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Dozens of aviators were credited as flying aces in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. The number of total flying aces, who are credited with downing five or more enemy aircraft in air-to-air combat, is disputed in the war. The Korean War saw the first widespread use of jet engine-powered fighter aircraft for both sides of a conflict. Subsequently, difficulty arose in crediting the number of victories for each side, thanks in part to poor records, intentional overestimation, and the difficulty of confirming crashes in MiG alley, where the majority of air-to-air combat took place in the war. As a result, there is a large discrepancy on both sides as to the number of victories claimed versus aircraft lost, and it is extremely difficult to determine the accuracy of many victories. The ace status of dozens of pilots still remains in question. Aviators from four nations may have qualified as aces during the Korean War; between six and nine aces have been estimated for China and up to four in North Korea. Pilots of the Soviet Union had the most difficulty confirming victories and accurately determining which pilots achieved ace status, and between 34 and 60 pilots from that nation have been postulated as possible aces in the war. For the United Nations, the United States was the only country with pilots to attain ace status, with 40 documented aces. No pilot from another UN country attained ace status, though many claimed victories. Among these, Royal Canadian Air Force pilot Ernest A. Glover claimed three victories.〔 ==Controversy== The status of many claimed aces in the Korean War is a subject of intense dispute owing to conflicting records from the two sides in the conflict. Records from the United Nations generally agree there were only 40 pilots to reach ace status during the Korean War, all of them from the United States. However, records from China, the Soviet Union, and North Korea conflict widely and accounts vary on how many aircraft on each side were lost and who is credited with the victories. Air victory claims, which are often controversial between two sides of a conflict, were particularly difficult to measure in Korea thanks to the difficulty recovering crashed aircraft and confirming losses, as well as poor records for the two sides which fought the bulk of their engagements in an area known as MiG Alley. The number of aircraft lost during the war is in dispute among both the UN and the Soviet bloc nations. UN pilots claim 840 aircraft shot down during the war, while Chinese, Soviet, and North Korean sources indicate only 600 were lost among the three nations. Conversely, the Soviet Union sources claim to have shot down 800 UN aircraft, while US sources indicate only 100 were lost in combat. Overestimation of victories on both sides has been attributed to the stress and confusion of air combat situations during the war, as well as the tendency for pilots to deliberately exaggerate claims for career advancement.〔 Claims from the Soviet-bloc nations were arguably more likely to be accurate because the majority of air-to-air action in the war occurred over Soviet airspace. However, historians suggest that numbers in these nations were deliberately exaggerated for propaganda purposes and to appease their superiors. Soviet pilots faced harsh penalties for perceived failure or ineffectiveness, making inaccurate or false claims of victories more common. Compounding the problem, both sides were using jet engine-powered fighter aircraft on a large scale for the first time, and the high speeds of combat made visual identification of damaged and destroyed aircraft difficult. As a result, UN planners required multiple witnesses to confirm victories, hoping to gain the best intelligence possible. Soviet leaders had relatively lax standards for confirming kills at the beginning of the war, leading to widespread over-claiming. Both sides made extensive use of gun cameras to better track effectiveness, but Soviet cameras were less effective, further contributing to over-claiming. The Soviet bloc nations claim to have destroyed a combined total of between 1,000 and 1,600 UN aircraft in air-to-air combat, the most common number in sources being 1,106 UN aircraft total, including 651 F-86 Sabres. The most authoritative numbers indicate 1,016 UN aircraft, including 595 Sabres. Chinese sources claim an additional 330 victories, including 211 Sabres. The most common number used is a total of 271 victories for China and North Korea.〔 Other, more recent works claim 1,337 UN aircraft. During the entire course of the war, the UN forces reposted 1,466 aircraft lost to all causes,〔 with 757 of them lost to enemy action.〔 Of these only 139 were destroyed in air-to-air combat, with another 305 unknown or missing. Of these, just 78 Sabres were listed as lost in combat, with 26 missing. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「List of Korean War flying aces」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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