Another few inches and the bullet would have entered Gunther Rall's heart - as it was it took off one of his thumbs.

Former Luftwaffe air ace Walter Schuck looks over a replica of a Messerschmitt BF109 G6 at the Yorkshire Air Museum

The gap on his left hand is the only outward scar of the former pilot's wartime experiences, which left him as the world's greatest living flying ace, with 275 victories claimed for the Luftwaffe.

General Rall's visit to the Elvington Air Museum near York, with fellow fighter pilot Walter Schuck, had been criticised by some former RAF servicemen, who called for the invitations to be withdrawn.

They objected to the idea of entertaining two men who operated the guns that killed hundreds of Allied airmen.

But the museum, and General Rall, said the visit was all about helping to heal the wounds left by the Second World War. General Rall, one of a group of pilots appearing at a lecture at the museum on Saturday, including countryman Wilhelm Gobel, said: "It is more friendly now. It is much better to be friends than to be shooting at each other. This is for mutual understanding, it is history now."

Two-thirds of the 30,000 Luftwaffe pilots were killed in the war, but 81-year-old General Rall survived, despite being shot down eight times and suffering serious injury three times, once breaking his back. He lost his thumb after being shot at by an Allied fighter above forests over Frankfurt.

He said: "It was a hell of a time, the whole war. There were many chances to get killed but I survived.

"You must have some luck to survive. It is destiny, but you never know it before, only afterwards."

Walter Schuck, the world's third- ranked air ace with 206 victories, puts much of his survival down to spending almost two-and-a-half years on the Russian front.

He said: "When the Russian air force started to do dogfights against the Germans they were not very experienced. I could see them very far away and I had a quick reaction. It was self-defence."

Lecture co-ordinator at the museum, Dave Tappin said the event was also attended by several Allied air aces, and none of them bore a grudge against their former enemies.

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