Flying Aces: Red Baron, Hartmann's 352 Kills and the Five-Kill Rule

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The flying ace was created as much by wartime propaganda as by combat. In 1915, with millions dying anonymously in the trenches, a French newspaper called Adolphe Pégoud l'as after he downed five German aircraft, and Germany turned Max Immelmann and Manfred von Richthofen, credited with 80 victories, into national heroes. Counting kills was chaotic. German pilots fighting over their own lines needed wreckage or ground witnesses, while General Hugh Trenchard refused to publish British scores, so squadrons credited shared kills and planes driven down. American newspapermen settled on five as the magic number, and overclaiming often doubled or tripled real enemy losses.

In World War II Erich Hartmann claimed 352 victories, against 64 for the Soviet Union's Ivan Kozhedub, 40 for Richard Bong, and 38 for Johnny Johnson. The episode explains the gap: Luftwaffe pilots flew until killed or captured, while the Allies rotated aces home to train recruits. It then follows gunners and radar officers who became aces, the jet duels of Korea and Vietnam, and an April 13, 2024, night when an all-female F-15E crew shot down five Iranian drones over Israel.

• The Pour le Mérite became known as the Blue Max because Max Immelmann was its first pilot recipient.
• British pilot Arthur Gould Lee told his wife his score was 11, only five of them solo, and that he was miles from being an ace.
• Hartmann hunted stragglers at the edge of formations, while a 1943 Soviet instruction told pilots to target the enemy commander.
• Lydia Litvyak scored 12 victories and Yekaterina Budanova 11, the only female aces of the war.
• Charles DeBellevue, a weapon systems officer in an F-4 Phantom's back seat, was the top American ace of Vietnam with six kills.