Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

In general I have to agree with edwest2. We would all like certainty in this pursuit, but unfortunately when it comes to this type of endeavor, in all reality you guys are "chasing the wind". The vast majority of actual witnesses have, long since, passed away, the records are incomplete, missing or replete with errors. Can you blame any of the few remaining survivors for their hostility, incomplete memories or whatever? And I'm not just referring to LW guys. You're questioning their integrity as it pertains to their lives. I'm not suggesting giving carte blanche approval to what they claimed from some 75 years ago, but allow the few survivors, from all sides, their dignity.

As is, you guys are cross-referencing the existing records, such as they are, and trying to come to reasonable conclusions based on those. A worthy exercise, but short of some discovery of a 'Holy Grail' treasure trove of records of unassailable accuracy for all, you're all just making educated assumptions based on what is currently available. Nothing wrong with that at all. Realistically though, the "absolute" answer ain't ever gonna happen. Accept it and move on.

Where I get disturbed is when someone starts ascribing motives such as liar, fraud, etc to someone long dead with no way to question them or allow them to defend themselves. And again, this isn't just a LW thing. Think 300 AVG claims versus supposedly about 100 actual Japanese losses in SE Asia in their operational area, the huge number of overclaims by the RAF versus actual LW losses in the BoB and so on and so forth. Overclaiming was a reality by all combatants, end of story. And yes, there are documented instances of intentional fraud - the case of 4./JG27 in NA comes to mind. Get over it.

I guess what makes the LW guys a particular target is the big numbers put up by so many pilots. I get that, but I wasn't there, there is no video via phone or whatever, just the surviving records. You guys are doing great work matching existing records of claims & losses - but short of knowing you have the complete record, you're still engaging in a somewhat speculative exercise. (And yes, I would whole-heartedly agree, it's incredibly unlikely Hartmann actually shot down anywhere near the claimed 350+ Soviet machines.)

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

In hindsight again, does it it really matter? The end result was that the LW, and Germany, were defeated. Ultimately, once Germany decided to invade the SU, with it's resource/industrial potential, and then declared war on the U.S. with it's resources, they were toast. In a war of attrition, they could never hope to match the combined industrial capacity, the numbers of troops available to be put in the field and resources of the Allied nations. They blew their chance when they couldn't subjugate the British Isles. Boiled down to its simplest factors, Germany (and the Axis allies) could not sustain a war of attrition against the combined Allied nations. (The 30000 foot view.)

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

I think it matters.

Hartmann's "352" is known to both young and old around the world.

So once again, how could it be done, hypothetically speaking, a correction of the record that would reveal to the world that Hartmann's 352 and Barkhorn's 301, and etc., etc., etc., are NOT real numbers, WITHOUT questioning their integrity? There are cultural complexities involved--this is a delicate situation--BUT history deserves the correction, no?

I'm thinking Rall, Lipfert, Bar, Hackl (or whomever) deserves international recognition if indeed the actual evidence shows them to likely be, The One.

Bronc

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

You can narrow down the overclaiming significantly but getting the absolute answer is impossible.

Take the case I looked at yesterday, two Warwicks over the North Sea flying together, attacked by two Me410s.

One Warwick got away without injury at 11:45 hrs, the other was shot down. The first did not see what happened to the second.

Two claims for the right area, one at 11:50 and one at 11:58 by two different Lw pilots flying the right type of fighter.

What can we conclude? It is certain that the combat took place and that one Me410 was successful. Which one got it wrong? We will never know.

That is only two on two, with witnesses on both sides.

You are asking for too much

Martin

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

Confidence is not a problem at all due to the overwhelming evidences. But a large scale research like this requires more time. Just a little more patience please ... ;-)

Gabor and ...

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

The publication Luftwaffe im Focus has done an excellent job, along with countless books and other publications. Regarding any aspect of the Second World War, documents continue to appear at auction, not just eBay, and on sites which set a price and sell them. Then there were discoveries in Russian archives. The best any researcher can hope to do is his best. That's it. At my job I've been doing research for 40 years and that's all I can do.

Who would have thought just a few years ago that Japanese and Allied aircraft losses in the Pacific could be matched up so well?

