[Adriano Baumgartner]

Ed and Larry,

Thank you for your answers and quite impressive threads.

I thought that maybe somewhere, we would have an estimated number of claims...it seems this is not the case....But, as discussed, this is surely an open field yet to be discovered, in terms of Historical researches.

The final or total number may be very very high indeed, when one read books about the Normany Campaign (2nd TAF, Typhoon and P-47 units, for instance), Market Garden, etc...if you include the Whermacht Flak units and Kriegsmarine Flak units, this may rise quite considerably too. We also do find individual and local references to Flak claims on War Diaries (written by former pilots and airmen) and, of course, the ORB of Squadrons.

The Germans being so sistematics with statistics, it is a pitty that no document with this information seems to have survived the war. From what I read on the threads you posted, one will have to dig out, individually per Flak Gruppe or major unit, each claim and maybe summarize everything later. A huge task indeed for a Historian or a couple of Historians.

I thought that maybe a final number had arisen from post-war interview of captured High rank Officers (Generals) or from ULTRA.

I do remember an interesting case of one of those interviews, related to me directly via Herr Martin Drewes in 1996, about being interviewed by a RAF Officer fluent in German language, saying that HIS claims and that of the Nachtjagdwaffe were fake claims...Major Martin Drewes than said to him to check how many 4-engined bombers were missing on the inventory of the Royal Air Force....which cost him 4 years interned as a POW in Britain....So maybe a similar "interview" of POW or ULTRA material, perhaps have the clue or answer to a total estimate of the Flak Claims (I hope so and hope this number will arise some day for the benefit of the Aviation Community).

THAK YOU again for kind answer and help.

Adriano

A BIG thank you anyway....for giving me a true North.