The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?

[Broncazonk]

I wonder what percentage of USAAF claims are documented by gun camera footage.

[pdame141]

Based on my (admittedly narrow) look at some of the records from my Great Uncle's 9th AF unit, gun camera film was often submitted to Victory Boards in support of claims. I have read, however, that 9th AF Victory Boards were notoriously stingy about confirming claims, perhaps because footage showing extensive damage didn't also show the final fate of the E/A.

If the issue, however, is whether that footage survives for researchers to verify today, I don't know whether the original films or copies were archived after the war. I know my Great Uncle brought home extensive reels of combat film, but they were lost in a post-war flood. Other members of his unit retained their combat film as well, because clips (both ground attack and air-to-air) appear on the 368th Fighter Group website (www.368thfightergroup.com).

[Nokose]

Example for the 06 Mar 1943 in Beisswenger's last battle.
Lt. Adil' Guseynovich Kuliev 653 IAP Bf 109 (1) Teremovo
S-t. Gavriil Gavrilovich Gus'kov 875 IAP Bf 109 (7) Teremovo
Lt. Vasiliy Vasil'evich Skoruk 875 IAP Bf 109 (4) Bor
S-t. Andrey Ivanovich Popov 875 IAP Bf 109 (2) Bor

None of these four pilots brought down Beisswenger and Uffz. Munderloh that day but had damaged Beisswenger's fighter before he was killed.

[GuerraCivil]

With Soviet claims I wonder how much confusion has been created with shared/group air victory system? For example Piotr Kozachenko is credited sometimes with 4 individual air victories from the Soviet-Finnish Winter War 1939-1940 when flying in 25 IAP but his actual claims appear to have been 1 individual + 4 shared kills (of which one shared seems possible according to Finnish sources). Some conversion of shared kills into individual kills + adding some extra claims happened with Aleksander Bulayev (7 IAP) - in one book (Maslov: I-15, I-16 and I-153 Aces) he was credited with nine air victories from the Winter War but his actual claims were 3 individual + 3 shared (one of his individual claims may be possible/verified by Finnish sources).

There was also difference between the claim ratio / verified enemy loss between different Soviet units. For example 25 IAP was credited with 45 air victories in Winter War of which only 4 seem possible/verified in the light of Finnish records. Another unit 49 IAP claimed 16 of which as many as 9 seem possible/verified by Finnish sources. The confirmation of air victories may have depended a lot of unit commanders and circumstances in which the unit fought.

Probably one should study Soviet claims just at unit level. Perhaps some units were more precise/more strict than others and the claims of pilots of those units more precise/more possible in the light of enemy records. There may be also periods when certain unit has claimed more precisely than during others (different commander, different combat situation).

But how about Johnie Johnson and Gabby Gabreski? Is it actually easier to check their individual claims than those of Soviet top aces?

[David N]

Originally Posted by Juha

In fact 12 real losses out of 17 claims still indicates reliable claiming even if H-J was even more reliable claimer earlier. And if you mean Colin D. Heaton's & Anne-Marie Lewis' book it has some problems.

Juha

According to Christopher Shores in Fighters Over the Desert, HJM was accurate in his claims until the last month or so. Yes, 12 out of 17 claims is a good ratio. Shores implied that after his 17 claim day on September 1, Marseille believed everything he fired at went down.

[Edward L. Hsiao]

Gentlemen,

The USAAF fighter pilots over Europe sometimes counted their kills even without firing a single shot. An unusual story about Chuck Yeager scoring five kills in one mission by shooting down two Bf-109s and causing the other three to collide with each other! A tall tale if you ask me!

Sincerely,

Edward L. Hsiao

[Boomerang]

Edward:

The Chuck Yeager mission you refer to appears to be discussed in Don Caldwell's JG 26 War Diary. Caldwell states that, on 12 October 1944, Yeager claimed three Bf 109s shot down, plus two whose pilots bailed out when Yeager got on their tails. You might want to look at Caldwell's account.

Cheers

Don W

[GuerraCivil]

One thing that has bothered me is the difference of air victories credited to top French ace Pierre Clostermann - in some sources he is credited with 33 air victories while some argue that he had only 15 confirmed air victories. Is the difference caused by the difference between total claims 33 figure including "shared" ones, probables and 15 are those of confirmed individual air victories credited by RAF?

When it comes to the French, I would be interested to know if the claims of Normandie-Niemen group are considered more "confirmed" or have been verified more precisely than the claims by regular Soviet IAP units?

Although there are some well-founded prejudices toward Soviet records, I´m not sure if they actually overclaimed much more than others (Luftwaffe, RAF, US) if one would have enough material to study very carefully the records of all sides and make a comparison between them. The reputation of Soviet records may have suffered from the ill-fated Winter War campaign when they claimed more enemy planes than the enemy actually had!

Perhaps it was not that much exaggerated during the whole WW2. As the whole combat stats of Luftwaffe vs. Soviet air forces is too much research work and too difficult, I wonder if there has been any case studies about individual Soviet fighter units and their claims compared to known Luftwaffe losses?

Maybe it was after all some Soviet ace who shot more Luftwaffe planes than any other Allied pilot? To my knowledge they did flew a lot like their Luftwaffe counterparts if they survived and there were not such rotations like in the Western Allied air forces. I´m not sure of Aleksandr Pokryshin´s record but the fact that he survived alive from the combat carnage against Luftwaffe´s air dominance during 1941-1942 tells something about him.

[Juha]

Closterman, in fact well known for a long time 33 incl probables, damaged and ground kills.

Soviet claims accuracy, depended how one defines "much more", time frame (RAF claims in later part of 1941 and early part of 1942 were badly inflated but then RAF began to tighten up its claim procedures), operational area (USAAF fighter claims seemed to be more accurate in ETO than in MTO or in SWPacific.

In theory Eastern Front claims are more easy to check because there formations were usually much smaller.

In fact several British aces flew more operational sorties/sotalentoja than any of the Finnish aces or Kozhedub.

Juha

[Juha]

Continnue. After three tries to continue the above message produced only loss of text, I'll try to continue with a new message.

See e.g. http://juhansotahistoriasivut.weebly...nal-tours.html from appr. after the first 1/3 onwards.

Juha