[Johannes]

Hi Thomas

Thankyou for purchasing our boos.

Sorry, but this is not a differing opinion, but I'll explain why we published a total of exactly a hundred confirmed claims for Clausen.

Basically the mikrofilms for each of Clausen's units have survived in the earlier neatly typed-out form, this is in chronological order for each Staffel, these started to change to hand-written daily claims on the two fronts starting around 23rd July 1942...….often with diabolical hand-writing. Different unit started using the daily claims at differing dates, and these unit continued using these daily claims until the end of 1944, the first Geschwader to cease being on these daily claims sheets was JG 5.

So there are no units that I know of for Clausen who's earlier typed-out claims mikrofilms have not survived. In fact there is no break in his claiming until he finishes with 6./JG 77 in September 1942.

Don't know where the "132" total comes from, could be that he had an extraordinary number of unconfirmed, or some confusion with the points system, or he was somehow scoring heavily with a unit not covered by the typed-out mikrofilms. Also I found more Il-2's than Ernst Obermaier's estimates. Ernst also states Clausen's six on 22nd July 1942 were numbers 96-101 I think 66-71 which would suggest thirty are missing prior to that date, same with the five on 9th March 1942 Ernst states 36-40, I think 18-22. This would suggest that the thirty would be during late 1941 until early 1942, but the Luftwaffe was as a whole scoring very, very lightly during this Winter period due to the extreme weather.

Am sure your find many other similar cases, these are usually in the West because of the points system. I do remember that Walter Schuck added twenty-five to his total because Hermann Goring had told him that that number of previously unconfirmed claims for him had just been confirmed. Some pilots included unconfirmed in their totals, others only those confirmed. Only real way to resolve any doubt is the discovery of an obscure units typed-out microfilm with Clausen claiming, or a flugbuch of him covering this period.

I will explain any others you come across.

Kind Regards

Johannes Mathews