Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum

Perhaps I should've read this thread, along with the corresponding topic over on the Wehrmacht Awards forum, before attending this weekend's Warbirds Over Virginia Beach show. I had no knowledge of Mr. Dulias prior to yesterday, but listening to the tales with which he regaled visitors to his table and his answers to a few of my questions, I came away with more than a few suspicions about the gentleman.

I introduced myself and addressed him in German, and was pleased to discover he spoke "Hochdeutsch"... he was easy to understand, meaning he wasn't Schwäbisch or a Berliner. (!) I asked him a few questions about his unit and wartime experiences, and here are his answers:

- What unit did you fly with in JG 53?
GD: "3. Staffel... my commander was Helmut Lipfert." He made it clear that Lipfert wasn't his Staffelkapitän, but rather his "Kommandeur".

- What types of aircraft did you engage in combat?
GD: "You see the 'Rata' outside, the Polikarpov?" He then held up three fingers... "I shot down three of them, and I was blessed... the pilots were able to escape so I have not killed a man in my life. I am very much against killing."

(What an odd answer... and as others here have already suggested, the idea of confronting I-16s over Hungary in late 1944 is highly improbable. However, aircraft recognition was never a strong point with many Luftwaffe pilots- it seems like Werner Mölders listed half his kills as 'Curtiss', for instance!)

- Did you find that your G-14/AS offered greater performance over earlier models of ...
GD (interrupting) "Oh yes, we were trained on the Emil, old obsolete crates full of bullet holes sent back from the front. The G-14 was much better than those."

(He then went on to talk about the Bf 108, I never was able to steer him into any further technical discussion about the 109)

He went on about being included in the USAF 'Eagles' event in 2007, and was soon engaged in another conversation about 'Kapusta' with another visitor. On the whole, I found something vaguely odd about the entire encounter although I couldn't put my finger on it. I did purchase his book, and noted something last night- out of all the photos in there, there is not one single photograph of him posing with ANY fighter aircraft or fellow pilots. There is a photo of him with a 'Kranich' glider (I think), and a couple of him clowning around with a post-mounted MG 81Z... but no 109 photos at all. And the photos he was selling (printed on heavy card paper from a standard desktop printer) were definitely of a Hasegawa 1/32 Bf 109G-10 kit built as 'yellow 6', with a couple of the photos featuring a pilot figure in the foreground. The photos had been played with in Photoshop to put them in greyscale and "aged"... a decent job, but being a modeler, I recognized the kit almost immediately.

I have no doubt that he DID serve in the Luftwaffe in some capacity, and that he suffered in Soviet captivity... but I DEFINITELY doubt his claims about his wartime service as a pilot. With that said, I can't say the man serves no purpose... he was engaging, entertaining, and he wasn't making outlandish claims about aircraft performance. He was educating people about conditions in Germany during the war and about pilots in the Luftwaffe... whether that experience was based on first-hand knowledge is definitely up for debate, but I will admit that there was some merit in his 'presentations', in that people left his table with a more positive impression about Luftwaffe personnel.

One last point, specifically regarding rank... yesterday, Herr Dulias sported the insignia of a Hauptmann, with a silver Frontflugspange, Eisernes Kreuz, a JG 53 Pik As enamel pin, a Pilot's badge, and what appeared to be an observer's badge. It was certainly a diverse grouping for someone who allegedly entered combat in August 1944.

Cheers all-

Lynn