[Johannes]

Hi Jochen

Many thanks for your comments and explanations. Yes JG77 does have gaps, firstly some of the earlier typed-out pre daily claims mikrofilms are missing, and gaps again with certain staffels during 1942/1943, and with all unit January 1944 in the West, but we have the mikrofilms for each staffel with date and time only. But the mikrofilms are always consistent.

I am just rewriting my Günther Schack abschüßelist using his Leistungsbuch, I always thought his total of 174 to be very reliable, yet it would appear he thought his total to he 167, of these I found two missing from the mikrofilms, but at a point when the anerk.nr's are missing, but these number appear later. Whats clear is that he didn't include A.S.M claims in his total, there were six of these. Seems A.S.M claims were treated differently by the RLM, but it doesn't mean they were never confirmed. As mentioned before some pilots included unconfirmed claims in there totals, others did not, some even included unconfirmed on their rudder marking, but usually marked them as different in some way. I had found two of Günther Rall's claims missing from the mikrofilms, but the mikrofilm with date and time only included claims matching the exact date and time of these two claims, also with Rall his 199-200 were duplicated exactly a month late....yes, the mikrofilms are not perfect, but as I say consistent. some of Werner Schroer's claims are marked on his units Staffeltafel as unconfirmed, and the mikrofilms are missing these, but include all those on the Staffeltafel marked as confirmed.

I should think we will never known every claim, and every mistake be it printing or research we publish ends up being duplicated until thought fact. Guess our subject will not be so interesting if we know all the facts.

Keep well

Johannes