WW2 Flying Aces: The Highest-Scoring Ace of Every Country, Ranked

The highest-scoring flying ace of World War II was Erich Hartmann of Germany, credited with 352 aerial victories in the Messerschmitt Bf 109. No pilot of any war has matched it, and none ever will.

Hartmann’s number creates a problem for any list. More than 100 Luftwaffe pilots passed 100 victories, while the best American scored 40, so a straight top 20 would be 20 Germans and would tell you nothing about the rest of the war.

So this ranking takes the top ace of each of 19 nations and orders them by credited aerial victories, with the full German top 10 under Hartmann’s entry. For the all-time list across every war, see our ranking of the best fighter pilots of all time. Figures are as of October 2026.

1. Erich Hartmann (Germany): 352

Erich Hartmann flew 1,404 combat missions and fought in the air on 825 of them. Every one of his 352 credited victories came in the Messerschmitt Bf 109, and nearly all of them were Soviet aircraft.

His first victory came on November 5, 1942. He crash-landed 16 times but was never shot down by direct enemy action. After surrendering to US forces in May 1945 he was handed to the Red Army and held in Soviet camps until 1955.

He later joined the new West German air force as the first commander of JG 71 “Richthofen”. He died on September 20, 1993.

The 10 highest-scoring aces of WW2 (all German)

Hartmann leads a German scoreboard that no other air force comes near. Historians count between 103 and 107 Luftwaffe pilots with 100 or more victories, and no other nation produced a single one.

Otto Kittel was the top ace of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, with all 267 of his victories against the Soviet air force. Hermann Graf was the first pilot in history to claim 200.

The best German record against the Western Allies belongs to Hans-Joachim Marseille, who claimed all but seven of his 158 victories against the RAF and its allies over North Africa. On September 1, 1942, he claimed 17 fighters in three sorties, and Allied loss records for that day broadly back him up.

Marseille died on September 30, 1942, when engine failure forced him to bail out and he struck his Bf 109’s tail. The war’s top jet ace was Kurt Welter, credited by Zabecki with 26 claims in the Messerschmitt Me 262, though RAF loss records suggest he overclaimed. The aircraft behind these scores are covered in our guide to German fighter planes of WW2.

2. Ilmari Juutilainen (Finland): 94 1/6

Ilmari Juutilainen is the highest-scoring non-German fighter pilot of all time, with 94 1/6 confirmed victories in 437 sorties. He scored 34 in the Brewster Buffalo, 58 in the Bf 109G, and the rest in the Fokker D.XXI during the Winter War.

He won Finland’s Mannerheim Cross twice and never lost a wingman in combat. His countryman Hans Wind finished second in Finland with 75.

He died on February 21, 1999, his 85th birthday.

3. Hiroyoshi Nishizawa (Japan): about 87

Japan’s top ace cannot be named with certainty, because the Imperial Japanese Navy stopped recording individual victories from late 1942 or 1943, depending on the source, and credited squadrons instead. Most totals come from what pilots said, then or after the war.

Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, nicknamed “the Devil,” reportedly told his last commanding officer he had 86 or 87 victories, flying the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. Postwar figures of 103 and 147 are considered inaccurate.

On October 26, 1944, the day after he flew escort for the first major kamikaze attack, he was killed as a passenger when US Navy Hellcats shot down his transport over Mindoro.

The other contender is Tetsuzō Iwamoto, credited with at least 80 victories. Notebooks found after his death in 1955 claim 202, but that figure comes from his own postwar account.

4. Ivan Kozhedub (Soviet Union): 64

Ivan Kozhedub is the top Allied ace of the war. Historians’ consensus credits him with 64 victories (some sources say 62), all flying the Lavochkin La-5 and La-7.

In February 1945 he became the first Soviet pilot to shoot down a German Me 262 jet. He was made a Hero of the Soviet Union three times and died in 1991.

Alexander Pokryshkin’s official score of 65 is higher on paper, but historians who rechecked it put him between 46 and 59. He flew the Bell P-39 Airacobra, which makes him the highest-scoring pilot ever to fly an American aircraft.

5. Mato Dukovac (Croatia): 40 to 44

Mato Dukovac flew the Bf 109 with the Croatian Air Force Legion, a squadron attached to Germany’s JG 52 on the Eastern Front. Croatia’s air force credited him with 44 confirmed kills; at least one historian counts 40.

His war took more turns than almost anyone’s. He defected to the Soviets in September 1944, was handed to Tito’s Partisans, flew a Tiger Moth to Italy in August 1945, and flew for Syria in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He died in Toronto in 1990.

6. Constantin Cantacuzino (Romania): 43

Prince Constantin “Bâzu” Cantacuzino is credited with 43 confirmed victories, one shared, plus 11 unconfirmed. Under the points system Romania used from 1944, which scored a four-engine bomber as three kills, his total was 69.

He flew the Hawker Hurricane and then the Bf 109. When Romania switched sides in August 1944, he flew the highest-ranking American prisoner in the country, Lt. Col. James Gunn, to Italy, wedged into a Bf 109 whose radio had been removed to make room.

He went into exile after the war and died in Madrid in 1958.

