@Gargantua:
Erich Hartmann easily.
Almost never got shot down… and used to sneak up on his opponents.
He would get his plane so close to theirs, that the only thing he could see in his cockpit was the enemy plane… then he would fire.
He was also a bad-ass after the war too, and defeated the Russians mentally whilst in captivity. Pretty impressive.
Hartmann is obviously a slam dunk. The highest scoring fighter ace in history.
But he let us choose up to two; and there was a lot from which to choose. I was very tempted to pick Kurt Knispel; both for his dramatic success on the battlefield and his character and humility. But I ultimately went with Rudel.
According to his autobiography, on one occasion, after trying a landing to rescue two downed novice Stuka crewmen and then not being able to take off again due to the muddy conditions, he and his three companions, while being chased for 6 km by Soviet soldiers, made their way down a steep cliff by sliding down trees, then swam 600 meters across the icy Dniester river, during which his rear gunner, Knight’s Cross holder Hentschel, succumbed to the cold water and drowned. Several miles further towards the German lines, the three survivors were then captured by Soviets, but Rudel, knowing there was a bounty on his head, again made a run for it. Despite being barefoot and in soaking clothes, getting shot in his shoulder, and being hunted by several hundred pursuers with dog packs, he eventually managed to make his way back to his own lines.[4]
In total, he was wounded five times and rescued six stranded aircrew from enemy territory, although the two mentioned above were recaptured.
I’d also like to give an honorable mention to Hannah Reitsch.
For Hanna Reitsch, Nazi Germany’s celebrated woman test pilot who had flown the VI rocket bomb in sub orbital flight 80,000 feet up in the early 1940’s – years before the first American spaceman – was actually history’s first astronaut. . . .
At a time when women were expected to stay in the kitchen, she was one of the world’s top glider pilots. She held 40 world aviation records; was the first to cross the Alps in a glider, first to fly a helicopter and first to fly a jet plane. She was the first woman awarded the Iron Cross and was the world’s first woman test pilot.
History records she flew into a burning Berlin at night in the last days of the war and landed a small plane safely on a street full of firing Russian tanks. A direct hit on her plane mangled the foot of the pilot who had been summoned by Adolf Hitler. Hanna had been standing behind him but when he was wounded, took over the perilous landing. . . .
Hitler explained he’d asked them to come because Luftwaffe head Herman Goering had refused an order to fly in. Instead he had sent a telegram asking to take over as new Chancellor.
Hanna stayed three days in the Hitler underground bunker then flew the last plane out of Berlin before it fell to the Russians. Her eye-witness account of the last days of Hitler are an important part of history and her flights in the VI rocket are a first chapter in space travel.
Also:
One type of plane she tested was a heavy bomber that had steel blades installed on the leading edges of the wings to cut the heavy steel cables used to tether barrage balloons. During one demonstration for Luftwaffe brass of this hair-brained scheme, Reitsch made a graceful landing and exited the cockpit smiling and waving after deliberately flying into the cables. Only she knew that the wing had almost been ripped from the plane when she hit a cable and she had to fight for her life–second by unnerving second–to get the crippled plane on the runway.
On another hair-raising flight in a stricken plane, instead of bailing out, Reitsch calmly recorded flight data with paper and pencil because she did not think she would live long enough to make the report in person.
Many of the designs that Reitsch tested were novel and innovative, and some were just simply ill-conceived deathtraps.
