[kennethklee]

Originally Posted by Kapper

Kenneth

I wouldn’t use the Toliver and Constable (T&C) Book as the Gospel in respect to Erich Hartmann’s claims. The T&C book that I have in my possesion was written in 1970 with a revision in 1985. A lot has happened since then, including the finding of some of the RLM claims files that have been copied onto the Net by Tony Woods.

By T&Cs own admission the first 150 claims listed were taken from Hartmann’s first logbook however the remaining 202 are sourced from III/JG52 records and personal letters. These claims mostly lack detail and 28 of those are in a date range only.

The Tony Wood’s list was translated from the RLM microfilms. Robs states he has 337 claims, I’ve actually got 324 but I believe 3 of these are either double up or incorrect, unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the original to confirm this.

Now, when comparing the Tony Wood’s list with the T&C list, you would expect that the first 150 claims to match as they were taken from the RLM listing and Hartman’s first logbook. This is not the case, they don’t! Of the 150 claims 7 differ on dates, 8 differ on time and 22 differ on type. This is without looking at location in detail. That means only 113 of the claims match. This would indicate some translation errors of handwritten documents and possible clerical error.

For the remaining 202, 171 claims are listed in the Wood’s list (RLM) with the remaining 31 claims not listed at all.

Of the 171 (Wood’s) listed claims when compared to the T&C list, we note that 14 are missing from T&Cs list (No 267 – 280 24/5/44-23/8/44), 44 differ in date and 17 differ on type. This leave 96 that generally agree but remember there is no time and few types and locations listed in the T&C List.

Of the remaining 31 not listed in Tony Wood’s list, I’ve compared these to Barbas’s “Die Geschicht der I Gruppe des Jagdgeschwader 52” and “Die Geschicht der II Gruppe des Jagdgeschwader 52”. Again 14 are missing from T&Cs list (No. 333 – 346, 6/2/45-27/2/45), and 7 differ in date so only 10 agree on date with both lists (very little data in time or location).

Thus, only 113 of the first 150 claims for both list match thus having a high reliability of being accurate claims. 96 of the remaining 171 Wood’s listed claims are even comparable but less reliable with the T&C list lacking in type, time, and location. Of the remaining 31 claims that were compared to Barbas’s work only 11 is comparable but again even less reliable with both lists lacking time and location for many of the claims.

Now this raises an interesting question? Dimitri Khazanov’s wrote an article in respect to Hartmann only gaining 80 victories. I do not have a copy of the article but I have read Jean-Yves Lorant response and it appears that Khazanov’s research is based on the T&Cs list in his effort to confirm the claims. In light of the differences listed above, it’s no wonder Khazanov can only confirm about 80 of Hartmann’s 352 claims using the T&C list.

If anyone has a copy of Khazanov’s article/work I would be interested in getting a copy to determine which of Hartmann’s claims he was able to confirm for his 80 victories?

For those interested, I’ve attached my combined lists that was used in the comparison.

Regards,

Craig...

Craig-

Thanks much for your detailed and thoughtful response, as well as your revised list of Hartmann's victories, to my query about Hartmann's P-51 victories (or victory). I've realized in the past 10 years that Toliver and Constable's (T&C) writings on Luftwaffe fighter aces and their victories are inconsistent in their accuracy, exacerbated by their lack of rigorous references, and the revision on Hartmann's P-51 credited victories only underscores this. My access to the newer literature on Hartmann is limited, but thanks to you and others on this listserve, as well as the internet, I am starting to gather more recent and accurate information.

This discussion created another question for me; T&C have emphasized in their books that the Luftwaffe system of verifying victories was very rigorous and rendered accurate the credited victory totals of Luftwaffe fighter pilots. Of course, victory lists and totals of some leading Luftwaffe fighter aces, including Rudorffer and Bendert, have recently been shown to be dubious. Donald Caldwell. in his JG 26 War Diaries, has also raised questions as to the veracity of some specific victories of Luftwaffe fighter aces (I don't have the books at hand, but Emil Lang comes to mind). I suspect the victory verification system was not nearly as rigorous as T&C claimed and I am curious as to what others thought about it, especially in comparison to the verification systems of the Americans, British, Russian, and Japanese. I realize this is a very subjective question and a clear-cut answer may not be possible.

Thanks,
Kenneth