[Dénes Bernád]

In the book I wrote about the June-Oct. 1941 air campaign over the Southern sector of the Eastern Front (‘From Barbarossa to Odessa’), I tried to collect - together with my co-authors - all available information from all warring sides on a day-by-day basis. One cannot really go into any more detailed research than that.

Having all available shotdown claims (including many submitted by anti-aircraft artillery crew - a detail often overlooked by historians, who tend to focus on the actions of the fighter pilots) it came to my surprise how claims did not match losses. And by rather great margin. This was valid to both the Axis and Soviet side (however, the Soviets seem to have overclaimed more).

I decided not to get engaged in the overclaim issue - except for one notable day - as this was not the main scope of the historical research.

Quite understandably, people tend to look at the spectacular side of the otherwise rather dry historical narrative. In my opinion, this secondary issue should never cloud the focus of the authors, as it only leads to endless debates.

Personally, I would like to see more books written in a similar way, namely a day-by-day account of the events, with a general overview and conclusions at the beginning and the end of the book, so every Reader could draw his/her conclusions, including about the overclaim issue.