The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Some of the records of German aces have been verified to great detail from the loss records of the Allied - I can think for example Marseille and some nightfighter aces - but how about the opposite?

How detailed has been the verification of the air victory claims of top Allied aces (like Ivan Kozhedub) by Luftwaffe´s losses and other LW records? Who are the "verified" top Allied aces when it comes to shooting down German aircraft?

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Hello GuerraCivil,

I think the short and rather unpromising answer is that there are few people like Theo Boiten, Chris Shores and Kari Stenman around :) Yuriy Rybin has done research on Soviet claims in the Arctic, but there has not been much written on this subject from a Soviet / Russian perspective. Part of the reason that I research losses at a strategic and operational level is because tactical-level data is so very difficult to collect and analyse, even for those who have decades of experience in the subject.

Regards,

Paul

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

To GuerraCivil,

That's a very good question! For a long time I suspected that Ivan Kozhedub's 62 air-to-air victories over the Eastern Front to not be believed at all. Plenty of his claims over the Luftwaffe hasn't really been verified by the Luftwaffe loss records. For the USAAF fighter pilots who fought against the Luftwaffe over Germany and claimed ten or more victories(especially with 5 air-to-air kills in one mission),well plenty of their of their claims can't be matched by the real losses in the Luftwaffe loss records. Just my thought!

Sincerely,

Edward L. Hsiao

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

While true that combat victory stats are very difficult to verify the "top aces" are interesting case studies and they have been indeed studied:

The wiki seems to show quite good analysis of Johnie Johnson´s record:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnni...n_(RAF_officer)

Similar analysis seems to have been made on the claims of Aleksander Pokryshin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pokryshkin

At least both men seem to fit very comfortably to "verified ace" category! (with more than 5 air victories confirmed or likely by enemy records)

Gabby Gabreski was the top US ace in Europe, but I wonder if they have made any studies to check his record? I guess that Gabreski flew more combat missions than "average" USAAF fighter pilot in Europe and even after critical checking of his air victories Gabreski will likely remain as a top US ace in Europe during WW2...

A minor case but perhaps interesting: Pavel Kutakhov (long time C-in-C of Soviet Air Force) was credited with 13 air victories (individual) + 28 shared (!) in WW2. IIRC, of his individual victories 5 could be verified by German records - so he did make it an "ace" but perhaps with a overclaiming ratio of some 2,5:1 (+ shared ones). Rather "normal overclaim" ratio in WW2?

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

With the exception of Von Richthofen, Marseille's claims have probably been scrutinized more than any other fighter pilot. He over claimed after his big day of September 1, 1942 (of his 17 claims, 12 crashed or crash landed), but until then he was a reliable claimer. This was the judgement of his latest biographer.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

With Soviet claims on the eastern front it's not always an easy thing to determine as sometimes the pilots with just one victory in an area has to be taken into the picture. I mentioned in another post of 1 Bf 109 of JG 54 showed 10 Soviet pilots claiming in that area for the day. Also some German losses were contributed to AAA when there could have been a Soviet fighter that actually made the kill. Also the time of the Luftwaffe loss is not available to check as I tried to determine a I./JG 26 loss on the 14 Mar 43.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

In fact 12 real losses out of 17 claims still indicates reliable claiming even if H-J was even more reliable claimer earlier. And if you mean Colin D. Heaton's & Anne-Marie Lewis' book it has some problems.

Juha

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Good points, Nokose!

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Since Maj. George E. Preddy was a native of Greensboro, NC, I attempted to verify his claims for two big missions where he claimed multiple victories.

On July 18, 1944 he claimed 4 Ju-88s. None were there, but multiple Me-410s losses were. I think he mistook the 410 for Ju-88s. Probably from ZG 76. Look at views of both types from 6 o'clock and you can see how they look similar. Remember, in combat you have 1-5 seconds to ID, not hours as we latter day historians have, to determine what type it is.

His most famous mission on Aug 6, 1944 he was credited with 6 Bf 109s. That day JG 53 lost 4 destroyed and several damaged with extensive percentages. Close enough in my estimation, especially if the 109s were under repair for awhile.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

It isn't analysis, it is a fantasy.

