Rall's claims

[Heuser]

Originally Posted by Nokose

I never met Zemke, Rall and the other 56FG members involved but it's kind of hard to believe that they just met and decided to make up this story to give Rall credit that day.

I think none of the involved had seen the official accounts from both sides about claims and losses for this day - I've send you a PM...

Best regards

Heuser

[Nokose]

Very good argument of the case. The claim (275) could be a mistake involving the attack on Zemke's P-47 considering the condition Rall was in on bail out. Still the the story of Zemke and any 56FG member that witnessed is hard to just dismiss. The one possiblity is that the two loss P-47 were hit so fast that their attackers weren't noticed as Rall entered the picture

[Heuser]

Nokose, Rall had nothing to do with the three losses of 56.FG on this day - the crash locations of Rall and the P-47's of 56.FG were 80 km from eachother (Kutzera and an anknown pilot's a/c crashed only a few km away from Rall).

Several 109-units had losses in the area between these crashsides, f.e. JG 3, JG 5, JG 27 and JG 53. The closest crashside of a US-fighter is the one of Robert L. Shoup, 354.FG, P-51C 42-102997.

I've checked the German NVLs, the US MACR including the KU-files, the unit histories of JG 11 and the 56.FG, Ralls "Flugbuch" and several eyewitness reports regarding the combats on this day (so I know even the name of the woman who gave first aid to Rall), and I know more or less the exact crashsides of three a/c of Stab II./JG 11 on this day.

The only thing which didn't match is the "Rall -Zemke"-Story - including the locations mentioned in the US sources.

Heuser

[Nokose]

So the 275th claim is made up on a falsehood or mistake and verified by post-war memiors.

Since you've seen his flugbuch can tell if his 2nd victory was as wingman on 24Jun41? There were 12 claims by III/JG52 for DB-3F's. Denes Bernard's book has one being claimed by flak. The actual VVS loss was 3 DB-3F's by 2 MTAP CHF and 7 SB by 40 SBAP CHF. With Friedrich Wachowiak's 1st possibly only being damaged.

[Nikita Egorov]

Heuser,

If you have access to original flight book of Rall, could you please confirm that most his claims for 1943-44 are marked as simple "LaGG" without any precise type?

TIA.

[Heuser]

Sorry Gentlemen;

I spoke about "Mein Flugbuch" / "My Logbook", published by NeunundzwanzigSechs...

http://www.neunundzwanzigsechs.de/