German Claims in Poland 1939

[G. Warrener]

Hello Andreas

I find that the matter is not so simple.

Marius's researches do present evidence (from German archival materials) that the Luftwaffe registered far fewer a/c lost during September 1939 over Poland - than Polish records give as being lost.

Given the extreme difficulties under which the Poilish military were subjected from 1939 - 1945 it was a matter of importance to them that events during 1939 were 'recorded' based on the evidence of those who were involved and who survived. They were not able to access German records during WW2.

So 60 years on - does one accept Marius's research results to immediately force a revision what has already passed into history - and so discrediting those who were involved on one side of the conflict?

Or does one let it trickle slowly into the accepted histories - as with the original RAF BoB Adlertag claims and the actual a/c which the LW lost on that day in 1940

Or does one fight it out ???????

Whatever Marius has done an awful lot of work - the essence of which should be acknowledged and not damned.

It is a very touchy subject. Marius says Skalski 'colorizes' - this in English does suggest an intention to mislead.

Franek tells Marius to f*ck off - hardly a rational response to archival & German eye-witness material presenting the opponents recorded losses.

That famous French ace threatens that 'negative' discussion of his war record on the internet can lead to legal prosecution. Not exactly an encouragement to ´simple historical analysis. Pilots actions were 'public' actions after all. They did not shoot at the enemy as an aspect of their private lives - beyond common scrutiny.

Overclaiming is not necessarily done with intent - more a human aspect - considering the conditions involved during air-combat.

Graham

[Kjetil Aakra]

I just needed to say my part in this.

Franek, I cannot understand why it is so important that Skalski never made an observational error during his long and successful carreer?? I don't think we should insist on claims/kills as a yardstick for achievment and skills; there's so much more to it. Skalski was just so much more than his aerial victories, however many they are! That goes for all pilots, btw.

And I wouldn't call an observational error a false claim; that is, one that is deliberately and knowlingly claimed when there is no reason or basis for it. If Mr. Emmerling states that he did so, I think he is wrong, but on the other hand, you Franek, should realize that Skalski's own observations could be wrong, without it being a "false claim".

It is a sad fact that these pilots are now leaving this world, but at the same time, I think, morbid it may sound, this allows us to more or less objectively look at the truth behind the aerial battles of WWII in terms of losses and claims. This puts a high demand on us researchers however, and we must not do what Franek does; take a stand which we will not leave because of national pride, personal opinions or feelings and so on. That will get us nowhere.

Your attempt to bait Andreas (and me) by saying that perhaps a Norwegian pilot made a deliberate false claim, is fruitless and a bit childlish. I have no problem accepting such an event if there is no corresponding German loss record, although I would first subscribe it to observational errors rather than a "liar, who invented the story just to cover up damage to his aircraft"! No doubt such things happened on all sides, but they need to be substantiated then.

The question may be asked; can we get an objective picture of claims/actual losses of various WWII encounters? In many cases lack of records will preclude that, but with a little research and creative digging into various types of archives suprisingly accurate results can be obtained. And I would put it as strongly as this; if there is no corresponding loss records to be found for a certain claim, then the claim needs to be re-evaluated (providing that the records are resonable trustworthy). Telling people to f**k of from certain pilots is unacceptable in serious research, we do not need holy cows here,, Polish, Russian; Commonwealth, certainly not Germand or any other nationality.

Mr. Warrener mentiones that "famous French ace" (we all know who that is) and indicates that discussions of his claims during WWII can lead to prosecution (doesn't scare me).

That is exactly the situation we don't need, people quarreling about what the truth is, when we do have scientific methods to find out. I must say I am a personal fan of that "French Ace" as his books brought me much joy and got me interested in this topic to begin with (I owe him a lot), but isn't it a well-established fact that his self-proclaimed claims are wildely exaggerated? In Osprey's Aircraft of the Aces No. 27 it is clearly stated (page 73-74 and 86) that his offical achievments are 11 destroyed, 2 probables and 9 damaged in the air, as well as 6 destroyed and 6 damaged on the ground.

Has this publication been sued because of this remark, I wonder? Any French reader care to comment on this? I'd also like to know if French aviation historians dismiss the Osprey author's research results and stand by the oft-quoted claims of the "French Ace"!?

