7 Feb 10 -Overclaimers v Reliable Claimers List

[Rob Romero]

John, this is my take on this type of situation. Let’s take the Preddy case you bring up as an example. Since only 4 of the 6 aircraft were actually, shot down, he could only CLAIM 4 aircraft as SHOT DOWN. However, let’s say a 5th was scrapped, he could then be CREDITED as having destroyed 5 enemy aircraft, the 6th would only be credited as a damaged, as IT WAS ONLY DAMAGED.

BTW Would you be kind enough to ID Preddy's victims -All if you have them, or at least for the day in question?

Thanks,

Rob Romero

[Juha]

Hello John
I must admit that I disagree
a) damaged plane is clearly different thing than destroyed plane, a plane usually didn’t fly every day during the WW 2, especially bombers, and for ex RAF fighter sqns had most of the war 18 planes but was expected to fly its missions with 12 planes formations. So a lightly damaged plane usually only meant extra work for its ground crew. Badly damaged planes had temporary effect on mission capacity but were usually economically less damaging than a lost plane.

b) IMHO all planes which were forced to land/crash-land outside a/fs because of combat damage were shot down but it is also true that a plane that flew hundreds of mls after being hit frankly had not fulfilled the criteria demanded (at least by RAF and by FiAF) for a plane allowed to be claimed as destroyed. At least on the backside of the form of air combat report of FiAF there were printed the claim criteria for destroyed and damaged claims and they were strict.

Few examples of damages that have some effect on unit’s mission capacity:

44-06-09, c 0630, MT-235, 1./HLeLv 24, ?* unhurt, Karelian Isthmus, during air combat 20mm hit on right aileron, next combat sortie 140644 1130-

44-06-10, c 1045, MT-231, 1./HLeLv 24, kers A Koskelainen unhurt, Raivola-Kivennapa, 3 hvmg hits 1 on tip of right wing 1 on fuselage 1 on rudder, repaired next combat sortie 140644 1800, from combat report

44-06-12, 2345, JK-254, 1/PLeLv 44, P: ltm Martti Perälä O: vänr Simo Huovinen W/O: alik. Matti Malmberg G: ? all unhurt, Tirttula - Joutsenselkä, 2 40mm AAA hits left tailplane and elevator the hole in tailplane was 100 x 50 cm, next combat sortie190644 2230- , Unit history

44-06-12, 2355, BL-196, 2./PLeLv 42, P: vänr. Jaakko Kausalainen O: lt Erik Anttinen G: alik. Aimo Vesanen all unhurt, Karelian Isthmus, fighter and AA got 4 hits one into left fuel tank, next combat sortie 160644 1430-, Unit history

And some of those which didn’t have effect on units mission capacity:

44-06-09, c 1240, MT-213, 2./HLeLv 24, Ltm Yrjö Turkka unhurt, Valkeasaari-Joutsenselkä, 1 hvmg hit on left wing during aircombat, repaired next combat sortie on same day 1610, from combat report

44-06-10, c 1050, MT-227, 2./HLeLv 24, Ltn Urho Sarjamo unhurt, E of Kivennapa-Lempaalanjärvi, 1 hvmg hit into radio receiver, repaired next combat sortie same day 2020, from combat report

44-06-13, 0005, JK-268, 3./PLeLv 44, P: lt Kalevi Heiskanen and crew unhurt, Polviselkä – Lintula Karelian Isthmus, fighter got hits into left engine gondola, next combat sortie 140644 1650-, Unit history

44-06-14, c 1200, MT-419, 3./HLeLv34, kapt Olli Puhakka unhurt, Tyrisevä, 2 20mm hits during head-on attack La-5 aileron rod severed, repaired next combat sortie 150644 0955, from combat report

And one case that shows that sometimes a fairly light damage might led to a chain of events that led to a total loss:

