Reinhard Heydrich air victories?

[Jan Gazda]

Hi,

can´t add anything to his victory claims but as for the incident when he was shot down there are some details in Ch. Bergström´s Barbarossa: the Air Battle. Seems that Heydrich was shot down either by St.Lt. Aleksandr Pokryshkin or Ml.Lt. Leonid Dyiachenko from 55 IAP who both claimed a Bf 109 in the combat. Pokryshkin and Diyachenko were flying as escort to some Su 2s whose mission was to bomb Dniestr Bridges at Yampol when a pair of Bf 109 attacked the bombers. Only one Messerschmitt was lost though and it was the one piloted by Heydrich who came down in a no man´s land and was later rescued as described by one of the posts above.

Diyachenko was to be killed just three days later , probably in combat with Uffz. Franz Schulte from II./JG 77 (his claim no.2) while Heydrich was assassinated by members of Czechoslovak exile army in May 1942. Pokryshkin went on to claim 59 aerial victories troughout WW2 and become one of the most notorious Soviet aces and 3 x HSU.

Thought some might be interested

Jan

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by Jan Gazda

Seems that Heydrich was shot down either by St.Lt. Aleksandr Pokryshkin or Ml.Lt. Leonid Dyiachenko from 55 IAP who both claimed a Bf 109 in the combat.
Pokryshkin went on to claim 59 aerial victories troughout WW2 and become one of the most notorious Soviet aces and 3 x HSU.

This perfectly shows low reliablility of books of the author, based on propaganda rather than documents. Neither Pokryshkin was credited with the victory nor he scored 59 kills. Check Asy velikoj otechestvennoj for further details.

[Leo Wess]

Originally Posted by Franek Grabowski

This perfectly shows low reliablility of books of the author, based on propaganda rather than documents. Neither Pokryshkin was credited with the victory nor he scored 59 kills. Check Asy velikoj otechestvennoj for further details.

The author probably had in view of victory Diyachenko July 21 1941.

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by Leo Wess

The author probably had in view of victory Diyachenko July 21 1941.

No, the author (who does not speak Russian), refers to propaganda and not documents.

[robert]

But he was helped by Russian researchers. Once again your statements are not reliable and they are rather for (your) propaganda/private war purposes.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, guys.

Before this gets out of hand:

The original loss record from GenQu6Abt clearly state that the loss reason was 'Jägerbeschuss', thus the aircraft was hit by gunfire from an enemy fighter aircraft.

I think in general that one should be very cautious when referring to a publication if one has not also checked the original records available, but I also think one should not dismiss an authors entire production based on one factual error.

In this case Bergström seems to have the correct information.

Regards,
Andreas B

[Franek Grabowski]

Andreas
There is a problem of several factual errors in certain authors publications, originating from lack of research of either original documents or recent publications. This was stressed eg. in recent discussion on the author's Battle of Britain book, which was based on outdated sources, despite the author was awared they cannot be trusted anymore.
In this case, the author provided false information that Pokryshkin may have been responsible for the kill, and that he scored 59 kills during the war. It should have been obvious for the author if he ever checked primary documents, which do not support Pokryshkin memoirs.
Thus said, I am not going into the problem of the author's Russian collaborators, it is neither my interest nor problem. The only point is that the author was and is perceived as the only one.