Asking questions is fine but answers are sometimes not forthcoming shortly after.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

Germany lost the war? That's it? Look at the Russian losses and the final disposition of all concerned. The goal here is to reconstruct a certain time period regarding the German Air Force and I've seen remarkable progress.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

Jim, I personally don't need to 'get over' anything. When you contact people who played major roles in a conflict and they behave in suspicious ways, it begs questioning. And Nick, considering the period in which Stigler's encounter with the Fortress took place, I think the consequences for deliberately NOT destroying it would have been severe, from the German side. I'm in no way saying that some sort of action didn't happen, but the degree of media participation in this event, and they way it was presented at the time, leave me suspicious. I had dinner with Stigler and Charlie Brown, the captain of the Fortress, and clearly these were both brave aviators.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

Is it suspicious that someone does not want to go over the past and remember lost friends and comrades with a bunch of nosey youngsters keen to find out if they were something special?

More a case of self preservation

MG

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

'Nosey youngsters'? That is truly hilarious. I haven't been called that for some time. When I was in touch with Neumann, I presented copies of documents which he signed, asking for clarification. I don't think this constitutes an invasion of privacy.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

It's all starting to get a bit off-topic now, people.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

I don't know, Nick. I'm not trying to hijack this thread, merely show that getting to the bottom of actual Jagdwaffe scores can be a veritable minefield of politics and obfuscation.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

My request wasn’t directed at any individual.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

I guess you have to see the victories and claims as quantic physics objects. In this point of vue a fact is not true or false but x% true and (100-x)% false.

Comparing claims and losses, when records allow it, can not answer who shot down who in most cases, only in a minority of cases, especially as the number of aircraft involved grow.

Mos of the times, all that is possible to say is that side A claimed 12 kills and side B suffered 5 losses, while side B claimed 8 kills and side A suffered 3 losses. So each kill of side A is true at 5/12 = 40% and each claim of side B is true at 3/8=38%.

Another way to do that is to list for a given pilot the sure true victories (enemy losses match claims), the sure false victories (no possible enemy loss) and the ones that may be true (there were enemy losses but more claims that real losses). It is the third category that might be judged using "quantic" numbers.

The only real conclusion that I can draw on the subject is that overclaiming was common, either in good faith or not. Another question is how much the hierachy was involved in it, ie does the victory confirmation process work correctly or not ? For example during Curcues in 1941-1942 the RAF commanders knew via Ultra and other intelligence that their pilots were overclaiming a lot, but did nothing to correct that for morale purposes.

So when studying any battle, you can't rely on reports from one side only, but need to have loss and claim reports from both sides.

Things are even worse in land battles where enemy losses are often several times lower than claimed. I have seen several instances for example in Normandy in 1944 where one side claimed to have destroyed several enemy batallions, claiming hundred of enemy killed. Reports from the opposing sides show only some tens of KIA/MIA.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

Referring to the last lines of Laurent's post (#54) I wonder if the question who achieved the most 'kills' only lives in the airwar community?
Have not come across such heated arguments with regards to ground troops as to what unit contributed to the highest 'enemy body count'.

No 'kill', just one or dozens, all pilots did their duty.

Regards,
Leendert

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

There's sense in military organisations trying to assess their effectiveness but whether individual scores are a valid measure of that is open to argument. I'm interested in the who-shot-down-who question from another angle, a reminder that wars are fought between real (and often identifiable) human beings. It's a counterweight to the "Napoleon's armies swept across Europe" style of history writing.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

Agree with you Nick, but I will rather say the question is "who died then" or "who was there" than "who shot down who". I myself try to include people who were in the air and on the ground in my stories.

Leendert, there are sniper aces, tank killer aces, tank crew aces, submarine aces and so on. Most of the claims in ground war are very difficult to prove one way or the other. For instance, overclaiming on tanks can be huge because a lot of tanks were recovered and repaired.

Most unit histories will also list their global claims, that are AFAIK often if not everytime too great to be true.

On the other hand what/who sank what has been studied in depth for WWII and is clear for most cases, at least regarding ship vs ship (including submarines). Also crew casualties are available for many cases.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

That reminds me of a tale I heard on another blog I infest: the subject was the American Civil War and a post recalled how there was an engagement between a Union and a Confed brigade. Looking at the official historical documents: both sides claimed to have inflicted hundreds of casualties on the other while on suffering a handful of dead and wounded, after an intense exchange of rifle fire.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

In a similar vein, there are also the air combats where opposing units from both sides returned to base claiming victories while suffering no losses.

After action reports from both sides of such encounters would be interesting reading.

Re: In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?
 

If you give rival groups of young men danger, guns, fast machines and benzedrine, you probably won’t get complete objectivity.