44-06-17, 1155, MT-419, 3./HLeLv34, kapt Olli Puhakka unhurt, SW of Muolaanjärvi/Heinjoki a/f, 3 hvmg hits 1 hit to radiator 2 hits in blades during aircombat Il-2#### during forced landing onto Heinjoki a/f right u/c retracted, right wingtip bended blades chipped destr during transport to repairs 200644 during the bombing of Elisenvaara station SOC 300844, from combat report and ac papers flight time 26h 20min 8 victories

Juha

[MW Giles]

John

I agree about the importance of damaged aircraft (particularly those beyond the scope of the unit to quickly repair and get back into the air, Cat Ac and Cat B in RAF terms). In theory if you could cause enough damage to enough a/c to exceed the rate of repair and replacement then you reduce the fighting capacity of the enemy. However this may not have the same effect as the total destruction of an aircraft on crew availability. It depends on what the critical factor is - men or machines

I can understand why Air Forces would not get as excited about celebrating someone that had damaged 10 aircraft, compared to another that had shot down 7, but the RAF did acknowledge Destroyed, Probables and Damaged in someone's score (there was also a "probably damaged" category that appears occasionally but that is going too far - I usually read it as probably not damaged at all). Anyway just imagine the controversy we could generate on this forum arguing about who might have damaged who and the possibility that lots of claims all related to damage to the same aircraft.

Rob.

Full marks for the most spectacular misunderstanding of my previous post, rather than taking the example I gave and expanding the idea to make a general point that could be discussed, you dived in and attacked the specifics and ignored the real point of the message. Thanks

Preddy was not clairvoyant, of course he claimed 6. He and the 8th AF had no way of knowing about the two that were only damaged. You are mistaking claims (even ones confirmed by 8th AF) for definite kills that are verifiable in the historical record. The two are not the same

Martin

[Don Caldwell]

Attention John Beaman --

Hasn't this nonsense gone on long enough to delete this thread? The poor logic, gratuitous insults, and (willful?) misuse of simple English were more common in this forum in years past, and might be expected from non-English speakers in an English-only SIG, but most of this stuff seems to be coming from New York City!!!

Don Caldwell

[Rob Romero]

Full marks for the most spectacular misunderstanding of my previous post . . . . you dived in and attacked the specifics and ignored the real point of the message. . . Preddy was not clairvoyant, of course he claimed 6.

I’m sorry if my response came off as insulting, but my point was that a pilot SHOULD NOT claim a plane as shot down unless they were CERTAIN they had. For instance if the pilot bailed out, the target exploded, there was a catastrophic component failure (i.e., wing or tail shot off) or the plane was SEEN to have hit the ground. I suppose there were instances where a pilot believed that a plane they hit HAD TO have been shot down when it had not, but these would have been comparatively rare, like when some of a bomber’s crew bailed out but the pilot stayed behind in control, or when a burning fighter spun into overcast only to have the flames snuffed out due to the dive (i.e., Robert Johnson), but the fact remains that some pilots were MUCH more accurate in their assesments than others. This was important not only for records, accolades and promotions, but for battle damage assessment by commanders. And if this issue were so unimportant, why would the effort be spent to develop gun camera film. Yes, there were secondary benefits such as the identification of new enemy aircraft types, but the primary motivation was BDA and verification.

poor logic, gratuitous insults, and (willful?) misuse of simple English . . . might be expected from non-English speakers in an English-only SIG, but most of this stuff seems to be coming from New York City!!!

Well that’s a first for me Don, I’ve never been insulted by an author before, especially one I’ve bought books from. Ouch (!) and I’m a teacher; my only excuse is that I teach math! No wonder we’re ranked last in the developed world.
Though I try to make my responses coherent and grammatical, I refuse to be obsessive about it. Well, maybe I should use spell check!

Hasn't this nonsense gone on long enough to delete this thread?

I don’t know but, there seems to be a decent amount of interest in this thread which revolves around a LEGITIMATE issue. Quite a few have read it and there have been quite a few responses.