Now, does this reduction in kills attributed to that "French Ace" diminish him in my eyes? Certainly not, he is still a hero in my eyes.

Kjetil

[Franek Grabowski]

I am afraid there is a lot of misunderstanding, no doubt because it is a discussion about a discussion that took part elsewhere. If anybody is interested I may post both my replies (in Polish) but I am not sure if footnotes will be readable.
There are two general problems with Mr Emmerling's research.
The first point is that he does not understand what is in the Polish documents but knows better what the Polish pilots claimed.
The sample of Skalski is evident. Skalski in the combat of 2.09.1939 claimed two Do 17s and this is confirmed by diary of the unit and the daily report of the Pomorze Army Aviation. All the fuss is about a missing sentence, always added by Skalski, either I noticed a crash of the enemy aircraft or I did not notice a crash of the enemy aircraft. In his very detailed 1941 report Skalski described ultimate fate of his second victim and this caused libelling campaign of Mr Emmerling. He accused Skalski of deliberate lie in order to increase his personal score and cannot understand that his views are unsupported by original Polish documents. I just only asked in not very diplomatic, however clear way not to repeat those false accusations.
The second point is about the German research of Mr Emmerling.
Quite to contrary to his claims, Mr Emmerling does not provide extensive sources to his articles. No footnotes, no detailed information. A reader has no slightest idea if the author based his research on KTB of Flotte, KTB of Geschwader, diary of an airman, loss list, etc. It seems it is also the problem of Mr Emmerling. The best sample of how misleading such research is, is the case of Ju 87 losses on 4.09.1939. In his original article, Mr Emmerling based solely on his German sources (KTB of StG2 and a log book), claimed that the Germans lost 1 Ju 87 destroyed and 1 damaged in the battle over Poczałkowo. Polish documents clearly indicate, there were two battles and that one Ju 87 was destroyed in the first battle by Lachowicki-Czechowicz as confirmed by remains found on a crashsite, while the damage to another one must have occured in the second battle and description indicates it was Skalski the victor. Therefore it is obvious, the 'reliable and definite' (as Mr Emmerling claims) German sources are erroneous and not that complete. Despite that, Mr Emmerling accused another pilot of deliberate lie, namely Pniak. He has written that Pniak downed a Ju 87 because Mr Emmerling was unable to find any Do 17s in the German documents but at the same time he does not have even KTB of ZG1 that could have been involved! I do not mention the fact, Mr Emmerling claims that Pniak saw his victim crashing in the wood despite actual report states something completely different - I may post a scan of the report if anybody is able to read handwritten Polish.
Finally, there would be no comment on my side if Mr Emmerling had written, that according to the German documents losses on 2 and 4.09.193 were such and such. Unfortunatelly, he does not and continues with his offensive and ridiculous comments. Sometimes it looks the German pilots had a higher regard of Poles than Mr Emmerling himself.
Kjetil
You wrote.

Your attempt to bait Andreas (and me) by saying that perhaps a Norwegian pilot made a deliberate false claim, is fruitless and a bit childlish. I have no problem accepting such an event if there is no corresponding German loss record, although I would first subscribe it to observational errors rather than a "liar, who invented the story just to cover up damage to his aircraft"! No doubt such things happened on all sides, but they need to be substantiated then.

I will write more: Norwegian pilots were top scorers in FC in 1943 but RAF claims are not too well reflected on the German loss lists. This means they were poorly trained and lied to improve their reputation. No wonder, they were coming from a ridiculous country, which collapsed so quickly, the Germans could not aim from their guns, and their [Norwegian] only effort were some war crimes.
How about that? I see you are taking it seriously. It is of course a nonsense but this is almost exactly what Mr Emmerling writes about Poland and the Polish aviators. What kind of reaction would you expect?

[G. Warrener]

Bonsoir à tous et toutes!

may I just state that their mastery of English by Franek, Marius and the dynamic friends from Norge deserves applause all round!!!

OK I can read Polish, French, Dutch and German & I can sniff my way through Czech, Italian or Spanish -

But to imagine that I should have to discuss such complex themes, with intensity in any of these languages???????

Respect!!!!!