7. Pat Pattle (South Africa, RAF): at least 40

Marmaduke “Pat” Pattle, a South African-born RAF pilot, is probably the top ace of the British Commonwealth. His total is at least 40 and may be more than 50, but many of his records were lost in the British retreat from Greece.

He scored 15 victories in the Gloster Gladiator biplane and the rest in the Hurricane. He was killed over Athens on April 20, 1941.

8. Richard Bong (United States): 40

Richard Bong is America’s ace of aces, credited with 40 Japanese aircraft, all shot down in the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. He received the Medal of Honor and was killed on August 6, 1945, testing a P-80 jet in California.

Thomas McGuire was close behind with 38 before he was killed in January 1945. The top Navy ace, David McCampbell, scored 34 in the Grumman F6F Hellcat, including nine Japanese planes on a single mission on October 24, 1944.

Against the Luftwaffe, the top American was Francis Gabreski, with 28 in the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.

9. Johnnie Johnson (United Kingdom): 34

James “Johnnie” Johnson is the highest-scoring Western Allied ace against the Luftwaffe, credited with 34 individual victories plus 7 shared. All 34 individual victories were German fighters: 14 Bf 109s and 20 Fw 190s.

He flew the Supermarine Spitfire throughout, survived the war, and died in 2001.

10. Ján Režňák (Slovakia): 32

Ján Režňák scored 32 confirmed victories on the Eastern Front with the Slovak squadron that flew Bf 109s alongside JG 52. He survived the war and died in 2007.

11. George Beurling (Canada): 31 1/3

George “Buzz” Beurling shot down 27 Axis aircraft in 14 days over besieged Malta in 1942, flying a Spitfire. His official total reached 31 or 31 1/3, depending on the source.

He died in Rome on May 20, 1948, while serving with the new Israeli Air Force.

12. Dezső Szentgyörgyi (Hungary): 30

Dezső Szentgyörgyi was Hungary’s most successful fighter pilot, with 30 confirmed kills in the Reggiane Re.2000 and the Bf 109G. He was never shot down.

His first kill, on August 7, 1942, was a German He 111 shot down by mistake. He became an airline captain after the war and died in 1971 when his Malév Il-18 crashed near Copenhagen.

13. Clive Caldwell (Australia): 28.5

Clive Caldwell is officially credited with 28.5 victories in more than 300 sorties. He flew P-40 Tomahawks and Kittyhawks over North Africa and Spitfires over northern Australia and the South West Pacific.

That makes him the highest-scoring P-40 pilot of any air force. He died in 1994.

14. Paddy Finucane (Ireland): 28

Brendan “Paddy” Finucane, an Irishman in the RAF, is usually credited with 28 victories in the Spitfire, though published totals vary. In June 1942 he became the RAF’s youngest wing commander.

A month later, on July 15, 1942, ground fire hit his Spitfire and he was killed ditching in the English Channel.

15. Colin Gray (New Zealand): 27

Colin Gray finished the war with 27 confirmed victories, 2 shared, and 10 probables, starting with No. 54 Squadron in the Battle of Britain. He flew Spitfires throughout and died in 1995.

16. Marcel Albert (France): 23

France’s top ace depends on whose count you trust. Marcel Albert scored 21 of his 23 accredited victories with the Normandie-Niemen regiment, flying Yak fighters on the Eastern Front, and was made a Hero of the Soviet Union.

Pierre Clostermann, in a Hawker Tempest, is credited with 33, of which 19 were solo and 14 shared. That total leans heavily on his own bestselling memoir, The Big Show, and later research put his confirmed score lower. Albert died in Texas in 2010.

17. Teresio Martinoli (Italy): 22

Italy’s air force officially credited victories to units rather than pilots, so Italian totals come from historians. Teresio Martinoli is credited with 22 individual and 14 shared victories in 276 sorties, flying the Fiat CR.42 and the Macchi C.202 and C.205.

He was killed on August 25, 1944, in a training accident while converting to the P-39 with the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force.

18. Stanisław Skalski (Poland): 18 11/12

Stanisław Skalski was the first Allied fighter ace of the war, scoring his victories during the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. The official Polish list credits him with 18 11/12; Skalski himself gave 22 11/12.

He went on to fly Spitfires with Polish squadrons of the RAF, and after the war he was imprisoned by Poland’s communist authorities. He died in 2004.

19. Josef František (Czechoslovakia): 17

Josef František scored 17 confirmed victories in four weeks of September 1940, flying a Hurricane with No. 303 (Polish) Squadron. That made him the highest-scoring non-British Allied pilot of the Battle of Britain.

He was killed in a crash at Ewell, Surrey, on October 8, 1940, the day after his 26th birthday. The cause was never established. For the aircraft these pilots flew, see our ranking of the best fighter planes of WW2.

What about the women aces?

The only two female fighter aces in history were Soviet pilots. Lydia Litvyak is credited with 13 or 14 solo victories and 4 or 5 shared in 66 sorties in the Yak-1.

On September 13, 1942, she became the first woman fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft. She was killed near Orel on August 1, 1943, two weeks after her fellow ace Yekaterina Budanova, credited with five or more, died on July 19.