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Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
The renowned Finnish airwar historian Hannu Valtonen seems to suggest that only about 1:15 or 1:16 of Soviet claims during WW2 could be verified by enemy loss records! However he points out that there were differencies between units - the VVS KF (Northen Fleet Aviation) being more accurate than 7th Air Army at the northern flank of Soviet Western Front - for example Boris Safonovīs possible overclaim ratio being only the "average WW2 standard" of about 3:1.
I guess that the "best" Soviet units (in terms of claim accuracy) reached a level of claim accuracy comparable to those of other air forces. For example the 49 IAP was fairly accurate in Winter War and probably the most succesfull Soviet fighter unit in that war although other units were credited with more "kills". When it comes to overclaiming, Soviets were at least not much worse/overoptimistic than Japanese.
It would be interesting to know more about the "real heroes" who did not get rewarded for their exploits because they were "too accurate" with claiming and did let others (more optimistic claimers) to take the laurels of more glory with less justification. HGabor suggests quite convincingly that of German top aces Helmut Lipfert was much more precise with his combat reports than Hartmann and may actually have shot down more planes down.
The actual top Allied ace of WW2 against Luftwaffe has probably been someone else than Ivan Kodzehub who will remain as the top man against Luftwaffe in official records. I guess that there are other Soviet candidates who may have a score comparable to those of Jonhnie Johson, Gabby Gabreski or George Beurling.
With George Beurling Iīm quite skeptical with his score but this stems partly from his book which I did not like much. I did find "Malta Spitfire" as a piece of propaganda and even as such not that well written. I have read better pilot memoirs than that one. Probably Beurling was much better as a fighter pilot as he was as a writer. Maybe if he had lived longer, he could also have written a better account or improved edition of his book with the help of some skillfull editor (focusing more in other things than Allied propaganda needs which must have been focus in original 1943 edition!).
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