KG51 losses on 23 August 1942.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, Franek

I intend to write up a more lengthy answer with regards to this, but in order to get the 1944 project site ready for launch I will have to wait some days to do so.

What I do believe we should be aware of is how the system behind these records and files were made and ment to function (follow the paper trail approach...) and I feel an obligation more or less to complete my research into this matter in an article, and it will come!

As I have noted earlier - the responsibility of reporting the losses was traversed through the chain of command. Setting aside the handling of more or less autonomous units and ad-hoc units, the responsibilities for making this paper trail appear was quite straight forward, and as seen in the orders from for example the Gen.d.Lw. operating in south eastern parts of Europe, an extremely important tool in order to get the resources needed for operation! (I will quote these orders excactly in the coming article). Thus the notion brought forward by some during this discussion that what we now see as the GenQu6Abt documents were purely for statistical purposes on high levels of command is fundamentally wrong. Of note is especially the order to be even more accurate in the reporting to the GenQu with regards to formation leaders, as this influenced how the Luftflotte, Geschwader etc would have to act in order to replace these. This is not statistics, this is hands down, on the ground operative stuff.

I also acknowledge, as I have done in several of the earlier answers, that errors were made. This is natural in an organization as large as this. The company I currently work for has 151000 highly qualified persons employed world wide. Do one make errors - YES! Do dataflows brake down and introduce errors - although one use millions every year to try to amend this - YES! But we all strive to at least get the best result we can with regards to data quality. I firmly believe (oh ye have faith) that the bureaucrats of the Luftwaffe did the same thing, and this can be seen in the documents they have left behind. They were striving to get the best data quality they could, and constantly reminding the 'organisation' how this should be done.

One final note - but a fairly important one, which I have tried to relay earlier: Damage to aircraft where no personnel were injured or killed, and where the technical officer in question assessed this to below 10% was not reported at all! This is fairly important when trying to discredit the documents as a whole as a bad dataset.

Looking at this from the macro level, a dataset consisting of some 90000 records, covering damage to about that number of aircraft if not more (some single records can containg information on 100+ aircraft, while there are several records connected to some specific aircraft (damaged, repaired, damaged again)) will definitely be 'significant' for any statistical purpose.

But there will be holes, and there will be discrepancies. So my notion is - instead of using a lot of time and energy to try to discredit this data source on the fact that a few errors exist, try to add to the data, but try to fill the holes with data of better quality. As you yourself have mentioned Franek, even the RAF made errors, and they were looking directly at the remains of the aircraft in question for the specific purpose of intelligence. At this time of the war immensely important to them! But they mad a bad record nevertheless... and even Poles in the RAF can have a bad day with regards to judgement... the 315 Sq and October/November 1944 were not a very good combination...

As we have seen on this board almost countless times, the human mind is not necessarily 100% reliable after 60++ years. And what we are after as researchers is not necessarily what caught the mind of the people operating in the armed forces at the time. (German pilots operating in Bergen area in Norway generally do not have the faintest with regards to how their aircraft were camouflaged or what code this or that guy had on their aircraft, but they remember the rain and the girls very well!)

So let's get on with the real stuff, welcome to the 1944 project guys!

Regards,
Andreas B