[Horst Weber]

Good evening tmoj2000 !

When researching my books about the air-war events in the Counties of Bitburg and Prüm, Germany, I had the chance do do this cross-checking.

The area is in the due west of Germany and was the built-up and breakthrough area for the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. From this are, the attack was launched in its majority and here, the high tide of air-battles took place in the early stage of the Ardennes.

The Luftwaffe had during Oct.-Dec. reequipped and repiloted 24 Jagdgruppen to full strenght and had the transferred to airfields in a considerable distance north and east of the braekthrough area.

The busiest days in the area were Dec. 17th, Dec. 19th, Dec. 23rd-27th 1944 and Jan. 14th, 1945.

The sources of the researches were Frank Dr. Olynyk's "Fighter claims" the Prien/Rodeike books of JG 1, JG 3, JG 11, JG 27, the Mombeek book of JG 4 and several written and oral statements of whitnesses.

When you cross-check the claims and the losses on both sides, you can not find a significant overclaiming, neither on the one side nor on the other side. The percentage of overclaiming in this period of campaign was not higher than 20. There was one exception on Dec. 23rd, 1944. Many Luftwaffe pilots claimed Marauders this day. It was a bad day for the Marauders and 36 were shot down by fighters. But the claiming regulations never found really out, who shot up whom.

Well, by following the researches, I'm sure no high overclaiming was confirmed on both sides.

Besr regards !

Horst Weber