Not So fit Luftwaffe Aces

[kaki3152]

One interesting side effect of the lack of qualified Luftwaffe fighter pilot was the amount of fighter pilots who were (1) Missing an eye (Specht, Litjens,Hoffman,Koenig) (2) Missing a limb (Petersen,Brandt)
or (3) Repatriated from POW status (badly injured) only to begin flying combat missions again (Lt. Ewald Kraas-JG-77 & JG-4).

Of course, everybody knows the case of Hptm Bertold of WWI fame who was very badly injured/wounded but continued to fly combat throughout WWI.

I guee my point here is that the Jadgwaffe allowed pilots who were physically unfit to fly to fly combat missions to fly combat IF they wanted to badly enough. Clearly Gunther Rall could have stayed in a training role after he broke his back in 1941. Only having his thumb shot off and his bout with prevented him from flying too much combat after May 1944.