The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?

[John Beaman]

Since Maj. George E. Preddy was a native of Greensboro, NC, I attempted to verify his claims for two big missions where he claimed multiple victories.

On July 18, 1944 he claimed 4 Ju-88s. None were there, but multiple Me-410s losses were. I think he mistook the 410 for Ju-88s. Probably from ZG 76. Look at views of both types from 6 o'clock and you can see how they look similar. Remember, in combat you have 1-5 seconds to ID, not hours as we latter day historians have, to determine what type it is.

His most famous mission on Aug 6, 1944 he was credited with 6 Bf 109s. That day JG 53 lost 4 destroyed and several damaged with extensive percentages. Close enough in my estimation, especially if the 109s were under repair for awhile.

[pdame141]

Based on my (admittedly narrow) look at some of the records from my Great Uncle's 9th AF unit, gun camera film was often submitted to Victory Boards in support of claims. I have read, however, that 9th AF Victory Boards were notoriously stingy about confirming claims, perhaps because footage showing extensive damage didn't also show the final fate of the E/A.

If the issue, however, is whether that footage survives for researchers to verify today, I don't know whether the original films or copies were archived after the war. I know my Great Uncle brought home extensive reels of combat film, but they were lost in a post-war flood. Other members of his unit retained their combat film as well, because clips (both ground attack and air-to-air) appear on the 368th Fighter Group website (www.368thfightergroup.com).

[Nokose]

Example for the 06 Mar 1943 in Beisswenger's last battle.
Lt. Adil' Guseynovich Kuliev 653 IAP Bf 109 (1) Teremovo
S-t. Gavriil Gavrilovich Gus'kov 875 IAP Bf 109 (7) Teremovo
Lt. Vasiliy Vasil'evich Skoruk 875 IAP Bf 109 (4) Bor
S-t. Andrey Ivanovich Popov 875 IAP Bf 109 (2) Bor

None of these four pilots brought down Beisswenger and Uffz. Munderloh that day but had damaged Beisswenger's fighter before he was killed.

[GuerraCivil]

With Soviet claims I wonder how much confusion has been created with shared/group air victory system? For example Piotr Kozachenko is credited sometimes with 4 individual air victories from the Soviet-Finnish Winter War 1939-1940 when flying in 25 IAP but his actual claims appear to have been 1 individual + 4 shared kills (of which one shared seems possible according to Finnish sources). Some conversion of shared kills into individual kills + adding some extra claims happened with Aleksander Bulayev (7 IAP) - in one book (Maslov: I-15, I-16 and I-153 Aces) he was credited with nine air victories from the Winter War but his actual claims were 3 individual + 3 shared (one of his individual claims may be possible/verified by Finnish sources).

There was also difference between the claim ratio / verified enemy loss between different Soviet units. For example 25 IAP was credited with 45 air victories in Winter War of which only 4 seem possible/verified in the light of Finnish records. Another unit 49 IAP claimed 16 of which as many as 9 seem possible/verified by Finnish sources. The confirmation of air victories may have depended a lot of unit commanders and circumstances in which the unit fought.

Probably one should study Soviet claims just at unit level. Perhaps some units were more precise/more strict than others and the claims of pilots of those units more precise/more possible in the light of enemy records. There may be also periods when certain unit has claimed more precisely than during others (different commander, different combat situation).

But how about Johnie Johnson and Gabby Gabreski? Is it actually easier to check their individual claims than those of Soviet top aces?

[GuerraCivil]

One thing that has bothered me is the difference of air victories credited to top French ace Pierre Clostermann - in some sources he is credited with 33 air victories while some argue that he had only 15 confirmed air victories. Is the difference caused by the difference between total claims 33 figure including "shared" ones, probables and 15 are those of confirmed individual air victories credited by RAF?

When it comes to the French, I would be interested to know if the claims of Normandie-Niemen group are considered more "confirmed" or have been verified more precisely than the claims by regular Soviet IAP units?

Although there are some well-founded prejudices toward Soviet records, I´m not sure if they actually overclaimed much more than others (Luftwaffe, RAF, US) if one would have enough material to study very carefully the records of all sides and make a comparison between them. The reputation of Soviet records may have suffered from the ill-fated Winter War campaign when they claimed more enemy planes than the enemy actually had!

Perhaps it was not that much exaggerated during the whole WW2. As the whole combat stats of Luftwaffe vs. Soviet air forces is too much research work and too difficult, I wonder if there has been any case studies about individual Soviet fighter units and their claims compared to known Luftwaffe losses?

Maybe it was after all some Soviet ace who shot more Luftwaffe planes than any other Allied pilot? To my knowledge they did flew a lot like their Luftwaffe counterparts if they survived and there were not such rotations like in the Western Allied air forces. I´m not sure of Aleksandr Pokryshin´s record but the fact that he survived alive from the combat carnage against Luftwaffe´s air dominance during 1941-1942 tells something about him.

[Juha]

Closterman, in fact well known for a long time 33 incl probables, damaged and ground kills.

Soviet claims accuracy, depended how one defines "much more", time frame (RAF claims in later part of 1941 and early part of 1942 were badly inflated but then RAF began to tighten up its claim procedures), operational area (USAAF fighter claims seemed to be more accurate in ETO than in MTO or in SWPacific.

In theory Eastern Front claims are more easy to check because there formations were usually much smaller.

