P-38 losses, southern Greece 15/17 November,1943

[Leo Etgen]

Hi guys

Many thanks to Dan for the information regarding the P-38 twin-engined fighter unit that participated on the raid of 17 November 1943. It is my understanding that the B-25 twin-engined bombers on that mission were from the 321st BG and 340th BG, USAAF. Losses were one bomber to either Flak or fighters and another damaged to a considerable extent by either Flak or fighters. Nokose, I too believe that on occasion the cause of loss was recorded incorrectly for various reasons. For example, I have read that when Grislawski meet one of the surviving crew of the B-17 four-engined bomber that he claimed on 24 January 1944, the American was certain that he had been shot down by Flak and not fighters and in another instance that the pilot of the F-5 reconnaissance aircraft shot down by Buchner on 26 November 1944 initially believed that he too had been shot down by Flak. I recall that when I was researching a German fighter ace I came across information by a European researcher that this fellow was responsible for the downing of a certain B-17 four-engined bomber and not Flak as was the officially recorded cause. This researcher was interested in this particular bomber since it crashed near his home town and had been studying all he could find about it and had come to the conclusion that it was the Luftwaffe ace (I can not remember who it was, Höckner or Wickop or some other fellow) that was responsible for its loss. I am not stating that his conclusion was 100% correct but it does demonstrate that loss entries may have some errors and this can be said for all sides involved. However, I also feel that one must go with the officially recorded cause in all instances unless there is compelling evidence that shows this was not the case. Otherwise, one can easily be led astray by the biases that we all have and thus lose credibility as a researcher. Juha, many thanks for the point regarding the claim accuracy of JG 5. Most of the information that I have regarding this matter involves 1943 and 1944 so it was welcome to read your information. What little I have seen of the claim accuracy or lack thereof regarding JG 5 in 1942 is primarily focused on Müller. However, since there appears to be some differences between the victory claim lists compiled by the various authors such as Mombeek and Prein and some of the research on the Russian side appears to be somewhat biased more towards ridiculing the claims made it has been somewhat difficult to obtain a clear image of what was really going on on the Northern Front at that time. I also agree that because a fighter pilot was known to have been optimistic in his claims does not mean that he was a bad leader. Bader, Boyington and Lang are all now generally accepted to have been quite optimistic in their claims yet were inspiring and effective leaders of men in combat.

Horrido!

Leo