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Re: KG51 losses on 23 August 1942.
Andreas
It is not making politics, just a warning that every such documents by definition are prone to errors, and whenever possible, should be cross-checked. This is understandably quite hard, as there are no daily flying and servicing logs for German units nor even Form 541 equivalent.
I have seen excerpts of some periods of GQ6 lists, and generally they do not impress me too much. I have several Polish AF documents, partially doubled by RAF ones, and assuming that the bureaucracy is similar (especially as there were several ex-German/Kaiser army people in Poland), I see several fields for possible gaps.
I do not know if your database allows that, but it would be interesting to compare eg. numbers of losses combined with personnel, total losses without any injuries, and damages for units operating in the same general area. Eg. it was my impression that there were substantial differencies between reports of various Luftwaffe units during the BoB. There are some cases, where it seems reports were send in batches and misfiled under wrong dates (so well known for all Form 78 fans).
You say that the one must be extremely careful with observations of Allied servicemen. Indeed, but they should not be dismissed as a whole. One case that comes to my mind is on 3 May 1942. During Circus 154-4 Northolt Wing clashed with II/JG26. In ensuing combat two parachutes were seen, one of them was no doubt the solitary loss of the Wing, thus the other one must have been German, but it is not reflected on any losses known to me. There are some more similar cases. By the way, it is noticeable, that during the Spring of 1942, there are not too many loss returns of German airmen bailing out.
Oh, and the one must be careful with ground reports too. I have a ROC message stating that two Me 109s crashed in 1940, while actually they were not!
In regard of my friend, apart of his account, I have a relevant page from his log book. I need to dig it out from my archive, not to provide wrong data. I have a Wast excerpt provided by him, and he is not listed among the losses, despite his wounds that postponed his service for few months.
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