[Johannes]

Merry Christmas to you to Dan, and thanks for the information.

According to the Norbert Hannig publication Lang did indeed plan his sorties on 3rd November 1943(Seventeen in a day) according to Hannig two war reporters had turned-up to film the days action. Now with regards to the accuracy of Hannig's recollection of the day we can judge this against Lang's claims, but Hannig stated that against his earlier statements over who was flying that day, the first sortie was flown with Peschke, the second with Gross, the third with Gross and the fourth with Hoffmann. Hannig also states that remaining pilots on the ground witnessed Lang shooting down two Jak-7's on his third sortie.

I have been looking hard at the claimers with 5./JG 54 and would say that Hannig was not involved in any of Lang's schemes(and oblivious to them?), even Gross doesn't seem obvious. Maximilian Stotz flew with this Staffel in early 1943, TOCH has discussed his overclaiming also in detail, personally I put it down to the arrival of their new Kommandeur Hans Hahn, again just a short period of spectacular claiming, then upon Hahn's loss Stotz's claims return to a level matching other staffel members, and again I can confirm that after the short period of spectacular claims by Lang and Hoffmann things return to normal once they seem not to be flying with each other anymore.

Kind Regards

Johannes