352 Kills: The Story of Nazi Germany's Most Deadly Fighter Ace

Impressive for sure, but also have to look at what he was flying against.

Sadly there are no qualifiers for dead. The US and RAF at one point wouldn't allow alighted or lifting aircraft. In other words, if the plane was taking off and you shot it just as it was climbing or landing, etc, it counted as a "ground kill." Then there were complaints that the average Japanese pilot circa 1944 had less than 24 hours flight training. The Navy bitchslapped that complaint. "Hey assholes - we still have to use fuel to take off and find 'em and use bullets to shoot 'em." Plus - those "worthless" pilots were deemed "good enough" to crash into an American ship which was killing hundreds of sailors a day. So ALL JAPANESE planes were deemed "a good kill."

But yeah - the average Soviet pilot was what we'd have washed out. Even more impressive is the "Third Man," Gunther Rall who finished the war with 275 kills. Gunther was shot down so many times that he only flew a total of 9 months for the whole war. That works out to 30 kills per month or basically 1 kill a day.

As I understand it the number of kills refers to the number of aircraft downed.