Graham

OK...
carry on....
go for the jugular....

[TonyC]

Nice, Marius... it is so good to see you are not getting angry with the responses! I am not taking sides, but you are winning (if such a thing is important or desirable...) so far.

Franek - do you have to be so aggressive? Allowing for English being 2nd languages of many correspondents (or 3rd or 4th...) it is amazing to me how successful the site is!

[Marius]

Hi all,
I have no much time and will post the following comment only:
Franek, you have used about 40 footnotes (about 20 of them from books published after the war) answering to my article about Polish dog fights III/4 against Luftwaffe, but quantity does not mean quality. You are doubting about the 8 - 9 German aircraft destroyed by III/4, but you could not bring the evidence that they destroyed more. So for what did you wrote so much text?
About the German sources you can find many informations in my books...
Sorry, I have to end now...
Marius

[Marius]

Franek,


The first point is that he does not understand what is in the Polish documents but knows better what the Polish pilots claimed.

I asked you to tell us what there is so decisive concerning the German aircraft losses and you did not respond. Right?


The sample of Skalski is evident. Skalski in the combat of 2.09.1939 claimed two Do 17s and this is confirmed by diary of the unit and the daily report of the Pomorze Army Aviation. All the fuss is about a missing sentence, always added by Skalski, either I noticed a crash of the enemy aircraft or I did not notice a crash of the enemy aircraft. In his very detailed 1941 report Skalski described ultimate fate of his second victim and this caused libelling campaign of Mr Emmerling.

That is not true. There is no missing sentence. 1939 in the original combat record Skalski stated that the second enemy aircraft flew away in formation what means Skalski could not bring it down. In 1941 this aircraft susprisingly crashed on the ground. We have here two different statements. German documents confirm the report written 1939.



He accused Skalski of deliberate lie in order to increase his personal score and cannot understand that his views are unsupported by original Polish documents. I just only asked in not very diplomatic, however clear way not to repeat those false accusations.

I said Skalski colorized his report written 1941.



The best sample of how misleading such research is, is the case of Ju 87 losses on 4.09.1939. In his original article, Mr Emmerling based solely on his German sources (KTB of StG2 and a log book), claimed that the Germans lost 1 Ju 87 destroyed and 1 damaged in the battle over Poczałkowo. Polish documents clearly indicate, there were two battles and that one Ju 87 was destroyed in the first battle by Lachowicki-Czechowicz as confirmed by remains found on a crashsite, while the damage to another one must have occured in the second battle and description indicates it was Skalski the victor. Therefore it is obvious, the 'reliable and definite' (as Mr Emmerling claims) German sources are erroneous and not that complete.

Yes, in my article I did not wrote about two battles, because in both (between 12:30 and 14:30 ?) participated III./StG 2 and III/4. But in my answer to you I did. Nevertheless the German losses will remain the same: 1 Ju 87 totally destroyed and some more damaged. So what do you want? Should we speak about a battle (at appr. 12:30) where participated 3 PZL only?



He has written that Pniak downed a Ju 87 because Mr Emmerling was unable to find any Do 17s in the German documents but at the same time he does not have even KTB of ZG1 that could have been involved! I do not mention the fact, Mr Emmerling claims that Pniak saw his victim crashing in the wood despite actual report states something completely different - I may post a scan of the report if anybody is able to read handwritten Polish.

Pniak saw his victims crash on 2.9. and 4.9. as well. German documents shaw evidently that these planes in fact did not crash.
Yes the KTB of ZG 1 probably did not survive, but the German documentation was made on many stages (surfaces?). Concerning the total losses there is no lack of documentation despite of what many Polish historians wrote and now Franek is trying to tell us. As I wrote earlier I found the fate of almost all German planes lost 60-100% in September 1939. This means appr.290-295 of 303 (only the fate of some 10 Hs 126/He 46 remains a problem by now, but I am working on it).



Finally, there would be no comment on my side if Mr Emmerling had written, that according to the German documents losses on 2 and 4.09.193 were such and such. Unfortunatelly, he does not and continues with his offensive and ridiculous comments. Sometimes it looks the German pilots had a higher regard of Poles than Mr Emmerling himself.


