WW2: Romanian fighter aces

[RF]

With the discussion on related threads about German and Allied fighter aces, I did look a little further a found a few references to Romanian Air Force pilots shooting down a not inconsiderable number of planes, not just Soviet but also US bombers and Mustangs.

Google search doesn't seem to find much in the way of detailed sources, not even on Wikipaedia.

Has anyone come across any detailed sources? From what I have seen it looks as if the Romanians were rather more succesful than the Italians......

[USS ALASKA]

Sir, am currently away on a business trip – was bored and decided to do a little hunting…

http://www.amazon.com/Rumanian-Aces-Wor ... =1-2-fkmr2

Same book as…

http://books.google.com/books?id=-TE1O8 ... q=&f=false

And why the different spelling…

“English-language sources still used the terms "Rumania" or "Roumania", borrowed from the French spelling "Roumanie", as recently as World War II,[15] but since then those terms have largely been replaced with the official[16] spelling "Romania".” – From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romania

I would not have thought to look up that spelling either…

Not very much info – just names…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wo ... om_Romania

Names and numbers…

http://www.1000pictures.com/aircraft/aces.htm

http://www.acesofww2.com/romania/Romania.htm

http://users.accesscomm.ca/magnusfamily/ww2rom.htm

http://www.worldwar2.ro/arr/?section=57

Hope this helps.

[RF]

There are some interesting references here, and the information seems to bear out that the Romanians were more effective in the air than the Italians, albeit principally against the Soviets.

Thanks for the posts, USS ALASKA.

[alecsandros]

There are some interesting references here, and the information seems to bear out that the Romanians were more effective in the air than the Italians, albeit principally against the Soviets.

Thanks for the posts, USS ALASKA.

Hello all,

I don't know about reliable foreign sources concerning the RO fighter force of WW2. I have a bunch of sources, all of them in Romanian, as you can imagine

A few observations:

* The most important trait of the RO fighters with regards to the other air forces involved in the war was that they came exclusively from high-ranking families, because the Air Force was a highly ellitistic group back then.
* The aircraft used through the war were the localy designed IAR-80/81 (very good fighters for the years 1939-1940, but gradualy obsolete) and the license manufactured Me-109F/G.
* In the battles for the RO oil fields, most of the fighters were Me-109s. Research showed about 380-450 allied planes destroyed by fighters + AA against about 120-160 Romanian and German planes lost (and about 50-60 pilots killed)

For any other questions, I woudl be happy to answer.

All the best

[USS ALASKA]

RF - not a problem sir! Glad to help.