Top Jet Aces

[sirbob]

Originally Posted by Franek Grabowski

Csaba, there is always a difference between a claim, a credited victory and a what had actually happenned. The latter in most cases is a mystery known only to God. .............When we compare scores ........... we discuss what was officially credited to them. It is beyond our possibility to get through their results and to answer with any certainity, what they have had actually hit.

There are two points that I would like to make here.
Firstly I agree 100% with the above quotation. I am not a flyer but I have fired a rifle a few times and I can assure everyone that after a fight involving more than two people nobody knows for sure what happened. You shoot at someone and he goes down and you move on, but when the battle is over and you go back there is nothing, or perhaps evidence he was hit but got away for now at least, and if there is a body at least one other person will also claim to have shot him. I imagine it would be similar in a dogfight : unless there are only two planes in the sky and one crashes and burns any story about who did what is very suspect.

Which brings me to my second point. I have no idea how many "kills" I made. Nor do I care. Each time that I was able to stretch the ache out of my joints in the chill of a morning was a victory; over 300 of them a year which gives me a good "score" if they are to be counted.
Put yourself in the shoes of a Luftwaffe fighter pilot in 1944, taking off every day to face an armada of B-17's and swarms of P47's and P51's. If he can stop a bomber reaching a city it must be rewarding, but he would be well aware that the industrial might of America will send even more again tomorow, and the next day, and the next.............. Such a man, putting his life on the line every day for his country, should be highly regarded whatever "score" a proppaganda machine awards him.
The only score that matters when you are fighting a war is the final score of " us 1 - them 0 ". All else is vanity.