Sorry, but I do not understand. It is clear that we are discussing about something based on German and Polish documents. So what are you writing about?



The point is not about possible overclaim but about making false claims.
Mr Emmerling accusses Skalski of making false claim in 1941 that resulted in crediting him with an extra victory. This is a very strong accusation, which perhaps should end up in a court, especially as Mr Emmerling is not going to understand that Skalski was credited with the victory in question already in 1939.

No Franek, that is not true. Skalski later colorized, that is all. As I remember Polish pilots reported on 2.9. about 7 claims at all, all against I./ZG 1. In September 1939 there existed no confirmation system comparable to German (RLM) or others. Polish claims were first "investigated" and confirmed by the Bajan Commission 1945. It is ridicule when you are stating plk. Stachon did confirm the claims (in September 1939) made by Skalski. So may I ask you how he did? Saw he the German wrecks or what exactly was going on? Even if General Eisenhower would confirm this claims, it would change nothing.


He is also not going to understand, that original Polish reports of 1939 were written in haste, are not clear and sometimes are confusing.

Why this? Do you mean other combat reports between 1939 and 1945 were not written in "haste"? What kind of argumentation is this?



His knowledge of Polish seems also to leave much to desire - he clearly does not understand what is written in the Polish documents.

Certainly. I always thought - when arguments would go to be rare, patriotic or even ridicule - that in the future somebody would write Emmerling is not understanding Polish language. Superb!



It looks like there is a white card lying on a table but the man is saying it is black.

For example?Page number?
By the way, where did I wrote about Polish pilots as cowards and murderers? I repeatedly ask for that, because you are making false propaganda here on the forum. I can answer to this by myself: I did nowhere.
The only one who did was Benno Wundshammer in his book "Flieger-Ritter-Helden" written in the war time. But he described the fight between Polish Pursuit Brigade and II./KG 26 on 6.9.1939. Even origin German documents confirm that Polish pilots shot at the parachuted air crews. The German investigation was stopped because no one of German air crews was sure to have seen that. But a Polish historians told me before some time that after the battle kpt. Kowalczyk (commanding IV/1) was very angry and disappointed about what his pilots did.
Nevertheless in my book Kampfflieger I commented the text (footnote), read it Franek.

Marius

[Marius]

Hi all and Franek,
I will continue some discussion points...



Skalski over the war never colourised his reports. All his claims, but two - one damaged and one probable, from the Battle of Britain can be linked to the German losses. His later claims cannot be all verified because of losses of documents on the German side. There are several his 'claims' that were not claimed by him due to lack of evidence, I think a total of about five or more aircraft. One Skalski's claim was downgraded although it seems it is confirmed by the German losses. Another was not credited to him by no apparent reason.

I don`t know what Skalski did later in the war. We are discussing here about the beginning of it, first combats and losses... Skalski`s kills in Poland can be verified and I have done it. I`m very sorry that there is no confirmation for his several kills. But on the other side you can see what it means to be an ace. One pilot reported about 5 kills, but the aircraft remained slightly damaged. The other reported about 5 kills and the aircraft in fact crashed on the ground. An American pilot destroyed 5 aircraft on the ground. Are they all aces?
For example there was a Polish pilot in the Pursuit Brigade. His name is Januszewicz (he commanded in Poland the 111 eskadra). He made 3 kills and all 3 are confirmed by German documentation. On the other hand Gnys of 121 eskadra. He claimed 2 Do 17 on 1.9.1939. But in the war diary of KG 77 you will read that the airplanes collided due to anti-aircraft fire. As I heard from the Polish historians there is a document in London describing the loss of both aircraft by a Polish anti-aircraft unit. But this is another story....




A very important point is that all the reports filed in 1939 are the reports done just after the sorties. Most of the surviving ones, eg. from RAF or USAAF that are known to researchers were wrote by IOs a few days after actual sorties. There is no comparison.


Therefore they are very reliable. Haste or something other has nothing to do with it.


Quote:
According to the Bf 110 on the photo. I suppose it was the aircraft flown by Major Huth transferring with his unit to Griesslienen on the 4.9. The Bordfunker Josef Schauster was talking about this accident in Jägerblatt many years ago. The damage is indeed considerable. And apparently the aircraft was on fire as stated by Schauster.


