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Originally Posted by drgondog
Nick is absolutely correct. Thanks to the forms and records Damick was able to put it all together ranging from MARC's to Class 26's to crash landed but repairable ships - I owe both him and Peter Randall significantly for getting my 355FG/1SF(Exp)/2SF records to current status.
Which leads me to a question regarding Luftwaffe records. If, say, a 109 was badly shot up and had to crash land - but was repairable - how would they have recorded it. It would be easy to count that a/c as a 'kill' from the RAF/USAAF point of view... and gun camera or witness would truly testify that it was 'downed'.
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The problem is that an Allied claim (or an Axis one) for the matter can only in a minority of cases be linked with a known enemy loss. Most claims of WWII were done in big battles and overclaiming is rising with the size of the battles.
German loss reports will list the damage suffered by the AC by a percentage. 60% or more means the AC is destroyed or beyond repair, and this is a real (aircraft) kill.
Now the problem is that for most of the period of main USAAF activity (1944), the AC loss lists of Luftwaffe are missing from the records, only the human losses are listed, so a loss is identified only if the pilot was killed, wounded or MIA, or if a searcher has found it in another sources (logbooks, diaries, local police reports and so on).
Validating kills is a difficult process. And shouldn't be the basis for "ordering" fighter pilots. For example scoring a "real kill" against a Bf 109 was easier over UK than over France because any hit on a Bf 109 engine will force it to force land shortly after. If this was over France the AC was often repaired and the pilot unhurt most of the times. Over UK both AC and pilot were lost for the Luftwaffe. The Allied pilot responsible scored the same hits.