5 Famous World War II Aces That Disappeared on their Final Flight 

Not for nothing but whenever they dissapear on a flight then its their "final" flight, right? I mean, unless you have evidence they flew again...

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Heinz Wolfgang Schnaufer ..100+kills at night ....in an Me110 no less...killed in a freak traffic accident....The disappearance of Butch O'Hare flying Hellcat night fighter in (43?) is another strange one, I've read conflicting accounts....and Dick Bong, on a "routine" test flight....Shooting Star I think...sorry kinda went on a tangent there...

Yes. The white lily of Stalingrad

Yep the amount of stories out there is crazy.

@@TJ3 the only one in your list that i didn't know about was Wagner probably because i specialize more on Luftwaffe pilots but that was a great story,had to go and research it,the fact someone went back (recently) and re researched his crash site and found more remains and found his high school ring is fascinating, lots of possibilities why it happened,he might have passed out from malfunctioning oxygen systems, that happened a lot back then etc, no telling, thank you for the video.

Thanks for the suggestion!

@@TJ3 YW ! And keep these awesome stories coming !

@@TJ3 Thanks for this making this great video TJ I really enjoyed Learning about these pilots I have never heard about. New information coming out of Ukraine confirmed the ghost of Kiev was real. His name was Major Stephen Tarabalka he is credited with 40 confirmed air to air kills. He was killed in action back in March he was prostomently awarded the gold star hero of Ukraine he was 29 years old.

@@tyleringle268 hmmmmm🤔

@@masterh8448 what?

Glad you enjoyed! Thanks Joe.

Not sure, but did Marmaduke "Pat" Pattle also go missing?

Thank you!

It sounded like he got really depressed that he wasn't allowed to fight in the war. And just flew until his plane ran out of fuel

Well, he was the highest profile pilot in the US at the time. And he did vanish for 6 weeks.

@@TJ3 Plenty aircraft/pilots vanished untill they found them whether it was for just hrs, days weeks,months or yrs.

Franciszek crashed in Cuddington Way, Ewell, Surrey on 8th October 1940 as he was returning to Northolt at the end of a routine patrol. The cause remains unexplained as no enemy aircraft were involved. Nor did he bale out as one might expect had his Hurricane suffered engine failure.

I'll check him out! Thanks

Thanks!

There were lots of them the main two that come to mind are the 435th bombardment squadron (also known as the kangaroo squadron) and the 75th squadron (also known as the never hawks or tomorrow hawk’s because no one knew when the p40s would show up). Edit: corrected some info that I got wrong

Thank you!

The raids never stopped. After the battle of britain ,the RAF went on the offensive . right till end of war.

Thank you!

Correct sir don't know why he his mentioned but he was the leading ace on both sides very cocky pilot mind and was seen in 1941 as a pow very interesting story

@@markcook4043 Seen as a POW? Did not know that. Surprising, thought he most probably got taken by the sea. He was cocky alright, saying that he wants to fight and die fighting, taking with him as many of the enemy as possible. Quite a character.

@@markcook4043 I've never before encountered the claim that Wick was a POW. I'm certain it's nonsense for a couple of reasons. First, he was shot down on November 28th. He was seen to bail out over the Channel. That's not a good time of year to be in the sea at the latitude at which he went down (around 50 degrees N). Second, the pilot who shot him down made his claim at 4:15 PM. Living close to the 50th parallel myself, I know that at that time and at that time of year, nightfall is not far off.

@@angelonunez8555 yes it's correct sir just a rumour he was a POW in Canada only a rumour but turned out he wasn't there

No, he actually shot down Zeros, or a similar ground based fighter. These were the only aircraft I had available to recreate this scene however. So just did my best.

@@TJ3 Excellent! Keep up your high quality content. Greetings from Texas.

@@tomtom8459 probably Oscars AND Zeros they are really hars to tell apart to a pilot...but u probably already new that

It's a Macchi Mc205 in Japanese markings.

Also the 4 types of Japanese Army and Navy fighters over the Philippines early war A5m Claude(Navy) A6m Zeke or Zero(Navy) Ki27 Nate(Army) Ki43-1 Hayabusa or Oscar(Army) And 2 Navy float plane fighters A6n Rufe -float equipped Zero F1m Pete -observation biplane float plane used as long range fighters and patrol aircraft over Naval fleets.

I have a very good video on him.

His 109 malfunctioned, the cockpit filled with smoke,inverted the plane to bail, parachute didn't open and he crashed to his death, guess they could make a "unlucky WW2 pilots" video, guy was quite the shooter though.

@@dntlss his chest struck the vertical stabilizer of his Bf-109 incapacitating him

@@robertyoung3992 you are correct. Brits recovered him and buried him with full honors

Everyone here has been giving great suggestions, never heard of him but looked him up,guy was a class act like most of those guys during that time,more of a strange demise i would call it a sad demise since the war had been over for a few weeks in Japan, months in Europe, being caught in a major storm back in those days without GPS and other aids we have today was about equal to suicide.