The photo does not show any trace of fire. It shows considerable damage to the fuselage but I cannot say it was enough to consider it as a write off.


The quality of your photo may be poor. I have one where you can see the wet ground (more darkened earth) under the wing and fuselage. I think due to water or something like that.


Quote:
You believe that I./ZG 1 lost on 2.9. more aircraft than found in the actual known documents. So how will you explain the only total loss of 12 Bf 110 for the period September 1939 as documented on many other staff levels?


I do not believe anything. I expect you to nail down the aircraft shot up by Skalski. As long as you cannot do it, I do no take your comments that nothing happenned to it.


This is much too less. You must have some trace of an aircraft wreck or the name of a wounded or downed pilot or something else. Just a simple claim in Polish documents is not enough.
By the way, German documents as for example of Fliegerdivision 1 are reporting about the lost Bf 110 and a further slightly wounded Bordfunker. Do you mean German documents would report about something less important as slightly wounded aircrew and nothing more about other missing aircraft or even wounded or killed pilots? You are on the wrong way.



Quote:
I will list these aircraft below (total losses):
2.9. 1 Bf 110 of I./ZG 1, 2 Bf 110 of I./ZG 76
3.9. 3 Bf 110 of I.(Z)/LG 1 (1 to German Flak)
4.9. 1 Bf 110 of I.(Z)/LG 1, 1 Bf 110 of I./ZG 1 (Huth landing accident)
6.9. 1 Bf 110 of I./ZG 1
7.9. 1 Bf 110 of I.(Z)/LG 1
9.9. 1 Bf 110 of I./ZG 76 (accident?)
17.9. 1 Bf 110 of I./ZG 76
12 at all, 3 in accidents or by friendly AA fire. No place for more totally destroyed Bf 110`s.


How about aircraft of Hammes and Nagel? Were they write offs or not? Hammes' aircraft looks almost untouched, I have seen more damaged aircraft returned to flying condition.


Perhaps they looked "untouched", but we know they were shot down and the damage was considerable even if not to see on the photos. I am sure they were treated as total losses.


There is also a photo of burned out Me 110 taken from an overflying aircraft, have you identified this one?

Do it yourself. Take my book Jagdflieger and try to find it. You can not exclude that it was an aircraft of 12 mentioned above.

Marius

[Franek Grabowski]

Franek - do you have to be so aggressive? Allowing for English being 2nd languages of many correspondents (or 3rd or 4th...) it is amazing to me how successful the site is!

Tony
It is a continuation of a dsicussion that occured in Polish aviation journal. I am aggressive becaus the opponent is a concrete head and cannot understand obvious things like basic level math.
I would leave him alone, but I am afraid that his views could be considered a serious research, which is not true.

[quote]I have no much time and will post the following comment only:
Franek, you have used about 40 footnotes (about 20 of them from books published after the war) answering to my article about Polish dog fights III/4 against Luftwaffe, but quantity does not mean quality.

Those books were for example memoirs of the pilots and it is still more footnotes than you provide in any your work.

You are doubting about the 8 - 9 German aircraft destroyed by III/4, but you could not bring the evidence that they destroyed more. So for what did you wrote so much text?

I have provided evidence that your 'view' of III/4 activities is completely distorted.

About the German sources you can find many informations in my books...

No, I cannot. There are no footnotes and it is not clear what is in documents and what is your invention.

I asked you to tell us what there is so decisive concerning the German aircraft losses and you did not respond. Right?

There is plenty but you deny it.

That is not true. There is no missing sentence. 1939 in the original combat record Skalski stated that the second enemy aircraft flew away in formation what means Skalski could not bring it down. In 1941 this aircraft susprisingly crashed on the ground. We have here two different statements. German documents confirm the report written 1939.