[Nikita Egorov]

What should we do with the registered losses but absent claims that should correspond them?-))

I understand Rob in his wish to simplify the problem by tighting each ace to the certain percentage. It would be very nice if there were no misidentifications, duplicated kills, wrong timing, misprints, "neck itching", losses balancing and many other things that consitute a real headache of any researcher.
In this case I suggest that we should, while stating something serious, back it with references to first hand documents that everybody could cross check this in the archive and confirm that the particular case at issue was researched in full scope.

John, in my opinion every plane that was excluded of the unit's inventory list (sent to repair facilities, factory), due damage received in air combat and could not be repaired by unit's repair team should be counted as a justified kill to the enemy pilot responsible for bringing it down. There are many such cases on the Eastern front, and if we reject this we deprive German aces of some of their confirmed victories...

[John Beaman]

Originally Posted by Don Caldwell

Attention John Beaman --

Hasn't this nonsense gone on long enough to delete this thread? The poor logic, gratuitous insults, and (willful?) misuse of simple English were more common in this forum in years past, and might be expected from non-English speakers in an English-only SIG, but most of this stuff seems to be coming from New York City!!!

Don Caldwell

Hi Don:

The Forum ends to take a rather liberal view on the long term value of threads such as this. As stated, it still has some interest to many.

Also, you do not have to open the thread if it offends you.

[Don Caldwell]

John --

I see very little long term value in this thread, but that's a matter of opinion. Many of the participants seem to treat their very serious subject as a game, which can lower the overall reputation of the forum, but again, that's my opinion. I hate to pass threads by, as I hope to either learn from or contribute to any of them, but that's impossible with this particular one.

Rob –

You’re the person who started this thread and pops in from time to time to stir things up, so yes, I was talking about you. Your reply to John was so totally illogical that it’s obvious (to me) that you still lack a fundamental understanding of why and how victory claims were recorded and confirmed, despite repeated attempts by our more patient members to educate you. (Preddy should have been given a victory credit for an aircraft that was scrapped after returning to base damaged? By whom, for heaven’s sake, and using what data? And just as important, why?) Most people who contribute data to this forum have either made a good faith effort to verify it or have come across something they don’t understand and are asking others for their help. I’ve made much use of the data I’ve found here. However, your table of overclaimers is of zero historical value. It is nearly all allegation and rumor and will never be used in a legitimate publication. Questions on the sources of your data have to the best of my knowledge gone unanswered. Furthermore, despite your addition of the word “alleged”, your charges are insulting to the memories of the deceased, who are not in a position to defend themselves. Preparation of your table can’t be considered an innocent hobby like trainspotting, because it results in calling men who were normal products of their time “liars” and “untruthful”. Overclaim ratios differed in different air forces, theaters, time periods, and units, and calling a pilot “untruthful” whose claims were found acceptable in his Staffel or squadron is grossly unfair.
Several of us have pointed out that the entire subject of victory claims and their veracity was of relatively little importance during WWII, as hard as that may be to believe today. "100% accuracy" was unattainable and unneeded. Aerial victories were important for the morale of aggressive, ambitious young fighter pilots and the home front, but they in no way helped determine the winner of the war, and are of secondary importance to historians, who consider losses, not claims, "real" data. Overclaiming was often handled by higher commands in a surprisingly sophisticated manner. My best example is the comparision of JG 2 with JG 26 from the BoB to D-Day. JG 2’s confirmed claims always exceeded those of JG 26, even though it was kept to the west of JG 26, out of the major route of both the RAF in 1941-42 and the USAAF in 1943-44, and had fewer engagements and opportunities to score. Why was JG 26 given the prize position in the theater and not JG 2? Berlin had to have known the truth about the victories being obtained by the two unts – and Göring came close to telling JG 26 exactly that, if the JG 26 veterans can be believed. Overclaiming in WWII did result in bad strategic decisions in a few cases – e.g., by the Luftwaffe in the BoB and the IJN in the Marianas – but for the most part was kept under control by verification procedures, (yes) gun cameras, and review boards.
The quality of victory claim records was typical of that of all WWII mililtary records. Ask anyone who has spent any time researching primary records in the archives of any of the combatants. Errors are rampant among the reams of reports that were generated on every base, every day, and since victory documents were not handled by a special team of “ace” clerks, any statement of how a claim “should have” been handled is naïve.
Finally, this thread is indeed active, and since it’s “clean” – no slander of participants is allowed – that’s an adequate reason not to delete it. But most of the contributions can be summarized as, “Hey, let’s see which dead guy we can call a liar today”, which I find sad.

