[Broncazonk]

For those who don't have it, I highly recommend, "The War Diary of Hauptmann Helmut Lipfert ~ JG 52 on the Russian Front 1943-1945."

The book is amazing, an honest and accurate account, from an honest claimer with 203 aerial victories.

One thing has always stayed with me after reading the book: the "dead pool" his squadron maintained. Lipfert describes a betting pool and funeral party fund that all the pilots contributed to. The pool was sanctioned and well known to the squadron's leadership and they participated in it. The pilots in the squadron were betting on each other's death in combat. AND the ground crews would line up every morning and take bets as to who would crash and burn and die on takeoff. (This was in Crimea.)

This behavior, I think, was absolutely unheard of in Allied units, betting on each other's death in a dead pool, and it paints a stark contrast between the cohesive, team effort of Allied fighter units and the survival of the fittest attitude of the Jagdwaffe. (At least in the East.)

If Galland knew of this caustic practice, and if it was wide-spread, then Galland bears responsibility for this culture. It had to have had enormous, though difficult to quantify, ramifications

Bronc