Messerschmitt

Air Force Profiles: Pilot Phil Cochran

By Gerald Astor

Superficially, Phil Cochran personified the WWII fighter pilot, a combat daredevil, nonchalant about the niceties of rank and zealous in pursuit of what he called “chicks.” Read more

Messerschmitt

Innovative Soviet Fighter Ace

By Christopher J. Chlon

According to contemporary Soviet news sources, fighter Ace Alexander Pokryshkin was the most famous pilot in the Red Air Force during World War II. Read more

Messerschmitt

Ace of Aces

By Kelly Bell

By May 8, 1945, Adolf Hitler had been dead for more than a week. Germany was in the act of formally surrendering to the Soviets and the Western Allies, so occupying Red Army troops in the eastern German town of Brunn were not expecting to witness what may have been World War II’s last dogfight over Europe. Read more

Spitfire pilots are shown with their aircraft in Burma. Although commonly associated with the Battle of Britain, the Spitfire also saw service in British theaters of war around the globe in World War II.

Messerschmitt

The Supermarine Spitfire and the Battle of Britain

by William F. Floyd Jr.

On March 5, 1936, the new Supermarine Type 300 took off from Southampton, England. The plane would soon be called the Spitfire, and along with the Hawker Hurricane it would become Great Britain’s first line of defense. Read more

Shooting up a German airfield with their eight .50-caliber wing-mounted machine guns, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter planes of the 84th Squadron, 78th Fighter Group, Eighth Air Force roar past a flaming German fighter.

Messerschmitt

P-47 Thunderbolts at the Battle of the Bulge

By Robert F. Dorr & Thomas D. Jones

The captured German pilot was cocky and boastful. He had just parachuted into the American airfield, now lit up by the fires of burning Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, a sprinkling of bright torches amid the gray January gloom and the dirty white snow. Read more

Messerschmitt

The Falaise Pocket Scourge: The RAF’s Hawker Typhoon

By Michael D. Hull

From the Supermarine Spitfire to the North American P-51 Mustang, and from the Soviet Yak series to the Vought F4U Corsair, the Allies were able to field a formidable array of fighter planes against the Axis powers in World War II. Read more

In this painting by Robert Taylor, which commemorates the 240 American pilots who volunteered to fly for the Royal Air Force, Eagle Squadron members sit in the cockpits of their Spitfires and wait for the takeoff signal.

Messerschmitt

William R. Dunn: Eagle Squadron Pilot

By David Alan Johnson

“I jammed the throttle wide open and, attacking the Me-109 from the port quarter, fired one burst of four seconds and three bursts of two seconds each,” Pilot Officer William R. Read more

Shortly after his rescue by elite German troops, Mussolini prepares to board a Fieseler Storch for a flight to safety.

Messerschmitt

The Fieseler Storch Fi 156

by Blaine Taylor

On March 12, 1939, Heroes’ Memorial Day (or Veterans Day) in the Nazi Third Reich, the thousands of onlookers at the giant annual parade in Berlin were treated to an unusual sight as a small monoplane landed on the Unter den Linden between Hermann Göring’s State Opera House and the Neue Wache (New Guardshouse). Read more