling enemy planes over Taiwan and the Philippines now an on sign in the Imperial Navy the pilot must have felt a grim realization of what was to come as his assignments grew ever more defensive he flew with the 203rd a group defending okanawa a
nd then kosu before acting as an instructor for the foror ranks of kamakazi Pilots groomed to die in a desperate defense of their Homeland iwamoto scored 202 confirmed kills in the Pacific campaigns an incredible number that makes him Japan's top flying ace of the war and yet IAM Moto's end was a sad and ignon one Japanese perception of its war hero shifted startlingly in the Years following defeat few people wanted to remember those final days of the Empire and even fewer wanted to celebrate th
e men who had fought for it the ace struggled with alcoholism and depression as well as pain from the wounds he' suffered during the war in 1955 he succumbed to septicemia after a series of operations and died aged only 38 when I get well he reportedly said to his wife as life ebed away from him I want to fly again sabur Sakai didn't make too many mistakes his style was one of precision and cunning an aerial chess game of lead and aluminium but in August 1942 he made a big one on a bomber escort
Mission over gu Canal Sakai had already down two planes when he saw a formation of eight groom and wild cats in the far distance the Japanese Ace couldn't let an opportunity like this go to waste and he went in the attack but he was mistaken by the time Sakai knew his predicament it was too late instead of Single Seed of wildcats sakai's prey were grman Avengers torpedo bombers with rear-facing machine Gunners on board as Sakai recalled it was a trap the enemy planes were not Fighters but bombe
rs the new Avenger torpedo planes types I had never seen before from the rear they looked exactly like Wildcats but now their extra size was visible as were the top turret with its single gun and the belly turret with another 50 caliber gun a hail of bullets ripped through Sak zero plane and pilot man and machine were Savaged by the onslaught Sakai somehow still alive turned and headed back to his base at rebolt how he made this remarkable Escape is anyone's guess he probably wasn't sure himself
he'd been shot in the face sustaining horrific wounds the account of his flly back in his autobiography Samurai is harrowing including passing out multiple times only to wake up flying inverted and using what what little strength he had left to write his aircraft he would spend months in hospital after this and would be blinded in the right eye it may come as little surprise that Sakai descended from the Samurai Warriors of feudal Japan born in 1916 the future pilot was raised in the Bushido co
de of honor sacrifice bravery and stoicism he enlisted at the Navy at age 16 and underwent brutal treatment in the training camp at saso Naval Base I remember sometimes passing out from the beating he would later recall we were to suffer in silence the ethics of such treatment are questionable at best but Sakai would credit his toughness and resilience to his experiences at the camp it also made him an unwavering servant of Japan when war with the United States erupted in a bloody Fury at Pearl
Harbor in 1941 Saka was part of the next wave of the assaults of American positions in the Pacific hitting Clark Airfield in the Philippines only hours after the surprise attack over the next year and a half the Japanese Air Force ran right across the Pacific knocking out much of the Allies own aerial material serving with the tinan Squadron Sakai and his comrades were responsible for destroying more planes than any other Japanese unit by July 1942 a month before his horrific wounding at gu Cana
l zakai himself had at least 50 victories to his name Sky would return to the skies in 1943 battling on despite his disability and the trauma of experience and by the end of the war he had claimed 64 victories he lived a long life surviving to see another Millennium and it was said he followed the pacifist teachings of Buddhism once the war was over he would maintain a relatively high-profile co-authoring his biography Samurai in 1957 and regaling interviewers with his wartime escapades Sakai di
ed in 2000 aged 84 the story of James Howard is a little different to that of some of the other American fighter Aces who flew during the war it doesn't begin in California or Massachusetts Texas but instead in Canton Southeast China where Howard's family lived when he was born nor does his record of wartime service begin with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Howard had been stationed at Pearl Harbor but by the middle of 1941 he was eager to support the country of his birth in their fight aga
inst the Japanese in June of that year 6 months before the USA entered the war Howard resigned from the Navy joining up with the Flying Tiger volunteers based out of rangun Burma now Yun myanma and then Kunming in China's Southwest Howard flew 56 missions and shot down six enemy planes by the summer of 1942 the USAF was desperately in need of experienced pilots and so James Howard returned to the United States where he was commissioned as Captain flying missions from his base in England Howard w
as promoted to major with the 356th slighter Squadron on January 11th 1944 Howard was leading three squadrons escorting bombers on their way to Oscar lean when they encountered trouble leaving two squadrons behind to protect the bombers in the middle and at the rear Howard and his own Squadron moved up to defend the planes at the head of the formation but confusion rained Howard and his wingmen lost contact with their Squadron mates and then with each other Howard flying alone barreled straight
into a Detachment of 30 German fighter planes peppering the b7s with fire alone and with the odds stacked against him Howard's sense of Duty took over he engaged battling the fighters in a desperate attempt to keep the bombers in the air one after the other his guns failed until only a single 50 caliber machine gun was operational and still he fought on Howard lived to tell the tale and thanks to his actions so did many members of the bomber Cru the leader of the bomber formation was all struck
by what he witnessed it was a case of one lone American against what seemed to be the entire L buffer he said he was all over the wing across and around it they can't give that boy a biger enough award Howard may have felt impelled by Duty on that day but few would argue that he went above and beyond such acts of individual heroism so often lost in the unfolding Narrative of Victory and defeat save lives rescue bed operations and offer enormous contributions to the war effort as a whole cut off
from his comrades Howard could have opted to save his own skin and no one would have judged him for doing so instead he stayed and fought and he performed with such skill and tenacity that he was awarded the Medal of Honor his skill courage and Intrepid on this occasion reads Howard's Medal of Honor citation set an example of heroism which would be an inspiration to the US Armed Forces Howard would be the only fighter in the European theater to earn the United States's highest award for Val Jame
s Howard died in Florida in 1995 aged 81 there's a certain glamour to the role of fighter pilot in the first world war when Aviation was in its infancy and planes had become fashionable play things for the aristocracy in Nations like Britain and Germany flying was an upper class game by the second the world had changed in the UK Pilots were far more likely to be lower middle class than upper class in Russia the idea of class was supposed to have been eradicated altogether and yet the idea of fig
hter pilots as Knights of the air remained to an extent the individual dramatic and in some cases highly visible aspects of their escapades turned fighter pilots into Superstars operating in state-of-the-art machines taking on enemy counterparts in onetoone combat like the battlefield champions of old it's easier to see why these soldiers have captured the the imagination both during and after the war all fighter pilots showed individual bravery they couldn't do the job if they didn't however so
me went over and above what was expected of them some of these exceptional cases survived the war including five of the six we've looked at today but many didn't as technology shifted and as planes grew ever more sophisticated aerial combat would change forever there are still Heroes up in the skies but their stories are very different to those of the second world war em but what do you think which of these six is the most remarkable is there anyone you think we've missed let us know your though
ts in the comment section below and as always guys thank you so much for watching and I hope you learned something new big thanks again to War Thunder for sponsoring this video remember you can join the action for free on PC Playstation or Xbox are you new or returning after 6 months well for a limited time you're in for a treat a hefty Bonus Pack awaits you stacked with several premium Vehicles a stash of in-game currency and more just click the links in the description below
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