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airline pilot. Erich Rudorffer (1 November 1917 – 8 April 2016) was a German Luftwaffe fighter ace who was one of a handful who served with the Luftwaffe through the whole of World War II. He was one of the most successful fighter pilots in the history of air warfare, with 222 victories claimed.
Erich Rudorffer was born on November 1, 1917, in the town of Zwickau in Saxony. He joined the Luftwaffe in January 1940 and was assigned to I/JG 2 'Richthofen' with the rank of Oberfeldwebel. Rudorffer scored the first of many victories over a French Hawk 75 on May 14, 1940.
Learn about Erich Rudorffer, a leading Bf 109 ace who flew over 1,000 missions and shot down 222 enemy aircraft. He survived the war and flew the Fw.190 and Me.262 in North Africa and Russia.
- Germany
- Luftwaffe
- Theodor Weissenberger – 208 Kills
- Heinrich Ehrler – 208 Kills
- Hemann Graf – 212 Kills
- Heinrich Bär – 220 Kills
- Erich Rudorffer – 222 Kills
- Wilhelm “Willie” Batz – 237 Kills
- Otto Kittel – 267 Kills
- Gunther Rall – 275 Kills
- Gerhard “Gerd” Barkhorn – 301 Kills
- Erich “Bubi” Hartmann – 352
Weissenberger’s military career began in 1936, when he volunteered in the Luftwaffe, after gaining experience as a civilian glider pilot. He was attached to the heavy fighter squadron Jagdgeschwader 77 in 1941, just after finishing his training. Weissenberger claimed his first victory on the skies over Norway against the RAF on October 24, 1941. Fr...
Ehrler spent most of his wartime experience on the Eastern Front, where he claimed the majority of his victories. Nine more victories were attributed to him on the Western Front, eight of which were achieved flying the Me 262 jet fighter. He joined the Wehrmacht in 1935 and served as an anti-aircraft gunner in the Condor Legion during the Spanish C...
Hermann Graf was, like many others, achieved his ace status in the bloody air battles above the Soviet Union. There he claimed 202 victories, becoming the first pilot in history to gain such score. Prior to the war, Graf was a football player and a glider pilot-enthusiast. He joined the Luftwaffe in 1935, where he was initially selected for transpo...
Bär fought on all major German theaters of war ― he flew missions on the Mediterranean, Eastern and Western fronts with a total score of more than a thousand flights. He was shot down 18 times and was wounded three times and survived. Bär claimed 220 or 221 aerial victories, 16 of which were achieved while flying the Me 262 jet fighter, which was, ...
He holds the seventh place on an internationally recognized list of best pilots in the history of aerial warfare. More than 300 of his flights included combat. In the Eastern Front, he claimed 58 victories over the feared armored IL-2 Sturmovik ground attack aircraft. On one occasion, in 1941, he claimed that he had sunk a British submarine near th...
Willie Batz flew 445 combat missions. More than a half of them were his aerial victories. The vast majority (234) of his victories were achieved on the Eastern Front, where he battled Sturmoviks and four-engine bombers on the regular basis. An interesting fact is that Batz was rejected several times for combat assignments in the early stages of the...
The man who opened the hunting season on the Eastern Front was Otto Kittel, who earned his first aerial victory on the first day of Operation Barbarossa. In total, he flew 583 combat missions with a score of 267 victories. His tally was fairly modest during his use of the Messerschmitt Bf 109. By 1943, his count was 39, which is relatively insignif...
Gunther Rall became famous on the Eastern Front, where he often engaged in dogfights with Soviet fighter planes. He flew 621 combat missions and earned 275 aerial victories in total. On the Eastern Front alone, he achieved 272 of them and 241 were against other fighter planes. He first saw action during the Battle of France in May 1940, when he suc...
The number two on our list was a pilot who flew 120 combat missions all over Europe, before finally shooting down an enemy plane. After he found his “shooting eye”, as he himself called it, his tally began to constantly rise. Gerd flew with the famed Jagdgeschwader52 squadron on the Eastern Front where he scored the majority of his aerial victories...
The Germans called him Bubi, but the Soviets called him the Black Devil. He was the highest scoring pilot fighter ace in the history of aerial warfare. He was only 20 years old, when he engaged in combat, in 1942, immediately becoming one of the best. Hartmann downed 345 Soviet aircraft and 7 American. He was loved and respected among his fellow-Lu...
This web page is about the Focke-Wulf FW 190 fighter aircraft and its aces on the Eastern Front during World War II. It does not mention Erich Rudorffer, a famous FW 190 pilot, or his achievements.
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Erich Rudorffer. Wartime Rank: N/A. Squadron: JG 2, JG 54, JG 7. Victories: 222. - 136 Eastern Front. - 26 North Africa. - 60 Western Front incl. 10 4/E Bombers. Total Sorties: 1000+. Awards: Knights Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Theaters: EF, WF, NA. Combat Deput: Spring 40, France. Remarks:
Rudorffer, Erich. Date of birth: November 1st, 1917 (Zwochau/Saxonia, Germany) Date of death: April 8th, 2016 (Bad Schwartau/Schleswig-Holstein, Germany) Nationality: German. Biography. Erich Rudorffer achieved 224 victories in over 1000 operational sorties. Promotions: ?: Oberfeldwebel; October 2nd, 1940: Leutnant; ?: Oberleutnant; ?: Hauptmann;
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