Manfred Eberwein 3/JG54

[ZhekaB]

Hi Johannes!
From T.Wood's list:


Karl Gratz
24.10.44 LaGG 200m 15:38 25 373
26.10.44 Il-2 m.H. Low Level 11:00 25 543
26.10.44 Il-2 m.H. Low Level 11:00 25 477

Eberwein:
16.10.1944 Il-2 m.H. 500m 12:46 13133
16.10.1944 LaGG-5 1000m 12:51 13126
17.10.1944 P-39 1200 09:19 25425
17.10.1944 Yak-9 800 09:36 25419
17.10.1944 Yak-9 800 09:37 25419
17.10.1944 P-39 2500 15:55 25455
20.10.1944 LaGG-5 800 10:35 25382
26.10.1944 Yak-3 1000 15:22 25583
28.10.1944 Yak-9 500 06:08 25566

In couple of cases time is defferent, everything other is the same, I believe

[Johannes]

Hi Thanks for that.

As this period is particularly bad on the mikrofilms, it could be that Tony woods was struggling also. The times are easier to identify as the mikrofilm per staffel with date and time only exists.
When you look at a poor quality sheet, the bottom of the page is always easier to read, but I believe this one to be sixth down from the top, and at the time I had written Karl "Benning" an Oberleutnant, the only other known Karl in the Stab./JG 52 was Karl Treiber an Oberleutnant!

Can I ask please what information he has for 20.10.1944 1130 hrs anerk.108?

Keep well

Johannes

[ZhekaB]

Hi, Johannes!
For that entry T.Wood has:
Oblt. Karl Benning Yak-3 2200 m 25 477

I have no doubt that a few mistakes were made during the recognition of the original documents. I have pointed a number of contradictions in the lists of victories compiled by T. Wood, Brabas and other researchers. Some of the data appears to be erroneous in principle. Like Hafner's morning flight on October 17th. According to T. Wood's list, it happened before dawn. And it is still nor clear have he made two or just one sortie that day.
Even in pilots who made kills there is some confusion. For example in T.Wood's list 17th october at 08:05 Walter Jahnke made kill of Yak-3. In B. Barbas's book that kill made Ofhr. Windisch.
The question is where to get scans of original documents in order to at least understand the possibility of erroneous interpretation.
By the way, if you need exl-file with T. Wood's list it is present in internet sources.

[Johannes]

Hi

Firstly many thanks for the "Benning" information. It was many years ago I started reading the mikrofilms, so my eyes have not got any better, that's for sure. Probably I recorded this as Karl "Benning" because I couldn't confirm this guy existed within this unit.
With Tony Woods he is more likely to record how it looks without knowledge of who it's likely to be i.e knowledge of who is with a particular unit. The mikrofilms also vary a great deal in quality, April 1943 and October 1944 in the East are the worst, then you have the problem with varying handwriting, some is quite appalling.
I have been friend with Bernd Barbas for many years now, and his lists are largely my work, but nothing else within his books. One other thing about the mikrofilms is that each page is twenty lines long, and if the quality is particularly poor then it's hard to know exactly which line your working, so it's easy to read the name correctly, but put it with the wrong line. With JG52 I was especially diligent, also had an untold wealth of information regarding who was with each unit, I would also have checked against the date/time only mikrofilm for each staffel. I will ask Bernd about a certain Karl Benning, if such a person existed, and flew with Stab./JG52, then we can safely say that Tony Woods is correct. With some pages all you can see are traces of shadows !!! With April 1943 in the East I had them professionally cleaned, and put on disk, but sadly I didn't do the same with the second worst October 1944 East.

Jochen Prien's lists are the most accurate I have seen, perhaps only one name in a thousand being incorrect, with the possible exception of II./JG2 in Africa, I am sure that the guy who read the mikrofilms was 100% correct, but there was a corruption in the excel sort, all the details are correct, except the most important detail......the names !

In my opinion the mikrofilms are almost entirely without mistakes......almost.
You should be able to get them from the Bundesarchiv, or at least they will put you in touch with a company called Seike who do the copying.

So for me in order of annoyance the worst things about the mikrofilms are:-

!. What's missing
2.Quality of imaging(under/over exposure)
3. Quality or handwriting
4. mistakes

Kind Regards

Johannes

[ZhekaB]

Thanks, Johannes. Very interesting information