Don Caldwell

[Rob Romero]

Don, first let me say in all sincerity, that I am not a troll, or interested in a “flame war.” So if there are any hard feelings, please accept the fact that I am not interested in generating or sustaining animosity. To be honest, I was a little flattered that I could unintentionally provoke an aviation historian of your caliber to respond in the manner that you did (as with a child, negative attention is better than no attention at all!). I do aspire in a manner of my own to be a serious historian (I won’t detail the various projects I am working on here), but I AM ALSO VERY INTERESTED -as are many others- in such arcane and perhaps historically insignificant topics as “aces” and who in fact were really the “top guns” (e.g., the cult of the “Red Baron” (92.5% Historically Verified Victories)). Thus I am not in fact primarily interested in “exposing” liars (though it is an interesting exploration of human foibles), but rather in determining who REALLY were the very best.
This current thread was the last of four such threads I first started in May of 2009. I HAVE NOT UPDATED THIS LIST IN OVER TWO YEARS (I HAVE GIVEN IT UP), though I continue to keep tabs on people’s comments along such lines and sometimes respond to them. I ESPECIALLY APPRECIATE posters, such as NOKOSE, EVEGNY VELICHKO and others, who detail specific claims and losses, especially when they shine light through the opacity of the Ostfront air war. Perhaps someone will collect these and compile a listing of historically verifiable victories (Wink! Wink! (and Don these Winks are not directed at you)). Perhaps such an endeavor will never be comprehensive, but if sufficient sampling is achieved, it might shed valuable light on strategy, tactics, campaigns, battles, and yes individual pilots.
I will respond to a few of your comments and hope we can agree to let it go at that.

Preddy should have been given a victory credit for an aircraft that was scrapped after returning to base damaged? By whom, for heaven’s sake, and using what data?

I don’t mean that he should have been given credit AT THE TIME, but by historians subsequently evaluating the engagement. So given the “Preddy example” as described, he should have claimed no more than 4 shot down as, based on the historical record, no more than 4 were shot down. If a 5th aircraft ended up being scrapped, we can NOW “credit” him with 5 victories.

And just as important, why?

Simply because it’s interesting.

Overclaim ratios differed in different air forces, theaters, time periods, and units, and calling a pilot “untruthful” whose claims were found acceptable in his Staffel or squadron is grossly unfair.

But my point is that there really shouldn’t be an issue of overclaiming if one used FIRM criteria [such as if the pilot bailed out, the target exploded, there was a catastrophic component failure (i.e., wing or tail shot off) or the plane was SEEN to have hit the ground. And such criteria were used in evaluating gun camera film. It is also why “PROBABLE” victories were incorporated as claiming options by the RAF and USAAF and HSS (Formation Seperation or "Crippled") claims were allowed as victory claims by the Luftwaffe .]

since victory documents were not handled by a special team of “ace” clerks, any statement of how a claim “should have” been handled is naïve.

My issue is with how inaccurate "full victory" or "kill" claims were made BY THE PILOTS in the first place.

However, your table of overclaimers is . . . nearly all allegation and rumor . . .

My hope and intention was to encourage posts on SPECIFIC engagement data such as that provided by the likes of NOKOSE, EVEGNY VELICHKO and others.

"100% accuracy" was unattainable

Though it is perhaps arrogant for someone who has never been under fire to say, I will risk the accusation of temerity to suggest that it should have better than it was. And the fact that it was not better was due in part to perhaps understandable, but nonetheless all too human flaws.

Aerial victories . . . in no way helped determine the winner of the war.

