Hartmann: claims vs. victories

[rof120]

Adolf Galland was one of them, at least from a certain date on. There is a well-known frame from one of his combat footages shot on November 1, 1940: it clearly shows the shooting down of a "Spitfire", Galland's fiftieth victim. Thanks to the tracers giving continuous (thick) straight lines on the picture you even can see the difference between the flight paths of the missiles fired by the two machine-guns mounted on the engine (close to each other) and by the right wing cannon, the distance between the two being (of course) exactly the right one. The tracers from the left cannon left a trace too but it is much less straightforward: it's undulating behind and below the "Spitfire". You can see this phenomenon on numerous pictures of this kind (the camera jumped or vibrated because of the powerful recoil of the cannon). The German press reported this event profusely and most probably reproduced one or several frames. See "Der Adler", "Signal" and also the German dailies etc.

(Galland was the CO of JG 26.)

Certainly some other German fighter pilots got a gun camera too, especially Mölders, probably Wick, and others.

[NickM]

Originally Posted by rof120

Adolf Galland was one of them, at least from a certain date on. There is a well-known frame from one of his combat footages shot on November 1, 1940: it clearly shows the shooting down of a "Spitfire", Galland's fiftieth victim. Thanks to the tracers giving continuous (thick) straight lines on the picture you even can see the difference between the flight paths of the missiles fired by the two machine-guns mounted on the engine (close to each other) and by the right wing cannon, the distance between the two being (of course) exactly the right one. The tracers from the left cannon left a trace too but it is much less straightforward: it's undulating behind and below the "Spitfire". You can see this phenomenon on numerous pictures of this kind (the camera jumped or vibrated because of the powerful recoil of the cannon). The German press reported this event profusely and most probably reproduced one or several frames. See "Der Adler", "Signal" and also the German dailies etc.

(Galland was the CO of JG 26.)

Certainly some other German fighter pilots got a gun camera too, especially Mölders, probably Wick, and others.

Off hand can you provide a link to this image of Galland's gun camera? The vid or shot might be well known but it doesn't 'ring any bells' with me. When I was going thru Caldwell's JG 26 materials, the only gun camera still I saw of Gottfried Dietz's gun camera footage of him shooting up a Spitfire...Interestingly enough, not only had I seen Dietz's clip of film before, in various documentaries but He was actually lucky enough to have a GC in his aircraft for this, his very first aerial victory--which kind of goes against my opinion that only 'Tigers' get the camera in their planes.

[rof120]

Wel, I'll try to make the picture visible here but don't know if I will succeed in it. I found it in the French translation of Galland's book "Les premiers et les derniers" (The First and the Last - Die Ersten und die Letzten), 2nd set of photographs after page 207, photograph N° 65 (they are all numbered from 1 through 135; many were supplied by Galland himself). Published 1985 by "Éditions Yves Michelet" (Paris and Normandie).

This book can be found very easily on the Internet including at abebooks, for prices ranging from about 35 to 150 euros/£/$.

The picture is much better in the book but my scanner refuses to do a better job.

Later: and it proved impossible to upload the picture even as a file ending with bmp, doc, gif, jpeg. Perhaps I'll try later.

Perhaps somebody has got a copy of the relevant issue of "Signal" or "Der Adler" or of some other German publication or film footage. The German propaganda stuff of all kinds including films was spread all over the world: in all occupied countries and to all neutral ones, in particular Sweden. Japan and the USA (before PH on December 7, 1941), and other countries.

[MW Giles]

https://www.military-stuff.org/spitf...ncamera-video/

Galland is seen at the end of the film

Whether it is his gun camera footage is another matter

Martin

[NickM]

Originally Posted by MW Giles

https://www.military-stuff.org/spitf...ncamera-video/

Galland is seen at the end of the film

Whether it is his gun camera footage is another matter

Martin

thx;

And I've seen those clips before, thanks for refreshing my memory. I think one clip might even be the one for Gottfried Dietz, if I'm not mistaken (*and I might certainly be...)

[rof120]

Let's try again (I rarely give up but THIS could be the unique opportunity to do so): (later) WHOOPEE, it worked. Now you know it: I can make miracles. It wasn't easy, believe me. Please note: the "original" picture in the book is not really good but much better than here. (Obviously it's strongly enlarged - no fighter pilot flew so close to his victim firing his cannon and machine-guns).

[Nick Beale]

Having got that picture posted successfully, it's probably time to get back to this thread's original topic, i.e. Erich Hartmann's verifiable claims.

Luftwaffe gun-camera footage might well deserve a thread of its own, though.

[rof120]

Originally Posted by MW Giles

https://www.military-stuff.org/spitf...ncamera-video/

Galland is seen at the end of the film

Whether it is his gun camera footage is another matter

Martin

Interesting in any case. His gun footage? Maybe, maybe not but obviously this bit of film contains extracts from several, very different ones:

1. At least twice we can see a Me 109, probably F, with the typical new (large) nose and cowling. Not BoB, Fs started only at the very end of 1940 (with Mölders IIRC).

2. At least twice, too, we can see an aircraft under fire, seen with the eyes of the attacking pilot, but we can see, very clearly, multiple flight paths of tracers typical of BRITISH 1940 fighters armed with 8 light machine-guns. So this could hardly be Galland.

3. We can see several "Spitfires" (under attack) carrying one cannon in each wing. Hardly BoB for only a few Spits from ONE squadron flew with cannon a few times.

4. At the very end we can see Galland leaving his cockpit and walking on the ground. He has just come back from a combat mission, still wearing his inflatable life jacket etc. He is met by numerous, enthusiastic people so I suspect this part was shot at the peak of his success in the BoB, possibly in September or October 1940 (and he was already Wing Leader JG 26), and perhaps all these guys were acting especially for the PK-camera.