[Stig Jarlevik]

Hi Robert

Just a couple of points.

Log books are only as accurate as the writer makes them. I know from personal experience from my "pilot days" how easy it is to make a note on some scrap paper because your log book is somewhere where you can't find it at the time. When you DO find it you can't locate your scrap paper and you enter from memory. Many pilots I am sure were perfect while others were sloppy, so just to state something is taken from a log book is NOT Gospel! Neither do you tell us whose log book you are quoting from. That detail could be useful. You don't state the 260 Sq pilots name. Any particular reason?

Checking for instance Fighters over the Desert, there is not mentioned any combat at all by 260Sq on Nov 3rd in 1942. However on Nov 4th we find almost exactly the combat you mention, where 12 Kittyhawks from 260Sq while escorting bombers met 4 Me 109, one of which F/O Gilboe collided with. Both aeroplanes crashed. Since there were no corresponding losses from the German side, the authors believe this was 4 Macchi MC 202 from 18 Gruppo that scrambled early that morning after some Boston bombers and Curtiss fighters. Tenente Bordoni Bisleri claimed one Curtiss shot down which in turn had just shot down his comrade Cap Pinna. The Italian records obviously does not mention any collission, but remember that air combat is a very fast activity and pilots are under severe stress so you have a tendency of tunnel vision, which makes it hard to observe every small detail of a combat. Aeroplane recognition was bad, or better said what you could expect. You mostly had one chance to ID your oponent. If you elected to take a second look you had a great chance of ending up dead. So most pilots tended to identify his foe with the most dangerous aeroplane in the sky at a given time.
The British rarely stated they had met Italians, since the German were considered more deadly, so everything fighter was a Me 109.
In spite of happening in such a "small" area, the Desert war is a tough one to co-relate, much was happening more or less at the same time, early mornings and late evenings when the temperature was most favourable. Action was at low altitude which made long range vision hard, so combats could take place quite near to each other without the different combatants seing each other.

Finally this is of course not Gospel either, since my source by now is quite old, although I have not seen anything really replacing it.

I suppose most of all Robert we need you to fill in the blanks and add ALL you got.

Cheers
Stig Jarlevik
Gothenburg Sweden