Rall's claims

[Nokose]

I was searching Tony Wood's claims in the west for Guenther Rall and saw that a P-38 on the 29Apr44 was victory #274. Didn't he shoot down Lt Col. Preston Piper's P-47 and Lt Willard Johnson's P-47 from the 56FG on the 12May44 or only one of them?

[Leo Etgen]

Hello Nokose

I remember that in one of his online articles Christer Bergström stated that the P-38 fighter in question belonged to the 364th FG. From this it would appear that Rall only got one P-47 fighter of the 56th FG on 12 May 1944 yet in one interview I read he claimed he shot down two fighters in that particular engagement. Rather odd and another minor mystery that would be nice to clear up.

Horrido!

Leo

[alessandro bray]

Hallo,

in an old book on the life of H.Zemke, he (his own formation of 4 P-47 was attacked by Rall) sustained that Rall downed 2
P-47, so for him the total for Rall is 276....later the two former enemies become friends

Alessandro

[Nokose]

Leo & Alessandro,
Yes, I remember reading Zemke's story and an interview that Rall gave on the incident. I looked on Luftwaffe.cz and it doesn't have a complete list of his victories but does list 271 as being in the east and 4 in the west. So maybe the number in Tony's list is wrong but what, where ,when and who is the 4th?

[Leo Etgen]

Hi Nokose

Just in case that you might be interested, here is what I have on Rall, including his victory list as of now. I am not sure that everything is 100% correct but hopefully it may help you.

http://rapidshare.com/files/222861815/Rall.zip.html

Horrido!

Leo

[Nokose]

Leo,
Interesting! His first was a French fighter in the west. Still we have 3 USAAF fighters that are known to have been shot down which would put his score at 276 instead of 275. He must have not received credit for one of the 56FG P-47's on that last mission. I've found a few more eastern front that I'll post later.

[Rob Romero]

IIRC 11 P-47s were claimed by Rall's unit on 12 May 44, so as usual this issue is more complicated one might like.

[Nokose]

Rob,
There probably were 11 claims for P-47's shot down. I'm sure that Rall's wingman was the witness for 275 but he didn't seem to have been around keeping the two P-47's off Rall as he went after Zemke. Also the other claims didn't have members of the 56FG to verify their claim.

[Heuser]

Gentlemen,

if you compare the MACRs of the regarding P-47 losses on 12.05.1944, it looks like the three a/c of 56.FG belong to the three claims of JG 5 (Krupinski, Jahn, Lieberknecht).

According to German records, all these P-47 crashed in the area between Mannheim and Heidelberg (Grid Sqare TS), exactly (in time AND area) where JG 5 claimed three P-47 (all confirmed) and lost one 109 (Lieberknecht) to "Thunderbolts".

P-47 42-26025, 78.FG was shot down by 6./JG 1 (Oblt. Buchholz) over the Moselle (confirmed), so there's no P-47 left for Günther Rall...

IMHO and according to all known American and German sources, there's no matchable loss for Ralls two claims (and for the whole Rall - Zemke story) on this day.

Nevertheless, I can confirm the 56.FG's claims of Rall, Kutzera and Kastenhuber, because the locations and circumstances of these losses are known.

Hope this helps

Heuser

[Nokose]

I never met Zemke, Rall and the other 56FG members involved but it's kind of hard to believe that they just met and decided to make up this story to give Rall credit that day.