Air superiority helps determine who wins the war, so actual versus claimed victories are very relevant in such discussion (wasn’t “here come those last 50 Spitfires” or some such remark the bitter rejoinder of Luftwaffe bomber crews during the BoB.

JG 2’s confirmed claims always exceeded those of JG 26, even though it was kept to the west of JG 26, out of the major route of both the RAF in 1941-42 and the USAAF in 1943-44, and had fewer engagements and opportunities to score. Why was JG 26 given the prize position in the theater and not JG 2? Berlin had to have known the truth about the victories being obtained by the two units – and Göring came close to telling JG 26 exactly that.

I think you are making my point exactly

. . . if the JG 26 veterans can be believed.

Isn’t that in itself using allegation to denigrate JG2’s veterans?
In the 1980s I did serious research into air combat at Pearl Harbor and interviewed Soryu A6M2 ace Iyozo Fujita and all the USAAF fighter pilots who engaged the Japanese that were still alive. Harry Brown (7) went on to dispute the “Kill” claim of Bob Rogers his XO. According to Brown this led to hard feelings which eventually led to his being transferred out of the 47th Pursuit Squadron. Brown indicated of his experiences later in the war with Kenny’s 5th Air Force in the Southwest Pacific, deliberate falsification of claims was far from unknown. Though unstinting in his praise of America’s all-time top ace Richard Bong (40), who ceaselessly sought to perfect his air combat skills while Brown and the rest were carousing on the ground, Brown implicated another top ranked P-38 pilot. On one occasion he witnessed this pilot -shot down over his own airbase- submit claims -confirmed by the AA crew he parachuted next to (!) - for 3 enemy aircraft -aircraft which Brown contends this pilot could not have destroyed. Though he would not directly identify the pilot, circumstantially it became CLEAR he was implicating Thomas B. McGwire (38). Now, these were the allegations of one man, who perhaps had an axe to grind, but should we ignore it or bring forth the allegations and let readers decide for themselves. Perhaps we should also ignore the story of the “Schwarm of Liars” (Olt. Ferdinand Vögl (31) Ofw. Karl-Heinz Bendert (55) Ofw. Erwin Sawallisch (33) Ofw. Franz Stigler (28)) supposedly exposed to JG27 Kdr. Edu Neumann (13) by Lt. Hans-Arnold Stahlschmidt (59) as reported by Chris Shores and Hans Ring in Fighters of the Desert (I say allegedly because Stahlschmidt was KIA shortly thereafter). Last year “Mark R” posted a great thread on Jagdwaffe P-38 Claims in Afrika. As Juha suggested this was a pretty fair evaluation because the P-38 was an “unusually easily recognizable plane.” Because the sampling was small, I was only able to reach personal conclusions about two pilots. Erich Rudorffer (224) claimed to have shot down 7 P-38s. For 6 of his claims no corresponding P-38s were lost. For the 7th claim, Jagdwaffe pilots claimed 10 P-38s (including 1 by him) for the loss of 7. So on this occasion, Rudorffer probably but not certainly shot one down (perhaps a P-38 inadvertently swam into his sights). Evgeny Velichko examined another of his actions in Russia where few if any actually went down (0-2 (or ~1) Kills for 9 Claims). These two examples (1.7 Kills for 16 "Confirmed" Victoriies (a decent sample)) suggest an actual success rate of 10.6% or 24 actual kills; making him a multiple ace, but in 1000+ combat missions, no "Uber-Experte". It’s no secret that Rudorffer was shunned by his own circle post war - allegedly for his blatant dishonesty (such allegations stemming as far back from the 1970s I believe). My own personal sense is that Rudorffer was in fact an egrigious exaggerator who took credit for purposes of self-aggrandizement while others died; feel free to disagree. Kurt Bühligen (112) seems to have been another case entirely. Bühligen claimed to have shot down 13 P-38s - more than 10% of his total victory claims in WWII; a not insubstantial sample. Bühligen (112) almost certainly shot down at least 4 P-38s and statistically speaking, probably shot down 5.44, giving him a success rate of 41.8%. Extrapolating outward, we might project that Bühligen actually shot down a total of 46 aircraft making him one hell of a dangerous adversary. I would suggest his overclaiming - to whatever extent it was - resulted from aggressive overconfidence ('I hit it therefore it MUST have gone down') rather than from the outright dishonesty suggested by Rudorffer’s record. One can sense Bühligen's brashness practically radiating from his photos. As the old ditty about fighter pilots goes, "You can tell a fighter pilot . . . but you can't tell him much."

