[Chris Thomas]

I don't really want to promote a Clostermann-bashing session but have some comments to make on the foregoing.

Yes Stig you are correct in your interpretation of the losses listed in '2nd TAF'. We did not include 'cat Bs' unless they appear in the 2ndTAF daily log, and many did not. To include them would have meant a huge time-consuming effort and vastly increased the size of the loss tables - which were an issue with the publisher. And yes, you are correct in that surviving records do not allow the precise recreation of air combats. The reports at the time were the impressions of one man in a fraught and confusing environment; its hardly surprising they often do not match up.

Adriano, many thanks for your translation of the 'Le Fana' letters. The following comments do not reflect on your ability - I am not 'shooting the messenger'!

I stand by what I wrote about the events of 20 April but now we have alleged events for 21 April. Well ... according to the 3 Sqn Operations Record Book Clostermann did not fly operationally on 21 April - nor for the rest of the month; his next sortie was on 3 May 1945. By his account (The Big Show) he had been wounded in the leg by Allied AA on 20 April, so a break from operations would not be unexpected.

The 21 April was a day of poor weather and the Tempest squadrons carried out little operational work that day. Some of the squadrons did not fly at all. I have checked through all the ORBs (except 486's which I do not have to hand) and there is no report of a lost or force-landed Tempest anywhere.

As for the combat reported in the Le Fana letter - it seems to have more in common with that on 12 April when Dortenmann claimed 2 Tempests and Soffing claimed another. The RAF unit involved was 33 Sqn and they lost two Tempests and had a third badly damaged (it was eventually scrapped). One of the two downed Tempests was flown by Sgt J.Staines, who was killed (so he can hardly have been loaned to 3 Sqn on 21 April!).

The other Tempest pilot mentioned in this account, " F/L MacKenzie-Intyre" seems to be a bizarre mix of Flt Lt B.C.McKenzie who was killed on 21 April leading a 3 Sqn formation (Clostermann was not with him) and Flt Lt A.G.McIntyre who had flown with Clostermann on the 20 April sortie.

For the record Clostermann was in the UK on 12 April - at Warmwell APC where he had just joined 3 Sqn.

And, incidentally, no Tempests were ever sold to the Egyptians! In fact no Tempest Vs were sold to any foreign country.