Flak/AA - Why do we not research it ?

[edwest]

I'm sure everyone's seen photos of the larger flak guns with kill ring markings on the barrel. I've seen at least a few photos of a flak unit burning their documents at the end of the war. Now why would a flak unit do that? I've also seen a few photos of naval ships, type unknown, that would have painted silhouettes of Allied aircraft shot down and a date on a wall.

It seems to me that a check of B-17 Flying Fortress Story by Freeman could isolate shoot downs due to flak but pairing them with a particular unit would prove problematic. In Nachtjaeger, Volume 1, by Williams, a Nightfighter pilot gives an account of a flak unit claiming the shooting down of a British plane by his aircraft over his protest, and even though the crew saw no flak bursts in the vacinity and a bullet was removed from the posterior of the only survivor. To what command or authority did flak units report their shoot downs?


Ed