[Franek Grabowski]

Franek - do you have to be so aggressive? Allowing for English being 2nd languages of many correspondents (or 3rd or 4th...) it is amazing to me how successful the site is!

Tony
It is a continuation of a dsicussion that occured in Polish aviation journal. I am aggressive becaus the opponent is a concrete head and cannot understand obvious things like basic level math.
I would leave him alone, but I am afraid that his views could be considered a serious research, which is not true.

[quote]I have no much time and will post the following comment only:
Franek, you have used about 40 footnotes (about 20 of them from books published after the war) answering to my article about Polish dog fights III/4 against Luftwaffe, but quantity does not mean quality.

Those books were for example memoirs of the pilots and it is still more footnotes than you provide in any your work.

You are doubting about the 8 - 9 German aircraft destroyed by III/4, but you could not bring the evidence that they destroyed more. So for what did you wrote so much text?

I have provided evidence that your 'view' of III/4 activities is completely distorted.

About the German sources you can find many informations in my books...

No, I cannot. There are no footnotes and it is not clear what is in documents and what is your invention.

I asked you to tell us what there is so decisive concerning the German aircraft losses and you did not respond. Right?

There is plenty but you deny it.

That is not true. There is no missing sentence. 1939 in the original combat record Skalski stated that the second enemy aircraft flew away in formation what means Skalski could not bring it down. In 1941 this aircraft susprisingly crashed on the ground. We have here two different statements. German documents confirm the report written 1939.

No, it is clear problem with your head. Skalski in his report is reffering to ANOTHER formation but it seems it is too hard for you to understand that.
The report goes more less as follows:
In the Chełmża West-Unisław area I saw about eleven (11) bombing aircraft “DO17” being unable to warn section ldr I separated and attacked from the front and above firing few bursts from the distance of 200-50m, the e/a went down, I turned back after him firing few more bursts. The aircraft shuffled down and thumped on the ground. Next I took height again and attacked a second one from astern firing long burst I kept on tail until fire burst from the port wing, I followed him to 300m, [here is the missing sentence] next I started to gain height, to attack again but e/a in a vic of 5 flew in Bydgoszcz direction at a great speed. I gave up the chase and flew towards the front line in Łasin direction. Having met nothing over Łasin I flew to Grudziądz-Toruń. Behind Grudziądz I met a single Do17 and started to chase it, e/a started to gain height to 7000m and dropped into clouds, I gave up the chase and returned to the airfield alone. I note that own h.m.g. positions fired at me.

I said Skalski colorized his report written 1941.

And this should end up in a court.

Yes, in my article I did not wrote about two battles, because in both (between 12:30 and 14:30 ?) participated III./StG 2 and III/4. But in my answer to you I did.

Based on what documents?

Nevertheless the German losses will remain the same: 1 Ju 87 totally destroyed and some more damaged. So what do you want? Should we speak about a battle (at appr. 12:30) where participated 3 PZL only?

I just want to prove the German documents are not so reliable.

Pniak saw his victims crash on 2.9. and 4.9. as well. German documents shaw evidently that these planes in fact did not crash.

Anybody else on this forum can read Polish? If so, I will post relevant scan of the 4.09 report just to prove Mr. Emmerling has no slightest idea what is he writing about.

Yes the KTB of ZG 1 probably did not survive, but the German documentation was made on many stages (surfaces?).

The word you are looking for is level. The question remains, which level is most reliable.

Concerning the total losses there is no lack of documentation despite of what many Polish historians wrote and now Franek is trying to tell us. As I wrote earlier I found the fate of almost all German planes lost 60-100% in September 1939. This means appr.290-295 of 303 (only the fate of some 10 Hs 126/He 46 remains a problem by now, but I am working on it).

And here we come to the key of the problem. Most of those aircraft are not identified by their WNr, so we cannot verify their ultimate fate, like with Hammes' aircraft. Also, all the damaged aircraft below 60% are not listed, and this leaves a large gap. Mr. Emmerling claims that Polish pilots colourised while claiming the German aircraft but he uses only total losses lists. A Polish pilot who shot down a German aircraft that force landed in field and then was overrun by German troops, recovered and repaired, will be accused by Mr. Emmerling of lie.

Sorry, but I do not understand. It is clear that we are discussing about something based on German and Polish documents. So what are you writing about?

I mean that for example Victor Moelders expressed better opinion about Polish pilots rather than you.

No Franek, that is not true. Skalski later colorized, that is all. As I remember Polish pilots reported on 2.9. about 7 claims at all, all against I./ZG 1.

You remember - I know. That is the difference.

In September 1939 there existed no confirmation system comparable to German (RLM) or others.

I am not awared of any such crazy bureaucratic system as created by RLM, which consumed time and money only to be as unreliable as the other ones.

Polish claims were first "investigated" and confirmed by the Bajan Commission 1945. It is ridicule when you are stating plk. Stachon did confirm the claims (in September 1939) made by Skalski. So may I ask you how he did? Saw he the German wrecks or what exactly was going on?

