P-38 losses, southern Greece 15/17 November,1943

[Oberst]

Originally Posted by Dan Johnson

What part of the single 38 lost in two days vs the 19 claimed isn't clear? We've got one other returning single engine after mechanical failure, not enemy action.

Damaged 38s were not falling out of the sky

Bartels didn't shoot down 7 38s in 2 days. Of this there is no doubt.

who's to say the USAAF are 100% accurate and 100% complete. NOBODY can say for certain. not you, not me, not the USAAF nor the Germans. I'm not saying that he killed 7 in two days. maybe damaged or something. maybe all, maybe half, maybe none.

cheers.

[Leo Etgen]

Hi guys

So as far as is known the mission was flown by B-25 twin-engined bombers of the 340th BG, USAAF escorted by P-38 twin-engined fighters of the 1 FG and 82nd FG, USAAF. The 82nd FG claimed two victories and lost one aircraft to Flak. For their part IV./JG 27 claimed 15 victories and lost no fighters. III./JG 27 did lose one aircraft that day but in a crash-landing with no mention of aerial combat:

15 November 1943: Gefreiter Heinrich Pothmann of 8./JG 27 in Bf 109 G-6 (W.Nr. 160 032), crash-landing at Tatoi, 90%

Does any one have which were the units on the American side that were involved in the raid two days later? On that day the two Luftwaffe fighter units claimed nine victories whereas one B-25 twin-engined bomber was lost. Stab III./JG 27 lost two mechanics:

17 November 1943: Gefreiter Manfred Kleinert of Stab III./JG 27 killed in bombing at Kalamaki
17 November 1943: Gefreiter Otto Heidel of Stab III./JG 27 wounded in bombing at Kalamaki

IV./JG 27 lost one fighter in aerial combat:

17 November 1943: Leutnant Hans Hetzler of 12./JG 27 wounded in Bf 109 G-6 (W.Nr. 140 ...) in aerial combat 20 kilometers east of Äjina Insel, 100%

Oberst, I think that the simplest explanation is over-claiming on the part of the German fighter pilots. Over-claiming was rather commonplace during the war in spite of the attempts by the various air forces involved to set in place confirmation procedures. In regards to the Luftwaffe, I have the impression that the level of claim reliability often varied between units and even individual pilots within the units. Units that appear to have levels of claiming generally consistent with Allied losses include JG 26 and JG 51 while units with often poor reliability in this regard include JG 54 and especially JG 5. Note that Bartels flew with JG 5 before he was posted to IV./JG 27 and that furthermore this was a quite new unit having been formed in May 1943 so it possibly did not have the same number of experienced pilots as other units such as III./JG 27. I doubt that this level of over-claiming on the part of Bartels and Kirschner was an act of deliberate fraud but rather was done in good faith as compared to those who doubtlessly will use this incident to attempt to portray all German aces as liars and exaggerators while remaining silent about incidents of Allied over-claiming such as during the Guadalcanal campaign. We all have our favorite aces but we have to realize that they were humans and not infallible in their victory claims which were often made in very stressful conditions.

Horrido!

Leo

[Oberst]

thank you Leo

Gruß and Horrido!

[Dan Johnson]

Originally Posted by Oberst

who's to say the USAAF are 100% accurate and 100% complete. NOBODY can say for certain. not you, not me, not the USAAF nor the Germans. I'm not saying that he killed 7 in two days. maybe damaged or something. maybe all, maybe half, maybe none.

cheers.

No one is claiming anyone was 100 percent accurate. My concern is that you are now in a second thread looking for some missing information on the part of the 38 units instead of just accepting that the LW over claimed and then some on November 15 and 17.

If Bartels got anything, he got the one lost 38 that occurred over the 2 missions. But with 19 other claims, and the MACR saying it was lost to Flak, it makes it appear most likely he shot down nothing.

As for the 17th, it was the 82nd FG escorting B25s and they had no losses or damaged, claiming one Me 109 which appears to match up to the Luftwaffe loss that day.

[Nokose]

Not all claims that were attributed to AAA by units on return, even with "eye witnesses" turn out to be true. I just finished reading about a Soviet bomber that the loss was attributed to flak. On the return of the the few returning crew members they were hit by flak but escaped only to be shot down by a nightfighter. Same with another case of an Il-2 (in daytime) that appears on Soviet records to flak but on closer examination a fighter of JG54 was making a claim same time, location and height.