As for East front, too little info has remained from Luftwaffe (especially for 1944) for such verification. Analysis of some episodes is possible, nothing more.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

I wonder what percentage of USAAF claims are documented by gun camera footage.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Based on my (admittedly narrow) look at some of the records from my Great Uncle's 9th AF unit, gun camera film was often submitted to Victory Boards in support of claims. I have read, however, that 9th AF Victory Boards were notoriously stingy about confirming claims, perhaps because footage showing extensive damage didn't also show the final fate of the E/A.

If the issue, however, is whether that footage survives for researchers to verify today, I don't know whether the original films or copies were archived after the war. I know my Great Uncle brought home extensive reels of combat film, but they were lost in a post-war flood. Other members of his unit retained their combat film as well, because clips (both ground attack and air-to-air) appear on the 368th Fighter Group website (www.368thfightergroup.com).

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Example for the 06 Mar 1943 in Beisswenger's last battle.
Lt. Adil' Guseynovich Kuliev 653 IAP Bf 109 (1) Teremovo
S-t. Gavriil Gavrilovich Gus'kov 875 IAP Bf 109 (7) Teremovo
Lt. Vasiliy Vasil'evich Skoruk 875 IAP Bf 109 (4) Bor
S-t. Andrey Ivanovich Popov 875 IAP Bf 109 (2) Bor

None of these four pilots brought down Beisswenger and Uffz. Munderloh that day but had damaged Beisswenger's fighter before he was killed.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

With Soviet claims I wonder how much confusion has been created with shared/group air victory system? For example Piotr Kozachenko is credited sometimes with 4 individual air victories from the Soviet-Finnish Winter War 1939-1940 when flying in 25 IAP but his actual claims appear to have been 1 individual + 4 shared kills (of which one shared seems possible according to Finnish sources). Some conversion of shared kills into individual kills + adding some extra claims happened with Aleksander Bulayev (7 IAP) - in one book (Maslov: I-15, I-16 and I-153 Aces) he was credited with nine air victories from the Winter War but his actual claims were 3 individual + 3 shared (one of his individual claims may be possible/verified by Finnish sources).

There was also difference between the claim ratio / verified enemy loss between different Soviet units. For example 25 IAP was credited with 45 air victories in Winter War of which only 4 seem possible/verified in the light of Finnish records. Another unit 49 IAP claimed 16 of which as many as 9 seem possible/verified by Finnish sources. The confirmation of air victories may have depended a lot of unit commanders and circumstances in which the unit fought.

Probably one should study Soviet claims just at unit level. Perhaps some units were more precise/more strict than others and the claims of pilots of those units more precise/more possible in the light of enemy records. There may be also periods when certain unit has claimed more precisely than during others (different commander, different combat situation).

But how about Johnie Johnson and Gabby Gabreski? Is it actually easier to check their individual claims than those of Soviet top aces?

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

According to Christopher Shores in Fighters Over the Desert, HJM was accurate in his claims until the last month or so. Yes, 12 out of 17 claims is a good ratio. Shores implied that after his 17 claim day on September 1, Marseille believed everything he fired at went down.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Gentlemen,

The USAAF fighter pilots over Europe sometimes counted their kills even without firing a single shot. An unusual story about Chuck Yeager scoring five kills in one mission by shooting down two Bf-109s and causing the other three to collide with each other! A tall tale if you ask me!

Sincerely,

Edward L. Hsiao

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Edward:

The Chuck Yeager mission you refer to appears to be discussed in Don Caldwell's JG 26 War Diary. Caldwell states that, on 12 October 1944, Yeager claimed three Bf 109s shot down, plus two whose pilots bailed out when Yeager got on their tails. You might want to look at Caldwell's account.

Cheers

Don W

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

One thing that has bothered me is the difference of air victories credited to top French ace Pierre Clostermann - in some sources he is credited with 33 air victories while some argue that he had only 15 confirmed air victories. Is the difference caused by the difference between total claims 33 figure including "shared" ones, probables and 15 are those of confirmed individual air victories credited by RAF?

When it comes to the French, I would be interested to know if the claims of Normandie-Niemen group are considered more "confirmed" or have been verified more precisely than the claims by regular Soviet IAP units?

