Percentage of Verifiable Victories of Various Aces –Updates & Recommendations

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Dénes Bernád

An interesting point. However, I'd consider an aircraft, which force landed, or returned home with significant damage due to air combat (thus survived) a legitimate proof for an actual 'kill'.

I'd agree if the returning aircraft was written off or if the pilot did not return to operations.

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

I'd agree if (...) the pilot did not return to operations.

My understanding is that the subject of an air combat 'kill' claim was the enemy airplane, not the pilot. Therefore, if the airplane was more or less O.K., i.e. only lightly damaged, but the pilot died or was severely wounded (like the case of Lt. Otto Fönnekold from JG 52, KIA on August 30, 1944, IIRC), I'd say it wasn't proof for an actual 'kill'.

[Rob Romero]

See Attatchement

[alessandro bray]

Hallo,
maybe this can be of interest.
Some years ago I made an analisys of the 1942 claims of the top scorer over Malta, for the LW Oblt Gerhard Michalski and for the RAF P/O Georg Beurling.
Concerning Michalski claims the results were that for 15 claims are corresponding RAF losses as time, location and without other conflicting claims by other axis pilots; for 6 they are RAF losses with same time and location, but other pilots (Italian and or German, above all after the arrival of I/JG77) made similar claims and only for 3 found nothing (20.1.42, 24.01.42 and 17.03.42).
If interested I have details for claims and related RAF losses
Regards
Alessandro

[Johannes]

Hi Rob

Regarding Heinz Knoke, only fifteen of his claims were actually confirmed! I don't wish to defend him too much because he was a real nazi, probably why he got the Ritterkreuz.
Regarding Marseille six of his first seven with LG2 were unconfirmed, leaving him 152 confirmed.
With Walter Schuck 25-31 of his 206 were unconfirmed.

Marseille is an interesting one, he was very much like Josef wurmheller, they even look alike, however with Wurmheller Egon Mayer had problems, personally I think that Mayer thought that Wurmheller was on the fiddle, and he'd be correct. Marseille was surprisingly honest, however his method of attack caused confusion, I believe he thought he had shot down all 152, but was just mistaken, he was not lying!

We never here anything about JG53's great aces! however of the big three Muller,Tonne and Crinius, mullers claims seem okay, tonne's are good, but Crinius's would seem to have been on the fiddle!

You say the Erich Hartmann's are questionable, he was in fact unpopular, perhaps that's why, his claims were all at high altitude, therefore he avoided the risk of being hit by flak and groundfire. I should think the the leaders of the claims race(in the East), and therefore future Brillanten recipiants are the bad guys i.e Gollob, Graf, Nowotny and Hartmann.

There is also a set pattern to fraudsters, this would be huge daily claims i.e Hartmann, Rudorffer, Nowotny, Graf, Batz. Whereas the slower claimers i'e Hrabak, Priller, Galland, Molders, Krupinski, Rall, Barkhorn would seem to be the honest guys(Marseille the exception), Kurt Welter was a massive fraudster and indeed not well liked at all, and it is known that the reason for his unpopularity was his huge over claiming, for him ot was easy, he was flying alone at night, the nightfighters probably average out as the most accurate claimers as there were three crew members, and the bomber would fall on Axis territory, in Russia the aircraft largely fell on Soviet held territory, therefore could not be confirmed as actually crashing by groud evidence. So perhaps you had to be that way inclined, and have the opportunity!

[James A Pratt III]

I don't know if this information is 100% accurate but I think you can put the following RAF night aces into fairly accurate claimers. This is based on my research:
J.C. Cunningham 15 (+) of 20
J. Braham 20-25 of 29
R.P. Stevens 10(+) of 14
R. Chisholm 7(+) of 9

[Mark Steinitz]

For "drgondog" -- you say you found no claims filed by JG 51 on 09/18/44. According to Tony Wood, Guenther Josten of 3./JG 51 claimed a B-17. Narrative accounts indicate the Fortress was on a supply mission to the uprising in Warsaw.

[shooshoobaby]

390th BG Mission Report 9/18/44
Flak Moderate but Accurate - Attacks by 20 LW Fighters on Drop Run.
1 B - 17 lost to COMBINATION of FLAK and FIGHTERS
# 338175 568th Sq.
Crashed Warsaw
Lt. Francis Akins - Pilot
8 KIA 1 POW 1 Evade
MACR # 10205
Mike

[Rob Romero]

Alessandro,

We would love details on the combats of Michalski and Beurling. On the combats where the victor is indeterminate, could you list the number of claimants vs. losses? For instance if pilots claim 4 aircraft and only 3 are lost, we could assign an estimate of .75 victory to each pilot.

Thanks,

Rob Romero