[Juha]

Hello Leo
I agree completely on overclaiming, see my message # 10 and 16. One small clarification, at first JG 5’s claims were not so badly inflated, claim accuracy hovering around 50% up to and including summer 42 after which it began sliding downwards. Or so it seems to have been according the info available at the turn of millennium. I agree that in claim accuracy there seems to have been different “unit cultures” but IMHO in the end it was up to individual pilots, some were simply more reliable claimers than others for whatever reasons. And a notorious overclaimer could have been an excellent fighter pilot and a good leader.

Juha

[Leo Etgen]

Hi guys

Many thanks to Dan for the information regarding the P-38 twin-engined fighter unit that participated on the raid of 17 November 1943. It is my understanding that the B-25 twin-engined bombers on that mission were from the 321st BG and 340th BG, USAAF. Losses were one bomber to either Flak or fighters and another damaged to a considerable extent by either Flak or fighters. Nokose, I too believe that on occasion the cause of loss was recorded incorrectly for various reasons. For example, I have read that when Grislawski meet one of the surviving crew of the B-17 four-engined bomber that he claimed on 24 January 1944, the American was certain that he had been shot down by Flak and not fighters and in another instance that the pilot of the F-5 reconnaissance aircraft shot down by Buchner on 26 November 1944 initially believed that he too had been shot down by Flak. I recall that when I was researching a German fighter ace I came across information by a European researcher that this fellow was responsible for the downing of a certain B-17 four-engined bomber and not Flak as was the officially recorded cause. This researcher was interested in this particular bomber since it crashed near his home town and had been studying all he could find about it and had come to the conclusion that it was the Luftwaffe ace (I can not remember who it was, Höckner or Wickop or some other fellow) that was responsible for its loss. I am not stating that his conclusion was 100% correct but it does demonstrate that loss entries may have some errors and this can be said for all sides involved. However, I also feel that one must go with the officially recorded cause in all instances unless there is compelling evidence that shows this was not the case. Otherwise, one can easily be led astray by the biases that we all have and thus lose credibility as a researcher. Juha, many thanks for the point regarding the claim accuracy of JG 5. Most of the information that I have regarding this matter involves 1943 and 1944 so it was welcome to read your information. What little I have seen of the claim accuracy or lack thereof regarding JG 5 in 1942 is primarily focused on Müller. However, since there appears to be some differences between the victory claim lists compiled by the various authors such as Mombeek and Prein and some of the research on the Russian side appears to be somewhat biased more towards ridiculing the claims made it has been somewhat difficult to obtain a clear image of what was really going on on the Northern Front at that time. I also agree that because a fighter pilot was known to have been optimistic in his claims does not mean that he was a bad leader. Bader, Boyington and Lang are all now generally accepted to have been quite optimistic in their claims yet were inspiring and effective leaders of men in combat.

Horrido!

Leo

[drgondog]

The strangest part of the November 15 1943 MACR statement was reflecting that no enemy fighters were encountered in the Eyewitness Statement regarding McClure. He was hit by flak, lost altitude and was lost from sight.

Crash site listed as Thebes ~ 40 miles from location of Bartels and Hackl's seven air to air claims.

I noted in the other forum that on April 24, 1944 Bartels was one of 9 Me 109 pilots claiming 10 P-51s destroyed around Munich. in a rough arc from south of Landshut to Walkraiburg/Simbach/St. Wolfgang to Taufkirchen Vils - ne, e and se of Munich - 8 were credited when three were lost. Two other 51's were lost in mid air collisions with Me 110s near Poing and one was lost west of Munich near Lake Wessling, possibly to 7./ZG26.

Bartels claimed two 'west of Mulhdorf' whereas one (Norman) was lost north north of Muhldorf and more closely matches a JG26 (Ayerle) claim for "west of Simbach".

Bartels Could be the shooter for Norman (355th FG) but probably not Hillman who went down southeast of Munich at Taufkirchen...who was flying Norman's wing. Hillman more closely matches JG 27 Rabentstein's 'se Munich' claim at 1400. OTOH, I have to check whether the MACR stated Taufkirchen or Taufkirchen Vils - if the latter then it is reasonable to link Bartels to the two 355th pilots who were together when last heard from.