Although there are some well-founded prejudices toward Soviet records, I´m not sure if they actually overclaimed much more than others (Luftwaffe, RAF, US) if one would have enough material to study very carefully the records of all sides and make a comparison between them. The reputation of Soviet records may have suffered from the ill-fated Winter War campaign when they claimed more enemy planes than the enemy actually had!

Perhaps it was not that much exaggerated during the whole WW2. As the whole combat stats of Luftwaffe vs. Soviet air forces is too much research work and too difficult, I wonder if there has been any case studies about individual Soviet fighter units and their claims compared to known Luftwaffe losses?

Maybe it was after all some Soviet ace who shot more Luftwaffe planes than any other Allied pilot? To my knowledge they did flew a lot like their Luftwaffe counterparts if they survived and there were not such rotations like in the Western Allied air forces. I´m not sure of Aleksandr Pokryshin´s record but the fact that he survived alive from the combat carnage against Luftwaffe´s air dominance during 1941-1942 tells something about him.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Closterman, in fact well known for a long time 33 incl probables, damaged and ground kills.

Soviet claims accuracy, depended how one defines "much more", time frame (RAF claims in later part of 1941 and early part of 1942 were badly inflated but then RAF began to tighten up its claim procedures), operational area (USAAF fighter claims seemed to be more accurate in ETO than in MTO or in SWPacific.

In theory Eastern Front claims are more easy to check because there formations were usually much smaller.

In fact several British aces flew more operational sorties/sotalentoja than any of the Finnish aces or Kozhedub.

Juha

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Continnue. After three tries to continue the above message produced only loss of text, I'll try to continue with a new message.

See e.g. http://juhansotahistoriasivut.weebly...nal-tours.html from appr. after the first 1/3 onwards.

Juha

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Hello Juha,

A case can be made that Soviet claims should be much less acurrate than those of the RAF and USAAF. First of all, gun cameras were very rare in the VVS, even at the end of the war. Second, many Soviet claims were made during large combined-arms operations, where the situation was even more confused than during the Battle of Britain and high overclaiming therefore very likely. Another important factor is the geographical extent of the battlefields, more similar to the Pacific than to Western Europe, which made verification difficult.

The formations may have been smaller on the Eastern Front, but very few of them are as well documented as the ones which flew in the Arctic, you might not quite appreciate this as the beneficiary of so much good Finnish research :)

A few Soviet aces, including Gulaev, have very high ratios of victories to missions flown, which may be a sign of overclaiming. However, I think this and much of the above discussion is not particularly significant. Whether or not some pilots overclaimed or not matters little for the course of the air war, as has often been mentioned on this forum. The more interesting and substantive discussion would focus on why certain air forces were more effective than others and what effect this had on the war as a whole. To give a specific and highly relevant example, the RAF exerted an influence on the Luftwaffe's resource distribution in 1941 which was far in excess of what any discussion of aces would suggest.

Regards,

Paul

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

I agree in that IMHO it seems that in general Soviet claims were more inflated than those of RAF and USAAF but probably not always.

IMHO the main problem is the scarcity of LW docus and also the scarcity of the VVS' 1941 docus. But otherwise VVS seems to have produced same kind of docus as the Western AFs plus a report on every loss that tried to proof that the operation was within the abilities of the participiants ie that the commander wasn't guilty of ordering his subordinates to participate a mission beyond their ability. BTW have you seen Antipov's and Utkin's Dragons on Bird Wings The Combat History of the 812th Fighter Air Regiment. IMHO very informative and in it there are copies of the main types of the VVS docus on air combats with translations (logbook, service booklet, combat report, eyewitness account, intelligence report, combat loss report, regimental ORB and an application to award a Guard rank to a division. 812 operated in the Southern end of the Eastern Front.

I totally agree, the number of individuals' kills are not very important, much more important (and easier to research) are the effectiveness of units and organizations and their effects on overall situation. One can e.g. say that the physical effect of Bader's Big Wing was in reality much smaller than the number of its claims indicates but it still had substantial psycological impact.

Juha

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

I think that the accuracy of claims is not irrelevant when trying to judge the effectiveness of air units, specially fighter units. When looking the stats of certain units, the "top scorers" make a substantial contribution - thus it has some importance. Inflated kill/loss -stats give wrong picture of airwar and can lead to wrong conclusions. The more inflated the air victory stats is the more false picture it gives about the efficiency of certain air units, certain tactics and certain strategy.