No, it is clear problem with your head. Skalski in his report is reffering to ANOTHER formation but it seems it is too hard for you to understand that.
The report goes more less as follows:
In the Chełmża West-Unisław area I saw about eleven (11) bombing aircraft “DO17” being unable to warn section ldr I separated and attacked from the front and above firing few bursts from the distance of 200-50m, the e/a went down, I turned back after him firing few more bursts. The aircraft shuffled down and thumped on the ground. Next I took height again and attacked a second one from astern firing long burst I kept on tail until fire burst from the port wing, I followed him to 300m, [here is the missing sentence] next I started to gain height, to attack again but e/a in a vic of 5 flew in Bydgoszcz direction at a great speed. I gave up the chase and flew towards the front line in Łasin direction. Having met nothing over Łasin I flew to Grudziądz-Toruń. Behind Grudziądz I met a single Do17 and started to chase it, e/a started to gain height to 7000m and dropped into clouds, I gave up the chase and returned to the airfield alone. I note that own h.m.g. positions fired at me.

I said Skalski colorized his report written 1941.

And this should end up in a court.

Yes, in my article I did not wrote about two battles, because in both (between 12:30 and 14:30 ?) participated III./StG 2 and III/4. But in my answer to you I did.

Based on what documents?

Nevertheless the German losses will remain the same: 1 Ju 87 totally destroyed and some more damaged. So what do you want? Should we speak about a battle (at appr. 12:30) where participated 3 PZL only?

I just want to prove the German documents are not so reliable.

Pniak saw his victims crash on 2.9. and 4.9. as well. German documents shaw evidently that these planes in fact did not crash.

Anybody else on this forum can read Polish? If so, I will post relevant scan of the 4.09 report just to prove Mr. Emmerling has no slightest idea what is he writing about.

Yes the KTB of ZG 1 probably did not survive, but the German documentation was made on many stages (surfaces?).

The word you are looking for is level. The question remains, which level is most reliable.

Concerning the total losses there is no lack of documentation despite of what many Polish historians wrote and now Franek is trying to tell us. As I wrote earlier I found the fate of almost all German planes lost 60-100% in September 1939. This means appr.290-295 of 303 (only the fate of some 10 Hs 126/He 46 remains a problem by now, but I am working on it).

And here we come to the key of the problem. Most of those aircraft are not identified by their WNr, so we cannot verify their ultimate fate, like with Hammes' aircraft. Also, all the damaged aircraft below 60% are not listed, and this leaves a large gap. Mr. Emmerling claims that Polish pilots colourised while claiming the German aircraft but he uses only total losses lists. A Polish pilot who shot down a German aircraft that force landed in field and then was overrun by German troops, recovered and repaired, will be accused by Mr. Emmerling of lie.

Sorry, but I do not understand. It is clear that we are discussing about something based on German and Polish documents. So what are you writing about?

I mean that for example Victor Moelders expressed better opinion about Polish pilots rather than you.

No Franek, that is not true. Skalski later colorized, that is all. As I remember Polish pilots reported on 2.9. about 7 claims at all, all against I./ZG 1.

You remember - I know. That is the difference.

In September 1939 there existed no confirmation system comparable to German (RLM) or others.

I am not awared of any such crazy bureaucratic system as created by RLM, which consumed time and money only to be as unreliable as the other ones.

Polish claims were first "investigated" and confirmed by the Bajan Commission 1945. It is ridicule when you are stating plk. Stachon did confirm the claims (in September 1939) made by Skalski. So may I ask you how he did? Saw he the German wrecks or what exactly was going on?

The problem is again you write about matters you have NO SLIGHTEST IDEA!!! There are several documents confirming that the pilots were credited with kills already in 1939. Bajan Commission was established to verify those claims but especially to convert them into RAF criteria adopted by the PAF. Concerning Stachoń's confirmation, I have a photocopy of the document and it is not my problem that you cannot believe it does exist.

Even if General Eisenhower would confirm this claims, it would change nothing.

How about Ramses XIII?

Why this? Do you mean other combat reports between 1939 and 1945 were not written in "haste"? What kind of argumentation is this?

No, they were usually not and quite often were not written by the pilots.

Certainly. I always thought - when arguments would go to be rare, patriotic or even ridicule - that in the future somebody would write Emmerling is not understanding Polish language. Superb!

No, claim that you do not understand Polish is a very serious one. Problems with math are also apparent.

For example?Page number?

For example?

By the way, where did I wrote about Polish pilots as cowards and murderers? I repeatedly ask for that, because you are making false propaganda here on the forum. I can answer to this by myself: I did nowhere.

