Pilots Who Have Shot Down Airplanes From All Three Axis Powers

Pilots who have shot down airplanes from all three axis powers

- Thomas Mullin

Here is an interesting and little-known fact: Only three American pilots are reported to have shot down at least one plane from each of the Axis powers (i.e., Germany, Italy, and Japan). There’s a simple reason for that, and it is central to the name of the conflict: “World War II” means just that—a war that encompasses the entire world. The opposing side occupied both sides of the globe. Although Berlin is technically only 5,500 miles from Tokyo in a straight line, all of Asia and Eastern Europe separates them, and as a rule, fighter pilots would do battle in one hemisphere/theater or the other, not both. Plus, it’s entirely possible for a pilot to be in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) and never see an Italian airplane, much less a Japanese aircraft, or a high-scoring ace in the Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO) never running across a German or an Italian plane. A pilot can’t shoot down what isn’t there. It took an unusual combination of circumstances for a pilot to bag one each from all three Axis players. But three did.

MAJ. ALBERT “AJAX” BAUMLER

The first man to accomplish this feat was Albert “Ajax” Baumler. You probably won’t find a man like Baumler sitting at any new millennium Air Force officers’ club. He defined the colorful, Maverick type of image the public has of fighter pilots but wouldn’t have made it into the current officer corps. He not only marched to his own drum but blazed a few trails of his own. Baumler washed out of Army Air Corps (AAC) pilot training in 1936 because of his “failure to demonstrate proper flying proficiency”; he had taken off in a trainer that had nearly empty fuel tanks and had to make a deadstick landing. It seems Baumler just shrugged his shoulders and went to United Airlines, where he got a commercial pilot’s license.