Ace in A Day
The first military aviators to score five or more victories on the same date, thus each becoming an "ace in a day", were pilot Julius Arigi and observer/gunner Johann Lasi of the Austro-Hungarian air force, on 22 August 1916, when they downed five Italian planes. The feat was repeated five more times during World War I.
Becoming an ace in a day became relatively common during World War II; for instance, 68 U.S. pilots—43 Army Air Forces, 18 Navy, and seven Marine Corps—were credited with the feat.
In the Soviet offensive of 1944 in the Karelian Isthmus, Finnish pilot Hans Wind shot down 30 enemy airplanes in 12 days and in doing so obtained "ace in a day" status five times.
On 6 September 1965, during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Muhammad Mahmood Alam of the Pakistan Air Force shot down five Indian Air Force Hawker Hunter Mk.56 fighters in less than a minute, four of them within 30 seconds. He was awarded the Sitara-e-Jurat ("The star of courage") and bar for his actions.
Read more about this topic: Flying Ace
Famous quotes containing the words ace and/or day:
“I do not object to Gladstone’s always having the ace of trumps up his sleeve, but only to his pretence that God had put it there.”
—Henry Labouchere (1831–1912)
“I have no hostility to nature, but a child’s love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)