Sources of Information

[Stig Jarlevik]

Drew

With regard to your cousins claims, they are all listed by John Foreman in his first book about the victory claims of Fighter Command.

Regarding his death you can see it listed in John Foremans book Battle of Britain, the forgotten months.

One discrepancy is that Foreman list the Bf 109 claim on Aug 18th as a probable!

I also note that Young made his claims with three different units

All the best
Stig

[Peter Cornwell]

‘Smart comment’ Drew ? Not at all, I simply quoted a widely-known axiom that I still recommend to you.

Of course, any published history can only ever be the author’s honest interpretation of events based on the evidence available to them at the time – what else ? And if you thought to find your cousin’s claims listed against appropriate German losses in BoBT&N, or any other book on the subject for that matter, then you were bound to be disappointed I’m afraid.

That being said, it is a far cry from acknowledging the vagaries of interpretation to reach the remarkable conclusion that a history is incomplete simply because it fails to include specific answers to your every question, which is how you opened this thread.

However, to answer the question you originally posed, apart from BoBT&N, only Frank Mason’s ‘Battle Over Britain’ contains details of individual German losses at a level of detail you require. Failing that, you need to consult the original Luftwaffe Quartermaster General Returns microfilms held at the Imperial War Museum in London.

But your difficulty lies with the claims, not with the losses.

[alcluith]

Peter

Thanks for these two possibles I will investigate and may need to go to London anyway on other matters.

I never thought I would find a list of losses against Charlie's claims anywhere as I have never been able to get or expected to get, a list of his claims.
The main point of my exercise was to see if I could substantiate his claims, given all the information now available on line.
As you rightly stated all the records would appear to be held in London or the surrounding area which makes it very difficult and expensive for anyone not living near London to undertake research, even harder if you are not in the UK.

I would also like to state for the record that I am not trying to undermine all the good work done by others in there various books and publications.
As previously stated I never expected that any one publication would have all the answers. but like his claims I expected to gather information from a variety of sources thus my original question.
From my years of research experience I have found most online Forums give guidance similar to your last reply which I am sure I will find most helpful, as I do John and Stig replies.

Drew Davidson