[Stig Jarlevik]

Andrei

This can be argued forever and of course you are entitled to your opinion.

With regard to the ORB, in my mind, of course it is contemporary. Even if it seems to start with a date 1.6.1941 and back track its formative period, that date and further on certainly must cover the dates we are interested in.

Gerry has already quoted that F/Lt Brown collected a Hurricane on 29 Sept which in my book excludes him from being a POW 26 Sept.
Depending on ORB the compilers/writers were 'often' a bit unreliable when quoting aircraft details, but I very much doubt they would be sloppy when it came to staff details. Spellings perhaps but not the individuals themselves.

Perhaps when I say 'often' above I am a bit careless since I have no personal checking of this. Maybe I am just 'notified' whenever there are problems so in fact the other 99% when everything is OK nobody bothers to take notes of it....

Reading MAW Vol 1 the Axis records obviously tell us about a force landing at El Hania on the 2nd. I don't know which records that are but what aircraft was that and perhaps more important who flew it? Because if that was NOT Brown we then have a problem identifying this pilot instead. We still have two losses according to Axis reports but only one known pilot made POW.

I don't know who Giovanni Massimello (Shores co-writer) is and what background (read research) he has got. Either he has missed or dismissed the Axis report regarding 26/9 but from a general point I think he has done a good job so far and he has managed to balance up the Italian AF in NA very well.

Cheers
Stig