[Johannes]

Hi Guys

Mathews here from the Mathews/Foreman partnership. John has always been struck how much "false information" there is around, in his opinion once something is published it's "fact", but sometimes it's incorrect. We decided to use only information with evidence, primarily the mikrofilms, but also abschussmeldung, flugbucher, KBT papers, Leistungsbucher, staffel abschussbord, abschusseliste, anyway the mikrofilms are very accurate, but not perfect, also some are difficult to read, in my opinion Herr Bock's is almost perfect, very, very few incorrect readings of the name(in my opinion. In the case of Prien's earlier publications he worked with mikrofilms the gave only a staffels claim dates and times and a anerk reference number(nothing else) Prien tried to marry these up with known claimants, and educated guesswork, his later publications used Bock's extremely accurate daily mikrofilms, however the January 1944 mikrofilms are missing(except for the A.S.M claims) With Gunther Rall all his claims are on the mikrofilms with I think by memory one exception, and there was an earlier microfilm type with date/time only that matches, however an unconfirmed claim would appear on abschussliste/flugbucher, but never on the mikrofilms, Prien adds these in, but we added them in only as unconfirmed! Some pilots like Rall listed only confirmed claims, others all claims on their abschussliste. Rall is a good example as on 29th August 1943 he got number 199-200, which the mikrofilms show, but there duplicate these claims exactly a month later on 29th September 1943, a time when Rall was on leave, also in the west there are many examples of claims duplicated exactly a year later...….so the mikrofilms do have pitfalls.

So in short even documented material can be read differently, or should I say interpreted in a different way.
With Werner Schroer some of his earlier claims do not appear on the mikrofilms, they appear on his units abschussbord, but are noted as unconfirmed...…..consistency I hope you agree.
Back to Amon. Since publication I have identified the claim for 22nd August 1943, a B-26 45km SW of the Island of Capri at 1213 hrs. The question of that of 29th January 1944 is a bit more difficult, as stated only the A.S.M daily mikrofilms lists survive, the months true list is missing/destroyed, but the date/time mikrofilms do exist, they give two claims for this date with times of 1420 and 1421, Gunther Seeger is "Known" to have claimed the second, the other is attributed to Alfred Kleinert, therefore for Amon's claim to have been confirmed then one of the Kleinert/Seeger claims is wrongly attributed to them. I suspect that Prien's attributed claim for Amon is incorrect, if it's shown in a flugbuch it's probably unconfirmed, there is also the possibility that Amon was with 3./JGr.Sud at this time, he joined this unit in early 1944.

So in my opinion, what are on the mikro films are:-

18th April 1943 Spitfire 5km SW Cap Bone 1908 hrs A.S.M Nr.1
16th August 1943 B-24 25km West of del Colle 1305 hrs 5300 metres Nr.2
19th August 1943 B-17 20km South of Monte Cassino 1235 hrs 6000 metres nr.3
22nd August 1943 B-26 45km SW Capri 1213 hrs Nr.4
30th August 1943 P-38 25km SW Ischia Island 1220 hrs 1 metre Nr.5
2nd September 1943 P-38 30km SW Ischia Island 1338 hrs 800 metres Nr.6
25th May 1944 B-17 50km SE Nice 1415 hrs 1500 metres Nr.7
24th August 1944 B-17 1118 hrs 7000 metres Nr.8
11th September 1944 B-24 Kassel area 1147 hrs 7000 metres Nr.9

Note that previously listed for 28th December 1943 was false information, should read Alfred Kleinert.

Kind Regards

Johannes