The RAF failed to achieve enough positive results in 1941-1942 with Circus operations and the actual kill/loss -stats were highly unfavourable for RAF - big numerical superiority did not bring the hoped air dominance over Western Europe. Effectively just two Luftwaffe regiments (JG 26 and JG 2) tied down much bigger enemy forces and managed to inflict them bigger losses than suffered themselves.

How much did the inflated RAF kill/loss -stats with these operations effect in the continuing somewhat dubious strategy and committing too many Spitfires in rather futile operations is very interesting question. Many Spitfires would have found better service outside of Britain much earlier like sending them to defend Malta and stregthening DAF in North Africa by late 1941/early 1942.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

IMHO it didn't much matter if the kills were made by Smith or Jones/Hans or Jürgen, what mattered was the real results achieved by the units.

That is self-evident but what matters is the claim accuracy of the unit(s) not so much of the individual(s). And in the end it is the question how much the top brass believed the claims, if they didn't believe badly inflated claims those claims didn't have much effect on tactics etc.

A bit more complicated than that, the main question was the grand strategy. Germany's central position allowed it to move units more rapidly than GB. So the main question for British was, could Germany knock out the SU out of the war or even simply stabilize the Eastern Front so that it could move most of the LW to the West maybe with some of the best Heer divs. In that case GB might well to loose the war if most of its Spits were in MTO. In war one should not lightly risk one's power base for gains in secondary sectors.

Juha

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

RAF night aces claims that are mostly accurate:
JRD Braham
John Cunningham
RP Steven

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

The problem was of course Marseille was not the only Axis pilots who made the claims that day. other than him:
6/JG 27 Oblt Rudolf Sinner 2 P-40s
Stab II/JG 27 Gustav Rodel: 1 P-40
I/JG 27 Hans Remmer: 1 P-40
7/JG 27 Fw Walter Fink: 1 Spitfire
1/JG 27 Obfw Gunther Steinhausen 1 Hurricance
2/JG 27 Lt Hans-Anold Stahlschmidt 2 Hurricance
2/JG 27 Karl von Lieres und Wilkau 1 Hurricance

Italians also claimed 5 P-40s and 3 spitfires

Off Topic, but Relevant
 

I've been reading John B. Lundstrom's, The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign : Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942 which is superlative. (I read it cover to cover, and then immediately began reading it again.)

Lundstrom studied Japanese after-action reports for every day of the campaign (including Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz) and compared Japanese aerial combat victory claims against actual American losses. He also studied American after-action reports for every day of the campaign (including Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz) and compared American aerial combat victory claims against actual Japanese losses.

BUY THIS BOOK.

It's absolutely shocking--the documented Japanese over-claiming in particular--to the point that the constant, daily, every single mission 5x and even 10x over-claiming had (in my opinion) a significant effect on the outcome of the entire Solomons campaign.

Bronc

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Yes but some 10 other Allied SE fighters were damaged of which several crash-landed and so IMHO it would be understandable if those crash-landed were claimed as kills.

Juha

Re: Off Topic, but Relevant
 

Yes, Lundstrom's books are excellent, I bought my copy of The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign a decade or two ago because his earlier The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway was so good.

Juha

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

No, that was not true, RAF lost 12 aircrafts shot down or crash landing as a result of enemy fighters or fail to return from mission, causes unknown, these includes at least 2 Hurricances lost in reconnaissance missions that could hardly be the Marseille's "Kills", apart from that RAF also lost 1 fighter shot down by flak and another fighter shot down by "friendly" fire

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Hello GuerraCivil,

It has been well established in books such as Lundstrom’s that numbers of claims are in fact the least reliable of all the statistics produced by fighter units. The only way to analyse what you term the ‘efficiency’ of air forces or individual units is to look at the documents of their opponents and check statistics of aircraft and aircrew losses, the number of missions completed successfully and so on. This is best done at the strategic level, rather than for single units, because the success of a single unit did not necessarily have much significance for the war as a whole.

Conflating the raw numbers of losses with operational success is misleading. The RAF tied down and inflicted significant attrition on the two best Luftwaffe Jagdgeschwader at a time when the Geremans needed as manmy fighters as possible in the other theatres.

