7 Feb 10 -Overclaimers v Reliable Claimers List

[Don Caldwell]

Rob –

This will be my last post on this topic, as it’s obvious that we will never be able to understand or sympathize with each other’s positions. I’m glad to read that you are no longer updating your list and that the thread now serves primarily as a place for Nokose to post his studies of specific battles. I’m perfectly OK with that. I’m not a flamer, but continue to find your views naïve, and certainly understand if you find my attempts to educate you arrogant. I’ll try to answer your last post briefly, but cannot avoid repetition:

1. Claims verification procedures did not exist for the benefit of hobbyists. Inconistencies were inevitable – there was a war to fight. Arguments that the procedures “should have been” uniform around the world and “should have been” applied uniformly in all cases are, how else can I say it, naïve. You have refused to accept the “heat of battle” arguments of others, but these are valid.

2. Returning to the Preddy case, I now understand that you’re saying he should be “credited” with five victories in the battle in question based on post-war data. “Credit” implies some form of official recognition, which is not going to happen. Claim-loss comparisons in specifc battles is possible, as we well know, but very difficult. The government has no role in this. Hobbyists can keep whatever lists they want – as you say, it’s an “interesting” topic. Just don’t confuse this with “historically significant”.

3. Air superiority helped determine who won the war (it did not “win” it), but claims themselves had no role in winning air superiority – as I’ve said elsewhere, they’re only opinions, and are not “real.” Their morale function was genuine, but not determining. Overclaiming did help lead to poor decisions on strategy in a few cases – I mentioned the Jagdwaffe’s inflated claims in the BOB, which you seem to have misunderstood – and irritatated national high commands in other cases. The RLM and later OKL could never get the bomber claims of the RLV force in 1943-44 under control, but this did not affect the way they conducted (and lost) the campaign. Specific overclaiming units seem to have been tolerated by the Luftwaffe, as illlustrated by my JG 2-JG 26 comparison, which you also seem to have misunderstood. Repeating: JG 2’s confirmed claims always exceeded those of JG 26, but Luftflotte 3 had to have known these were inflated, given the relative opportunities of the two units, and continued to give JG 26 the prme position in the battle line. Göring’s speech on Galland’s departure from JG 26 called JG 26 his “allerbesten” (very best) unit. This could have been mere hyperbole, but if the high command disagreed, JG 26 would have been guarding Normandy and Brittany in 1942, against little opposition, and JG 2 would have been based on the direct path to the Ruhr (instead of vice versa.)

In conclusion, a list of histrically verifiable victories is a commendable goal. Just be careful – very careful – about ascribing less-than-honorable motivations to those pilots whose claims don’t make your cut.


-- Don