Siegfried Zick

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

Firstly Jochen Prien's earlier works are without microfilm help, and a lot of guesswork is involved. His latest volume are not so inflicted, and are almost perfect.

I checked the claim involved, and actually there is no mistake on my behalf(mikrofilms are of goodith quality for this day) it is Zick claiming on the 20th. As per my earlier reply could be the mikrofilms are two days late. The anerk nr is 6, the nr.5 was recorded for this staffel on 15th July, and the nr.7 on the 30th July.

One other option occurs to me, that is the wounded date is incorrect, and I would guess he was wounded on the 20th July after making his last claim. I have the mikrofilms losses for the Luftwaffe minus year 1944, anyway that is not my expertise. The best losses TOCH member in my opinion is Matti.

We might as well discuss Zick's total. I say "20", history states "31". JG1 & JG11's earlier typed-out pre daily entries mikrofilms do not exist, or have not yet come to light, however I have recorded the periods from the start to the finish of the daily mikrofilms entries...…

2./JG 1 Starts August 1942 ends 5th December 1944
9./JG 11 starts 15th May 1943 ends 23rd December 1944
7./JG 11 Starts 28th July 1943 ends 19th December 1944
8./JG 11 starts 25th July 1943 ends 23rd December 1944

Possibly, and that's a big possibly there is a window that there could be some earlier claims not on the mikrofilms, and thus i'm lacking. But, I believe the different between the totals stems from his "viermot experten" status where very often a "viermot" is counted as two i.e eleven confirmed "viermots", eleven added to his total.

As John Foreman always say "something printed is case in stone" i.e it's believed as fact, therefore this "fact" gets duplicated.....even if incorrect.

To solve the total question, a Zick flugbuch is probably the ultimate answer to it. Obviously this pilot attained his DKiG for his destruction of U.S heavy bombers.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Leo Etgen]

Hi guys

Many thanks to all who answered for your thoughts on this issue. I would like to thank Johannes for checking the microfilm in question and confirming that it does indeed list his (apparently) final claim on 20 July 1944. It could be that the entry is in error or perhaps the entry for his wounding is what's at fault? It is a shame that there really isn't all that much for the alleged 18 July 1944 incident as it seems that the usual NVM report doesn't appear to exist. I've noticed that there are several such "missing" reports for a couple of important JG 11 aces; Major Anton Hackl on 15 April 1944 and Hauptmann Rolf Hermichen on 12 May 1944, for example. Regarding whether he claimed 20 or 31 victories, I've noticed that, overall, if the claim doesn't appear in the microfilms it more often than not isn't an "official" claim. Of course, there are numerous examples of missing individual claims and large gaps in the existing records as can be expected that sometimes can be verified through other documents but that's what I've usually noticed. Perhaps these 11 non-microfilm claims were unconfirmed claims?

Horrido!

Leo