The main reason for the cross-Channel operations was the perceived need to maintain pressure on the Germans and appease Stalin’s ever more vicious demands for a second front, numbers of claims played very little role in the strategic decisions made. You are correct on the subject of greater utility of Spitfires elsewhere, the problem in the Mediterranean and Malaya was that the British over-estimated the fighting power of their land forces and partly the Royal Navy too. As a result, the RAF had to carry a very high burden in these theatres.

Regards,

Paul

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Hello Juha,

The German advantage of interior lines was not as significant as it may appear. They did not have a significant merchant marine, even on internal seas like the Baltic, so they had to rely almost exclusively on railways for the transfer of large forces. The British were guilty of over-insurance for most of the war, after the shock of 1940. By mid-1941 they could easily have spared a dozen Spitfire squadrons for the Mediterranean without adversely affecting the strategic balance in the West, even if Soviet Union had collapsed by the end of the year. It would have been exceptionally difficult for the Germans to attempt an invasion in 1942, even with somewhat greater resources than in 1940.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Off Topic, but Relevant
 

Hello Bronc,

As you can see from Lundstrom’s book, claims are an unreliable statistic :) As for the effect of this on the campaign, I am less certain. The Japanese lost air superiority because they did not have enough trained aircrew and good aircraft to decisively win the carrier battles. They might have been able to hang on for an extended period even without a carrier victory, had they been able to knock out US aviation on Guadalcanal. However, that would have required very close cooperation between surface ships and the land-based air forces, which was almost impossible because of the low quality and quantity of Japanese radios. The US victory in the Pacific was over-determined after Midway, the problems encountered during the Guadalcanal campaign can be exaggerated.

Regards,

Paul

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

From A History of the Mediterranean Air War I quickly counted 18 shot down, crash-landed, belly-landed, ditched. And then there was a casualty to flak.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Juha, that would include RAF loss as far as Alexandria, which ought not be counted, there were no more than 12 RAF losses over the battlefield that could be counted as "shot down by enemy fighters". I just am just be a little lazy and do not want to hand written entire list,

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

HelloPaul
yes, but their air units were fairly mobile, if you look how they were tossed from one sector to other. On the other hand GB could get their Spits back from MTO only by the sea, straight from Suez and then around the Cape of Good Hope or flown via Takoradi Road to Takoradi and shipped from there. And that would surely have taken significantly longer than a transfer five Geschwadern of fighters and 6 of bombers from East in spring of 1942. LW also had qualitive edge in fighter equipment at that time and Hurricane was clearly obsolent against 109F. I agree that it would have been possible to send some Spit sqns, maybe 6 -7, to MTO.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

No need, I thrust your word, if I had time, I would read the 1 Sept 42 part from the book myself but I have relied on my recollection of a decade old thread on the subject. And only took a quick look on the table in the book before my last message. So I have been too lazy.

Juha

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Not big strategical significance for the WW2 but just curious "female interest" of mine: has there been any serious studies to verify the air victory claims of Lydia Lytviak and Yekaterina Budanova?

The wiki has something about Lytviak & Budanova and states that they indeed made it an "ace" but that is just wiki.

To my knowledge the two top Allied female pilots when it came to shoot down German planes (and also the only known female aces in the history of airwar).

Were there any other female pilots with confirmed/verified air victories than the two above?

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

!! If you get off-list replies to this, will you please post them? You have raised important and interesting questions.

Bronc

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Hello Juha,

You are right to an extent, that the long naval route consumed a large amount of time. The key issue is that the RAF could afford to send 200 or more Spitfires to the Mediterranean in 1941 and never return any of them home, because of the superior production rates of British aviation industry. The British exaggerated the German threat by grossly over-estimating German production and effective strength, which had a very negative effect on the British war effort. By combining data on production, strength and losses of the RAF and Luftwaffe, it is possible to see that by 1941 'the game was up' for the Germans, unless they could rapidly defeat the USSR and rapidly exploit its industrial resources. This was possible, but Hitler and his henchmen did not see the nature of the problem with sufficient clarity. On the other hand, Churchill was very concerned about British political endurance and felt forced to tolerate the over-insurance endemic in so many Allied operations during the war.

Regards,

Paul