Was Roman Consul Varro a bombastic populist who foolishly rushed headlong into Hannibal’s trap at Cannae as indicated by the annalists Polybius and Livy (our only real sources and distant one’s at best)? Did Benteen fail to relieve Custer at the Little Bighorn because of personal animosity? Was Lee Harvey Oswald a “lone nut” or was he the “patsy” he claimed to be? History is full of allegations, recriminations and controversy; should these all be heedlessly ignored, or should they be considered and evaluated in light of the TOTALITY of the evidence and let each come to their own conclusion, be it well or ill informed. There comes a time when anthropologists cease to treat bones with the dignity accorded those whom are recently deceased. Similarly there comes a time when historians too can pick at proverbial bones.

My final comment here, and the one which I mean the most sincerely, is that I hope that people, even if they do not approve, will at least tolerate those who seek to pursue this line of inquiry.

Respectfully,

Rob Romero

PS I used spell check this time, but don’t promise to always do so in the future. LOL

[Don Caldwell]

Rob –

This will be my last post on this topic, as it’s obvious that we will never be able to understand or sympathize with each other’s positions. I’m glad to read that you are no longer updating your list and that the thread now serves primarily as a place for Nokose to post his studies of specific battles. I’m perfectly OK with that. I’m not a flamer, but continue to find your views naïve, and certainly understand if you find my attempts to educate you arrogant. I’ll try to answer your last post briefly, but cannot avoid repetition:

1. Claims verification procedures did not exist for the benefit of hobbyists. Inconistencies were inevitable – there was a war to fight. Arguments that the procedures “should have been” uniform around the world and “should have been” applied uniformly in all cases are, how else can I say it, naïve. You have refused to accept the “heat of battle” arguments of others, but these are valid.

2. Returning to the Preddy case, I now understand that you’re saying he should be “credited” with five victories in the battle in question based on post-war data. “Credit” implies some form of official recognition, which is not going to happen. Claim-loss comparisons in specifc battles is possible, as we well know, but very difficult. The government has no role in this. Hobbyists can keep whatever lists they want – as you say, it’s an “interesting” topic. Just don’t confuse this with “historically significant”.

3. Air superiority helped determine who won the war (it did not “win” it), but claims themselves had no role in winning air superiority – as I’ve said elsewhere, they’re only opinions, and are not “real.” Their morale function was genuine, but not determining. Overclaiming did help lead to poor decisions on strategy in a few cases – I mentioned the Jagdwaffe’s inflated claims in the BOB, which you seem to have misunderstood – and irritatated national high commands in other cases. The RLM and later OKL could never get the bomber claims of the RLV force in 1943-44 under control, but this did not affect the way they conducted (and lost) the campaign. Specific overclaiming units seem to have been tolerated by the Luftwaffe, as illlustrated by my JG 2-JG 26 comparison, which you also seem to have misunderstood. Repeating: JG 2’s confirmed claims always exceeded those of JG 26, but Luftflotte 3 had to have known these were inflated, given the relative opportunities of the two units, and continued to give JG 26 the prme position in the battle line. Göring’s speech on Galland’s departure from JG 26 called JG 26 his “allerbesten” (very best) unit. This could have been mere hyperbole, but if the high command disagreed, JG 26 would have been guarding Normandy and Brittany in 1942, against little opposition, and JG 2 would have been based on the direct path to the Ruhr (instead of vice versa.)

In conclusion, a list of histrically verifiable victories is a commendable goal. Just be careful – very careful – about ascribing less-than-honorable motivations to those pilots whose claims don’t make your cut.


-- Don