Pierre-Henri Clostermann DSO, DFC & Bar (28 February 1921 – 22 March 2006) was a World War II French ace fighter pilot.

During the conflict he has been claimed to have achieved 33 air-to-air combat victories, earning the accolade "France's First Fighter" from General Charles de Gaulle.

On the outbreak of war in 1939 the French authorities refused his application for service, so he travelled to Los Angeles to become a commercial pilot, studying at the California Institute of Technology.

He flew a variety of operations including fighter sweeps, bomber escorts, high-altitude interdiction over the Royal Navy's Scapa Flow base, and strafing or dive-bombing attacks on V-1 launch sites on the French coast.

274 Squadron RAF flying the new Hawker Tempest Mk V. In an aircraft which he named Le Grand Charles (named after both the "Vieux Charles" , as Georges Guynemer french WWI ace with 53 victories was naming the aircraft he flew , and the Free French leader Charles de Gaulle who was tall) , Clostermann flew an intensive and highly successful round of fighter sweeps, airfield attacks, "rat scramble" interceptions of Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters, and rail interdiction missions over northern Germany over the next two months.

On 12 May 1945 during a victory fly-past to mark the war's conclusion, another Tempest collided with his, and as a result an air pile-up occurred with four close formation low-flying aeroplanes of his flight involved, with three pilots being killed.

In his 432 sorties, Clostermann has been credited with 33 victories (19 solo, 14 shared, most of them against fighters), a predominant source being his own book “The big show”, and five "probables", with eight more "damaged".

Recent, more detailed analysis of his combat reports and squadron accounts indicate that his actual score was 11 destroyed, with possibly another seven, for a total of 15–18 victories.

[6] Clostermann also wrote Feux du Ciel (Flames in the Sky) published in 1957, a collection of heroic air combat exploits from both Allied and Axis sides.

After the war, Clostermann continued his career as an engineer, participating in the creation of Reims Aviation, supporting the Max Holste Broussard prototype, acting as a representative for Cessna, and working for Renault.

[9] Clostermann had written the comments, which were partly motivated by ethnic insults towards Argentinians that he had become aware of in the British press during the conflict, in a letter to a class of Argentine fighter-pilots who were being trained at that time in France at an Armée de l'Air establishment, at which his son was an instructor.

[10] As a result of this perceived "betrayal" of his links with the United Kingdom via his war service in the Royal Air Force, Clostermann attracted hostility from parts of the British press.

[11] While serving in Lincolnshire, Pierre met and married Lydia Jeanne Starbuck at St Denys Church in Sleaford on the 28th of April 1943.