[Johannes]

Hi Michel

The grid references you gave are less than 30km apart, so not so far, a few minutes apart I think we could say. Kalb had only twenty-six confirmed claims, the last being on 15th September 1942 at 0638 hrs, naturally it could be that he did shoot down an aircraft in his last combat, but it wasn't confirmed because nobody completed the paperwork for him. Graf makes two claims on this date an Severskiy at 0735 hrs(5km East of Stalingrad), and a P-40 at 0739 hrs(30km NE of Grebenka/Gorodischtsche).

TOCH investigations into Graf are not complimentary, perhaps he miss-identified Kalb's claim, which he claimed himself ? !!!!! I did look into Graf's claims myself, based on claim patterns and not trying to connect to Russian losses to see if there was a possibility of "you scratch my back e.t.c) and Kalb was foremost in these, doesn't mean they did, perhaps they were just good, anyway after Kalb's death Hermann Wolf takes over that job, and prior to Kalb I would say Leopold Steinbatz, perhaps also Heinrich Füllgrabe and Friedrich Brückmann. What ever the truth it would appear that Kalb was from 13th August 1942 Graf's premier wingmann, but as Graf's claims were easily confirmed for 16th September they could not have been alone, in fact at a guess I would say that Hermann Wolf was with them ! But let's not forget these two claims seem legitimate, perhaps Graf actually got both...….that would be the most likely scenario !

Kind Regards

Johannes