[Matti Salonen]

Laurent,


Your curiosity is very valid but my answer will not be especially exact. Because my database accepts only correct date format YYYY-MM-DD I cannot use slash like in 28/29 and therefore have to choose either of those days. If start time is available (which is too seldom the case) I can calculate some estimate for possible crash time and day. If no time information is available (as usual), I choose the next day simply because max flight time ends more probably after midnight for flights at night.
That may make to my data +/- 1 day difference of actual, correct date, which everyone should take into consideration, when comparing information from several different sources. We should also remember that the Luftwaffe units in fact had similar problems when reporting losses. I have a strong feeling that depending on the unit, some have reported the aircraft missing on the day when it started and some after the max flight time had exhausted, i.e the next day. That may have a reason, why fairly many of the NVMs of missing aircraft at WASt have hand-written changes of date. Because majority of the surviving NVMs at WASt are the copies originally distributed to the GQM, these changes seem to be based on material loss info sent by the units to GQM.
I have not found any regulations related to material loss reporting, but hopefully somebody can educate me on this matter.
So, do not trust any source, whether it is mine, other real researcher’s data or even an official war-time document without comparing it with other sources.

There is also another problem, which may have at least slight effect to timing of losses: different time systems (this has been discussed on the TOCH previously to some extent). German documents are relatively easy, because the only anomaly is German summer time. But what about other countries? Did UK authorities use always GMT? HW 5 –reports have at the end a note that all times are GMT, but what about other documents? What about French and Russian documents? I must confess that I have no real knowledge on these, but would like to know much more.

Finally, Merry Xmas to you and to every TOCH member, who is reading this,

Matti