Verifying kills
 

Greetings everyone...

I'm curious about how air kills that happened behind enemy lines were verified. If the only witness to the kill was a pilots wingman and there were no ground troops to witness the kill or wreckage, how would the kill be verified? Thank you.

Re: Verifying kills
 

In practice, claims behind German lines weren't always verified by a seach for corresponding wreckage (not in Italy, anyway) because claims were credited where no aircraft was brought down.

It appears that the pilot's own report and the statements of wingmen were often enough to have a claim recognised, whatever the theortetical requirments.

Re: Verifying kills
 

In these cases Finns tried to use captured radio messages and prisoners of war to verify the kills.

Re: Verifying kills
 

Thank you for the feed-back, appreciated.

I could be mistaken here but surely given the fact that many air engagements on the Eastern Front occurred over enemy territory and could not be verified by anyone on the ground is there a possibility that the scores of a number of Eastern Front Experten and other pilots could actually be slightly lower than the official figure [given that mistakes of over-claiming happen in the heat of combat]?

Re: Verifying kills
 

What you have just stated applies to every theatre of war. Overclaiming was rife when medium-to-large opposing forces (particularly fighters) were locked in combat.