The problem is again you write about matters you have NO SLIGHTEST IDEA!!! There are several documents confirming that the pilots were credited with kills already in 1939. Bajan Commission was established to verify those claims but especially to convert them into RAF criteria adopted by the PAF. Concerning Stachoń's confirmation, I have a photocopy of the document and it is not my problem that you cannot believe it does exist.

Even if General Eisenhower would confirm this claims, it would change nothing.

How about Ramses XIII?

Why this? Do you mean other combat reports between 1939 and 1945 were not written in "haste"? What kind of argumentation is this?

No, they were usually not and quite often were not written by the pilots.

Certainly. I always thought - when arguments would go to be rare, patriotic or even ridicule - that in the future somebody would write Emmerling is not understanding Polish language. Superb!

No, claim that you do not understand Polish is a very serious one. Problems with math are also apparent.

For example?Page number?

For example?

By the way, where did I wrote about Polish pilots as cowards and murderers? I repeatedly ask for that, because you are making false propaganda here on the forum. I can answer to this by myself: I did nowhere.

Really? How about those Polish pilots not willing to engage the German aircraft?

The only one who did was Benno Wundshammer in his book "Flieger-Ritter-Helden" written in the war time. But he described the fight between Polish Pursuit Brigade and II./KG 26 on 6.9.1939. Even origin German documents confirm that Polish pilots shot at the parachuted air crews. The German investigation was stopped because no one of German air crews was sure to have seen that.

So was it confirmed or not?

But a Polish historians told me before some time that after the battle kpt. Kowalczyk (commanding IV/1) was very angry and disappointed about what his pilots did.

Who? Apparently either he was not clear or you had misunderstood him. After the repeated German attacks on bailing out airmen, on 4.09 Brygada Pościgowa's command issued an order not to attack Germans in the revenge. It happenned during the battle over Koło two days later, that one of the pilots hit a German airman with his wing. It is not clear if it was intentional or not but I would say such an intentional attack could have been quite risky. Anyway, Kowalczyk reputedly did a speech but only evidence of it was an account of a man who was a young boy (12 or 14 I think) present on the airfield at the time and as such must be taken with a grain of salt.

Nevertheless in my book Kampfflieger I commented the text (footnote), read it

I am afraid it will be waste of time.

I don`t know what Skalski did later in the war. We are discussing here about the beginning of it, first combats and losses... Skalski`s kills in Poland can be verified and I have done it. I`m very sorry that there is no confirmation for his several kills.

Skalski claimed four individual and one shared kill, with an another shared being rejected. Another aircraft was claimed shared damaged by him. Of those kills you cannot confirm one aircraft destroyed on 2.09 and one damaged on 4.09. His kills during the BoB seems to be fully confirmed by the German losses, problems starting after the Battle, due to serious losses of the German documents.

But on the other side you can see what it means to be an ace. One pilot reported about 5 kills, but the aircraft remained slightly damaged. The other reported about 5 kills and the aircraft in fact crashed on the ground. An American pilot destroyed 5 aircraft on the ground. Are they all aces?

If they were credited with those victories, then yes.

For example there was a Polish pilot in the Pursuit Brigade. His name is Januszewicz (he commanded in Poland the 111 eskadra). He made 3 kills and all 3 are confirmed by German documentation. On the other hand Gnys of 121 eskadra. He claimed 2 Do 17 on 1.9.1939. But in the war diary of KG 77 you will read that the airplanes collided due to anti-aircraft fire.

The fact that a pilot claimed kills and they were confirmed by erroneus report of ground troops does not make him a liar, does it?

As I heard from the Polish historians there is a document in London describing the loss of both aircraft by a Polish anti-aircraft unit. But this is another story....

You have heard or seen the document?

Therefore they are very reliable. Haste or something other has nothing to do with it.

Apparently you have not worked on RAF or USAAF combat reports, have you?

The quality of your photo may be poor. I have one where you can see the wet ground (more darkened earth) under the wing and fuselage. I think due to water or something like that.

Quality is excellent, much better than in your books. No slightest trace of fire.

This is much too less. You must have some trace of an aircraft wreck or the name of a wounded or downed pilot or something else. Just a simple claim in Polish documents is not enough.

Why? If a Polish pilot claims that a German airman baled out, I see no reason not to believe him. I have a document from RAF FC confirming a kill based on fact that there was a parachute seen on the guncam film, but the German action report states there were no losses. Sorry, I would rather trust camera evidence than your documents.

By the way, German documents as for example of Fliegerdivision 1 are reporting about the lost Bf 110 and a further slightly wounded Bordfunker. Do you mean German documents would report about something less important as slightly wounded aircrew and nothing more about other missing aircraft or even wounded or killed pilots?

Can you assure me the German documents are complete? Sorry, you cannot. I have seen plenty of multi level documents and I know their marigin of error.

You are on the wrong way.

I do not think so.

Perhaps they looked "untouched", but we know they were shot down and the damage was considerable even if not to see on the photos. I am sure they were treated as total losses.

Please provide a document stating that the aircraft was written off! I am not interested in your beliefs.

Do it yourself. Take my book Jagdflieger and try to find it. You can not exclude that it was an aircraft of 12 mentioned above.

I cannot but reference in your book does not provide an answer.