AA34910 Messerschmitt Bf 109F-4 (Trop), Hans Joachim Marseille, 1942

Of the 130 most successful air aces in history, all but one of them flew with the Luftwaffe during the Second World War, and an incredible 107 of them managed to score 100 or more aerial victories. Within this number of talented airmen, surely any discussion on who might be regarded as the ‘best of the best’ can only be judged by those who appear on this list, however, one name has regularly been suggested by his peers over the years, that man being Hans Joachim Marseille. An incredibly gifted pilot who would become the highest scoring Luftwaffe ace not having scored victories on the Eastern Front, he did endure something of a troubled start to his Luftwaffe career, regularly falling foul of his superiors and attracting a reputation as something of a playboy.



Sent to fly in North Africa, Marseille flourished under the guidance of fighter leader Eduard Neumann, who saw something special in the young airman, and with the desert having none of his usual distractions, saw Marseille perfect the art of dogfighting, particularly deflection shooting. His victory score increased steadily, regularly scoring multiple victories on single missions, quickly earning him the title the ‘Star of Africa’. His favoured mount was the Messerschmitt Bf 109F ‘Friedrich’, which he regarded as the perfect fighting aeroplane. He would use this particular aircraft to score at least 49 victories between 24th August and 25th September 1942, including an incredible 17 victories in a single day.