Nokose:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nokose
I took a look through Christer Bergstroem's book "Bagration to Berlin" and saw these claims that he wrote down. 18Sep43 812 IAP lost 3 Yak-1 of which Hartmann claimed 2, Friedrich Obleser 1 and Johannes Bunzek 1. Who's to say that Obleser or Bunzek's Yak-1 didn't go down. 29Sep43 Hartmann possibly ended the life of Mayor Vladimir Semenishin in a Airacobra of the 104 GIAP (15 victory & 11 shared ace). He lists that Hartmann on the 20Aug43 was possibly shot down by the rear gunner of Lt. P. Yevdokimov's Il-2 of the 232 ShAP. That was the day he was captured by the Russians and escaped.
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Well, Khazanov credited to Hartmann two other Soviet aces - Sytov and Lazaryev. Regarding Hartmann being shot down by the rear gunner, I think he is mixing up two different incidents:
5.11.1942: The day when Hartmann claimed his first victim (an Il-2), and asserts that he had to belly land because of debris coming from his prey damaged his aircraft, what in fact happened that it was struck by the machinegun fire from the rear gunner of a 7 GShAP's Il-2. His Bf.109G-2 resulted with a 30% damage.
20.08.1942: Lt. Pavel Yevdokimov (232 ShAP, 7 ShAK) shot down Hartmann's Bf.109G-6 W.Nr. 20485, but using his Il-2 Shturmovik like a fighter - IT WAS NOT the rear gunner.
There were a lot of cases when aggressive Il-2 pilots struck back and shot down the Bf.109s or Fw.190s which were jumping them. If you want I can list them there, and many experten fell that way.
One thing more that I would like to point out, is the fact that only 15 out of Hartmann's 352 claims were Il-2s. Taking into account these two cases when he was shot down by Il-2 (one falling by the rear gunner, and the second by an aggressively flown Shturmovik) one understand why: he learnt to respect the Ilyushins, and became reluctant to attack them, evidently doing so only if absolutely necessary.
Kind regards,
Diego