Nice pull

Your great grandfather you mean.

A doz

A dozen or so years after I met the man who eventually became my stepfather, I learned he had piloted a TBF Avenger in the Pacific. He got out there on USS Yorktown 6 months or so before the end of the war. He earned a DFC for an attack on IJN Tone in Kure harbor. DFC for "pressing his attack through heavy AA fire" according to the citation, and scoring two hits with two GP 500 pounders. (Easier to hit a ship moored in harbor, but harder to get at it due to AA defenses ringing the harbor, with preset calibrations for altitude). Howie finished the war in the Pacific when he was present at Tokyo Bay for Japans signing of the instrument of surrender. All the years I knew him, he didn't say a word until after I learned he had been a pilot and asked about it.

That's my favorite one right there,there is actually people right now looking for him, how cool would it be to be walking thru a really dense forest and finding the remains of a 262 with a skeleton in the cockpit? most people think hes in water though.

Certainly could have made this list.

I looked it up he is buried in the US...but Im shure your memory is correct and its another pilot.

Watch Tuesdays video to find out!

And by definition if they do disappear, it is their final flight. I wonder how many of these were scheduled to be the pilots final flight in advance of the disappearance?

When I saw the title, that is at first what I thought was meant, a scheduled last flight before rotating out. But then I doubt the Germans or Japanese rotated pilots home, especially in the late stages of their respective wars.

Found yet another three high-ranking german aces that are listed as MIA: Heinz Hackler Erich Schmidt Günter Steinhausen

Another re-list as I forgot Lock from the list. Wagner is missing on purpose as he is no longer MIA. TOP39: Helmut Wick(Wick shot down almost only RAF fighters, so he must be the top name anyways) Marmaduke "Pat" Pattle(the top ace of the western allies, scored his victories in a little more than a year) Max Stotz Heinz Schmidt Hans Beißwenger Horst Ademeit Erwin Clausen Eric Lock(the leading ace of the RAF at one point, scored his victories in a very limited time frame) Berthold Korts Erich Schmidt Heinrich Hoffmann Gerhard Köppen Günther Scheel(a young star who scored 71 victories in 70 missions in the eastern front) Karl-Heinz Meltzer(a young star who scored 74 victories in the eastern front in a one year) Gerhard Homuth Georg Schentke Josef František Günter Steinhausen Josef Jennewein(world champion in alpine skiing, scored 86 victories in 1941-1943 in the eastern front) Franz Eckerle Günther Lützow Alois Lechner(the only night fighter ace in the list) Willie McKnight Aleksandr Karpov Otto Gaiser Naoshi Kanno(a young late war N1K2-J Shiden-Kai ace, scored his victories against the very powerful US airforces) Wolfgang Schellmann Kaneyoshi Muto Heinz Hackler Robert B. Westbrook Douglas Baker Edward Cragg Cotesworth B. Head Jr. Harold William "Joe" Bauer William P. Marontate Lydia Litvyak Franz Von Werra Walter F. Duke Edward "Butch" O'Hare I re-tuned the rank a bit. There are possibly other high scoring MIAs among japanese and soviet pilots, but I couldn't find the info.

One more high scoring MIA german ace was found: Eckhard Hübner, 47 kills, MIA at Staraja Russa March 28th 1942.

Yes, but most of their kills were against poorly trained Soviet pilots, and their record against US and British pilots isn't as impressive. And the hundreds of kills they tallied was actually an indictment against the Luftwaffe's inability to train new pilots to replace them.

One of the reasons for this is because they didn't have a rotation situation due to lack of manpower,fight till you die was pretty much the situation ,therefore racking up crazy scores,when you're involved in several fronts things can get dicey,kinda like being a boss and all your people quit,you'll be working long long hours,lol

@@petergray7576 Allied pilots also shot down loads of Luftwaffe pilots that could hardly take off or land a plane .especially 1943--45..similar to the eastern front situation 1941-43..Im still surprised however ? how many Luftwaffe aces survived the war..They are definetly the most eperienced pilots ever

Adolph Galland immediately springs to mind as a top Luftwaffe ace who survived. 705 combat missions with 104 victories, all on the WESTERN front. He also flew a prototype ME 262 in May 1943, and became commander of JV 44, "Squadron of Experts" which Hitler had given Galland permission to form as a small unit to demonstrate the ME 262's superiority as a fighter (despite the fact Hitler wanted bombers and for a time pushed to have the ME 262 modified to carry bomb loads)

Hmmmmm

IL 2-Sturmovik

@@TJ3 Awesome! Thanks.

Bf-109

These are people that disappeared,yeah Hartmann is the top dog but he doesn't belong here.

Allies shot pilots too.