In fact several British aces flew more operational sorties/sotalentoja than any of the Finnish aces or Kozhedub.

Juha

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Juha

Soviet claims accuracy, depended how one defines "much more", time frame (RAF claims in later part of 1941 and early part of 1942 were badly inflated but then RAF began to tighten up its claim procedures), operational area (USAAF fighter claims seemed to be more accurate in ETO than in MTO or in SWPacific.

In theory Eastern Front claims are more easy to check because there formations were usually much smaller.

In fact several British aces flew more operational sorties/sotalentoja than any of the Finnish aces or Kozhedub.

Juha

Hello Juha,

A case can be made that Soviet claims should be much less acurrate than those of the RAF and USAAF. First of all, gun cameras were very rare in the VVS, even at the end of the war. Second, many Soviet claims were made during large combined-arms operations, where the situation was even more confused than during the Battle of Britain and high overclaiming therefore very likely. Another important factor is the geographical extent of the battlefields, more similar to the Pacific than to Western Europe, which made verification difficult.

The formations may have been smaller on the Eastern Front, but very few of them are as well documented as the ones which flew in the Arctic, you might not quite appreciate this as the beneficiary of so much good Finnish research

A few Soviet aces, including Gulaev, have very high ratios of victories to missions flown, which may be a sign of overclaiming. However, I think this and much of the above discussion is not particularly significant. Whether or not some pilots overclaimed or not matters little for the course of the air war, as has often been mentioned on this forum. The more interesting and substantive discussion would focus on why certain air forces were more effective than others and what effect this had on the war as a whole. To give a specific and highly relevant example, the RAF exerted an influence on the Luftwaffe's resource distribution in 1941 which was far in excess of what any discussion of aces would suggest.

Regards,

Paul

[Juha]

Originally Posted by Paul Thompson

Hello Juha,

A case can be made that Soviet claims should be much less acurrate than those of the RAF and USAAF. First of all, gun cameras were very rare in the VVS, even at the end of the war. Second, many Soviet claims were made during large combined-arms operations, where the situation was even more confused than during the Battle of Britain and high overclaiming therefore very likely. Another important factor is the geographical extent of the battlefields, more similar to the Pacific than to Western Europe, which made verification difficult.

I agree in that IMHO it seems that in general Soviet claims were more inflated than those of RAF and USAAF but probably not always.

Originally Posted by Paul Thompson

The formations may have been smaller on the Eastern Front, but very few of them are as well documented as the ones which flew in the Arctic, you might not quite appreciate this as the beneficiary of so much good Finnish research

IMHO the main problem is the scarcity of LW docus and also the scarcity of the VVS' 1941 docus. But otherwise VVS seems to have produced same kind of docus as the Western AFs plus a report on every loss that tried to proof that the operation was within the abilities of the participiants ie that the commander wasn't guilty of ordering his subordinates to participate a mission beyond their ability. BTW have you seen Antipov's and Utkin's Dragons on Bird Wings The Combat History of the 812th Fighter Air Regiment. IMHO very informative and in it there are copies of the main types of the VVS docus on air combats with translations (logbook, service booklet, combat report, eyewitness account, intelligence report, combat loss report, regimental ORB and an application to award a Guard rank to a division. 812 operated in the Southern end of the Eastern Front.

Originally Posted by Paul Thompson

However, I think this and much of the above discussion is not particularly significant. Whether or not some pilots overclaimed or not matters little for the course of the air war, as has often been mentioned on this forum. The more interesting and substantive discussion would focus on why certain air forces were more effective than others and what effect this had on the war as a whole. To give a specific and highly relevant example, the RAF exerted an influence on the Luftwaffe's resource distribution in 1941 which was far in excess of what any discussion of aces would suggest.

Regards,

Paul

I totally agree, the number of individuals' kills are not very important, much more important (and easier to research) are the effectiveness of units and organizations and their effects on overall situation. One can e.g. say that the physical effect of Bader's Big Wing was in reality much smaller than the number of its claims indicates but it still had substantial psycological impact.

Juha

[Juha]

Continnue. After three tries to continue the above message produced only loss of text, I'll try to continue with a new message.

See e.g. http://juhansotahistoriasivut.weebly...nal-tours.html from appr. after the first 1/3 onwards.

Juha

[GuerraCivil]

I think that the accuracy of claims is not irrelevant when trying to judge the effectiveness of air units, specially fighter units. When looking the stats of certain units, the "top scorers" make a substantial contribution - thus it has some importance. Inflated kill/loss -stats give wrong picture of airwar and can lead to wrong conclusions. The more inflated the air victory stats is the more false picture it gives about the efficiency of certain air units, certain tactics and certain strategy.

The RAF failed to achieve enough positive results in 1941-1942 with Circus operations and the actual kill/loss -stats were highly unfavourable for RAF - big numerical superiority did not bring the hoped air dominance over Western Europe. Effectively just two Luftwaffe regiments (JG 26 and JG 2) tied down much bigger enemy forces and managed to inflict them bigger losses than suffered themselves.

How much did the inflated RAF kill/loss -stats with these operations effect in the continuing somewhat dubious strategy and committing too many Spitfires in rather futile operations is very interesting question. Many Spitfires would have found better service outside of Britain much earlier like sending them to defend Malta and stregthening DAF in North Africa by late 1941/early 1942.