Flugbuch Fw. Emil Handt, BF I./NJG3 late 1944-1945 -genuine or false?

[Theo Boiten]

Dear all,

One of my German contacts bought a copy of the Flugbuch of a Fw. Emil Handt, Bordfunker in I./NJG3 in late 1944-1945, in an eBay auction. The copy appears to have genuine pencil marks, like the linkage of the Feldpostnummer to NJG3. The Flugbuch has a remarkable number of ops flights, Abschüsse/Feindberührungen and Luftkämpfe in late 44 and 45 with different and well-known pilots in 1. and 3./NJG3, like Schröder, Koch, Jank, Husemann, Schadowski, Götze. A cross-check with the FB/LB of a number of these latter pilots brought to light that none of the ops flights/Abschüsse etc listed in the Emil Handt FB are documented in the latter FBer etc. I therefore have a suspicion that the Emil Handt Flugbuch may be a falsification...

I would welcome any comments if the Emil Handt FB is actualy genuine, or false.

Cheers, Theo

[Johannes]

Hi Theo

I have seen an ammended flugbuch, in itself it is genuine, but somebody had added in post-war many claims that were fake. Also have seen a fake abschüßlist for a pilot(103 claims) of the Schlacht units, these are sporadically represented on the mikrofilms, but not one match with those known(I even tried to match it to another pilot August Lambert), so faking documents does seem to be a business. Have also seen genuine unused flugbuch for sale, so with one of these it is possible to make a fake flugbuch.

I take it there is nothing to compare the handwriting with then?

Kind Regards

Johannes

[RodM]

Hi Theo,

by my estimation, all entries in the Flugbuch after 5 September 1944 are false, likely all added post-war.

This is easily verifiable when compared to the genuine Flugbuchs for pilots Eduard Schröder, Hans Shadowski, and Hubert Koch.

Handt flew with Schröder on 5/09/44, as verified by Schröder's FB. Schröder was meticulous in recording the names of the crew he flew with. According to Schröder's FB, Handt made no flights with him after 5/09/44. According to Handt's FB, he made seven more flights with Schröder, but only one of those supposed flights was even on the same day that Schröder happened to fly.

It's a similar story with Schadowski. Handt's FB shows three flights with Schadowski in 1945, none of which are on days that Schadowski's FB records flights...

Handt's one recorded flight with Hubert Koch on 28/09/44 is also fabricated.

[Theo Boiten]

Thanks Johannes and Rod for your comments -all clear, alas another falsification...

Cheers, Theo

[John Manrho]

Altered Flugbücher are unfortunately a fact were we as historians need to deal with. I have seen several. Things that I have seen;

1) Altering details to fancy the Flugbuch......adding a flight with a Me 262 as it is 100% confirmed he flew a Fw 190 on that specific day

2) Also common is adding flights at the end, especially when their last Flugbuch was lost. Sometimes done as good as possible from memory, but sometimes also blatantly exaggerated with far too many Feindflüge, combats and victories....

This was all done by the original owners...

I did not encounter a complete fabricated or falsified Flugbuch yet, but that could be attractive to some people to make a financial gain....I assume this was not done by the "owner" themselves

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

Let us not forget abschüßeliste the historian Hans Ring often added claims on at the end so as to know "HIS" information was used i.e twenty-eight added to Woidich's.

Perhaps the Leistungsbuch of Walter Dahl is fake also.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Nick Beale]

Another apparent fake is the Flugbuch of Stabsfw. Walter Arnold covering his Ar 234 flights with Kommando Sommer in Italy, which I spent a lot of time trying to corroborate: http://www.ghostbombers.com/recon/23...er/arnold.html

Someone had gone to an awful lot of trouble compiling it but it didn't add up.

[Theo Boiten]

Thanks for your additional comments chaps. I can add that, during my research of the Nachtjagd over the past 40 odd years, I have never come across a completely fabricated/falsified Flugbuch and/or Leistungsbuch, but sometimes details/flights/comments were added post-war, which are not necessarily always true. So always check and recheck is and remains the credo.

And yes, Johannes' remark about the Hans Ring/Emil Nonnenmacher Abschussliste and falsifications of many Abschussmeldungen to 'protect' their own primary research is true. During the research of the NCA series, it took me (and Rod) a lot of effort to straighten out the false entries from these listings, after the publication of the Nachtjagd War Diaries in which these falsifications had seeped in. This is alas also the case in the Foreman/Matthews/Parry NJ claims book, which contain many falsified entries from the Ring/Nonnenmacher listings.

Cheers, Theo

[John Manrho]

So theo, what do you think of the FB of Fw. Emil Handt...was it created by himself or is this something fabricated by somebody else?

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

I am the Mathews from Foreman/Mathews. John Foreman visited Hans Ring at his home. Said he was very obliging, would just throw abschüßeliste and Leistungsbücher at him. I questioned John about Nonnenmacher, John informed me that Nonnenmacher was a civilian, I attributed the fact I could find only one claim on the mikrofilms to that, but as you say, could be his abschüßlist was doctored, not sure by whom though.

With Woidich it seems Ring added twenty-eight onto his abschüßlist, but these twenty-eight stand-out. Woidich was an honest claimer, never claiming many in a day, then suddenly it's large numbers and of types he didn't usually get. I told Bernd Barbas they must have been unconfirmed(perhaps because JG 52 was constantly moving at the time) but no they are just false. But here again we have always accepted a total of 110 for him. John always says that once something is printed "It's fact", then plagiarised time and again to it's hard to established where the mistake comes from. Bernd had planned to meet Woidich, but Woidich was ill and cancelled, and died before they could make another date, Woidich didn't attend the JG 52 memorials and died possibly not knowing he was a "110" ace. His personal abschüßlist has just the eight-two.

John gave me a huge listing of 1945 claims(presumably from Ring) which is a time period not covered by the mikrofilms, I suspect most of the fake data in the night-fighter book comes from this, or very early claims as many of the Staffeln typed-out mikrofilms are missing.

I still occasional identify a name from the mikrofilms that I previously hadn't, not many left now. Strangely though some NJG pilot I have yet to identify are of rank that means they should be at least Staffelkapitän !

Kind Regards

Johannes