Me 410 top ace

[Stig Jarlevik]

All

Jan Horn (in Das Flurschaden-Geschwader) confirms the Trenke/Ottrin connection on both dates in question. Strangely he is the only one, beside Jim, making this connection.

The victories are listed by Boiten/Mackenzie in their book, but no connection made. In their defence I don't believe they made any study of the intruder's business end, but simply list their claims for completeness sake.

Neither does Matthews/Foreman list the two 'Ottren' victories under Trenke.

The 'odd-man-out' so to speak is the daylight claim made by Uffz 'Treicke' with 16./KG 2. I have no KG 2 sources and all I can say is that the individual is listed in Tony Wood's 1943 claims list. Treicke is not an impossible name to have in Germany I guess, so I am not able to verify (or deny) any connection made by Jim.

The interesting thing, to me, is actually the recording procedure here. Without knowing, I would have thought the crew filed their claims together and that also gunners, radar-operators etc received some kind of credit. In the cases here it seems we have two claims made by Ottrin without naming his pilot. First of all it indicates he used the aircraft defensive armament to score which must have been rather unusual. Secondly it also indicates he did not mention his pilot's name when filing his claim.
Was that normal procedure?

Cheers
Stig