A Galland mystery – Historical question to experts including J. Prien: Galland’s two victories won on 3 June 1940

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by rof120

The "tone of my posting* is not objectionable in any way.

As a moderator here, I think it is.

Writing that you are younger than Galland is not an insult, only a fact.

And a complete irrelevance in a thread that you chose to title as a "historical question to experts". If you ask a "historical question" you can hardly be unaware that historians need not have lived through the events they describe to contribute the elucidation of those events. Does my being six months older than Jochen Prien, and born slightly nearer the war make me a better historian of that conflict? Clearly it does not, any more than my being born that much nearer to the Battle of Cannae would, were we concerned with the Punic Wars. Should not a historian be judged on the quality of his or her work?

What does your date of birth matter? It does matter a huge lot since you can know these events only from reading various texts

And, as must surely be obvious, it is through documentation that one can bring together information from multiple sources that could not have been combined in time of war. What is more, contemporary documentation relies less on fallible memory than do memoirs written years after the events in question. The evaluation of multiple sources is a cornerstone of good historical scholarship, is it not?

Very often official documents contain some wrong informations and details, and that this has various causes

Just as personal memoirs are seldom wholly accurate in detail or dispassionate in tone. They are compiled—wholly or partially—from memories and impressions, many are written to glorify the author and/or to exonerate him/her from blame. Again, an important aspect of historical and scientific enquiry is the identification of potential sources of bias.

JP: There is not a trace of two claims made on 3 June 1940.
- Which proves… what?

That documentary support for certain aspects of Galland's postwar memoirs is lacking. That, in terms of historical enquiry, is a matter of some importance.

"The First and the Last" sold over 3 million copies in the whole world, most copies in German or in English.

So "sales = reliability"? Would you say, for example, that "The First and the Last" offers an accurate, objective and proportionate account of JV 44?

… certainly was able to remember accurately what he did on this day and during this sortie.

Let us use your own criterion. As far as I know you were not there flying alongside (or against) Galland, so what does your "certainty" rely on?

You don't know but "my approach" IS ALWAYS distanced and unbiased.

I confess that this was not apparent to me from your post.

They simply hate it to be confronted with strong logical arguments not intuition, fantasy and the like.

Again, your gratitude that Herr Prien confined his response to "strong logical arguments" does not exactly shine through in your post.

… Galland … obviously you HATE him.

This inference cannot in my view be justified in the basis of anything in the post to which you are responding. It is quite possible to argue the merits of a particular victory claim with courtesy and without making imputations as to the character of another party and I would ask that you please do so in future.