I know that the p51 was amazing engineering job, especially that it was designed in less the 30 days (if I remember correctly), but between that and the spitfire as well as other aircraft, which was the best fighter/escort (non jet) during word war 2?
As a secondary question, what would be considered the best/most versatile bomber of ww2
Edit: as per suggestion below, by best, I mean the most maneuverable and which one would be considered the hardest to go up against.
Well, that's not a great question to ask. You can't bring things down to a "which is best" judgement - that term just doesn't work. If you'd like to maybe make your question more precise (most kills, best K/D ration, most produced or whatever takes your fancy) I'd be more than happy to try and shed some light on the situation! As stands, you might as well just ask me for my favourite...
There is no single best fighter of the war.
Aircraft design is all about compromises. Design considerations to make the aircraft excel at one aspect will often detract from it's performance in other areas.
Furthermore, the different countries and even different services (Army Air Forces, Naval aviation, etc) within the same countries had different requirements.
For example, later in the war, the Germans were concerned with intercepting and destroying the giant formations of bombers flying overhead, whereas the Allies in turn sought to pursue an aircraft capable of escorting those same bombers.
Essentially what it all boils down to is that the top fighters from every country were more or less on somewhat equal footing towards the end of the war. Of course, the Germans and Japanese really struggled to produce quality components for their aircraft construction, but on paper their designs were superb. The late model Fw-190s, Bf-109s, Ki-84s, etc, were all more or less equally matched with their allied counterparts such as late model Spitfires, Tempests, Mustangs, etc. There would be times where one side might have briefly held an advantage, but it was a constant game of catch up on all sides. When one side held a slight advantage, the other side was quick to catch up and even overtake them, only for the other side to again bounce back and take the lead.
It might be better to ask what the most important fighter was, in terms of its contribution to the war. Perhaps the Bf 109, which after all holds the records for number of aircraft produced and number of aerial kills. Then there's the P-51D Mustang which made a huge difference to the American bombing campaign.
There are probably candidates from the east as well. The Japanese Zero was brilliant in its time (I think Eric Brown - a Royal Navy test pilot who seems have flown everything short of Apollo 11 - said it was the best fighter of the early war) but became severely dated as the war progressed. As for the Russians, I know of the I-16, Yak, La-5 etc. but I don't really know how they got on against the Germans. Aside from a lot of them getting shot down during Operation Barbarossa.
