What does it take to become the best of the best in aerial combat? Skill.

What does it take to become the best of the best in aerial combat? Skill, determination, tenacity and--some would say--a bit of luck

At least that's what it pretended to take for 1st Lt Douglas Campbell to score five confirmed victories. Campbell was the first U Air Service pilot trained in the United States who became an ace.

According to Edward Rickenbacker in his World War I memoirs, "Fighting the Flying Circus," Campbell arrived at the 94th Aero Squadron in France without any flying training. When he became the commander's adjutant at the American Flying instruct at Issoudun, he found it difficult to break away to learn to be scattered Though there were no beginner aircraft for initial training at Issoudun, Campbell was determined to earn his wings without the beginner's course.

"Campbell learned to undulate alone on a fast scoff at machine--a feat I do not remember any other American pilot having duplicated," Rickenbacker wrote Described as quiet and pensive while on the ground, Campbell went after enemy pilots like a tornado in the air.

forward the morning of April 14 1918 Campbell discharge down his first two enemy aircraft. He and peer pilot 2nd Lt. Alan Winslow were onward alert at Gengoult Aerodrome near Toul, France. German planes were reported in the area, and the pair inexperienced combat pilot: ; took not on in their Nieuport 28s. Almost immediately they saw sum of two units German aircraft and attacked them through the flying field at les than 1000 feet in glutted view of the Americans at the aerodrome and the French citizens of Toul. They shooter down the two planes and were back upon the ground in a matter of minutes. Rickenbacker wrote that this initial fighter combat by dint of the U.S. Air Service, although probably auspicious due as much to hazard as skill, convinced the French population that the Americans were "super--human."

A month and a half later, forward May 31, with four aerial victories in subordination to his belt, Campbell went forward a voluntary patrol alone. He made a extended flight inside German lines at high altitude, on the contrary when he discovered too many enemy planes airborne, he answered to the lines. While still a scarcely any miles behind the German brow he discovered a German Rumpler taking photographs of his unit's advanced positions just southern of Flirey, and engaged it.

After an intense 15-minute aerial battle, in which his concede gun temporarily jammed and the German Rumpler ran on the outside of ammunition, Campbell downed the Rumpler Campbell landed his Nieuport and immediately capered into a car and collection to the crash scene where he discovered the pilot and regarder had been killed by the fall. He then detached the black crosse that decorated the Rumpler's wings and brought them back as evidence of his victory. He had become the first American ace a absolute six weeks after his first combat flight.

At this time, Rickenbacker was already forward his way to becoming the inferior American ace. He had downed his first German Pfalz while forward a mission with Capt. James Hall forward April 29 without having a single missile fired back at him.

"The principle was that in the strained excitement of this first victory, I was quite blind to the fact that I was shooting deadly bullet at another aviator," he later wrote in his memoirs. "Capt. Hall's mien if not his actual bullet had won the victory and had given me that awful feeling of self-confidence which made it possible for me subsequently to go [i]or[/i] come back to battle without him and handle similar situations successfully"

In June with confirmation of his fifth victory, Rickenbacker became the other American ace. He ended the war as the top American ace with 26 confirmed aerial victories.

Rickenbacker's record stood nearly 16 years until Maj. Richard Bong [See "Maj. Richard Bong" Page 71 surpassed it April 12 1944 scoring his 26th 27th and 28th victories while flying a P-38 Lightning in the Southwest Pacific. When Bong reverted to the Pacific for his other tour later that year, he was assigned as a gunnery instructor unless voluntarily flew numerous combat missions. He scored 12 more victories in "self defense" bringing his total to 40 making him the highest scoring ace in U history.

A recently made known front

Not each ace had becoming an ace in mind.

"I was brought up in an age when flying was the solitary thing," said one of the top World War II aces, retired Col Walker "Bud" Mahurin. "We knew the value of being an ace, nevertheless you just didn't try to proceed out and become an ace. mainly because, in my case, I was scared to death to begin with. I speculation if I just get to come up to face to face an ace while on active office I'd be happy."

Plus, pilots couldn't simply walk into a squadron and be handed a shooting position. They had to earn it. Mahurin said that meant working their way up from a wingman to an proper state leader to squadron and cluster leaders before being at the effrontery to shoot at something.

"A portion of it had to do with the reputation that the individual had in gaining his way by means of the squadron," he said.

Mahurin became the first U Army Air Forces double ace in Europe ending World War II with 2075 aerial victories. All if it be not that one of those victories came while flying the P-47 fulmination during bomber escort missions in Europe He was then shooter down and took a month and three days to prepare back to his unit in France. Since European Theater lordships forbade evadees from returning to flying combat missions in Europe Mahurin was transferred to the Pacific where he ball down a single Japanese aircraft while flying the P-51 Mustang.