Really? How about those Polish pilots not willing to engage the German aircraft?

The only one who did was Benno Wundshammer in his book "Flieger-Ritter-Helden" written in the war time. But he described the fight between Polish Pursuit Brigade and II./KG 26 on 6.9.1939. Even origin German documents confirm that Polish pilots shot at the parachuted air crews. The German investigation was stopped because no one of German air crews was sure to have seen that.

So was it confirmed or not?

But a Polish historians told me before some time that after the battle kpt. Kowalczyk (commanding IV/1) was very angry and disappointed about what his pilots did.

Who? Apparently either he was not clear or you had misunderstood him. After the repeated German attacks on bailing out airmen, on 4.09 Brygada Pościgowa's command issued an order not to attack Germans in the revenge. It happenned during the battle over Koło two days later, that one of the pilots hit a German airman with his wing. It is not clear if it was intentional or not but I would say such an intentional attack could have been quite risky. Anyway, Kowalczyk reputedly did a speech but only evidence of it was an account of a man who was a young boy (12 or 14 I think) present on the airfield at the time and as such must be taken with a grain of salt.

Nevertheless in my book Kampfflieger I commented the text (footnote), read it

I am afraid it will be waste of time.

I don`t know what Skalski did later in the war. We are discussing here about the beginning of it, first combats and losses... Skalski`s kills in Poland can be verified and I have done it. I`m very sorry that there is no confirmation for his several kills.

Skalski claimed four individual and one shared kill, with an another shared being rejected. Another aircraft was claimed shared damaged by him. Of those kills you cannot confirm one aircraft destroyed on 2.09 and one damaged on 4.09. His kills during the BoB seems to be fully confirmed by the German losses, problems starting after the Battle, due to serious losses of the German documents.

But on the other side you can see what it means to be an ace. One pilot reported about 5 kills, but the aircraft remained slightly damaged. The other reported about 5 kills and the aircraft in fact crashed on the ground. An American pilot destroyed 5 aircraft on the ground. Are they all aces?

If they were credited with those victories, then yes.

For example there was a Polish pilot in the Pursuit Brigade. His name is Januszewicz (he commanded in Poland the 111 eskadra). He made 3 kills and all 3 are confirmed by German documentation. On the other hand Gnys of 121 eskadra. He claimed 2 Do 17 on 1.9.1939. But in the war diary of KG 77 you will read that the airplanes collided due to anti-aircraft fire.

The fact that a pilot claimed kills and they were confirmed by erroneus report of ground troops does not make him a liar, does it?

As I heard from the Polish historians there is a document in London describing the loss of both aircraft by a Polish anti-aircraft unit. But this is another story....

You have heard or seen the document?

Therefore they are very reliable. Haste or something other has nothing to do with it.

Apparently you have not worked on RAF or USAAF combat reports, have you?

The quality of your photo may be poor. I have one where you can see the wet ground (more darkened earth) under the wing and fuselage. I think due to water or something like that.

Quality is excellent, much better than in your books. No slightest trace of fire.

This is much too less. You must have some trace of an aircraft wreck or the name of a wounded or downed pilot or something else. Just a simple claim in Polish documents is not enough.

Why? If a Polish pilot claims that a German airman baled out, I see no reason not to believe him. I have a document from RAF FC confirming a kill based on fact that there was a parachute seen on the guncam film, but the German action report states there were no losses. Sorry, I would rather trust camera evidence than your documents.

By the way, German documents as for example of Fliegerdivision 1 are reporting about the lost Bf 110 and a further slightly wounded Bordfunker. Do you mean German documents would report about something less important as slightly wounded aircrew and nothing more about other missing aircraft or even wounded or killed pilots?

Can you assure me the German documents are complete? Sorry, you cannot. I have seen plenty of multi level documents and I know their marigin of error.

You are on the wrong way.

I do not think so.

Perhaps they looked "untouched", but we know they were shot down and the damage was considerable even if not to see on the photos. I am sure they were treated as total losses.

Please provide a document stating that the aircraft was written off! I am not interested in your beliefs.

Do it yourself. Take my book Jagdflieger and try to find it. You can not exclude that it was an aircraft of 12 mentioned above.

I cannot but reference in your book does not provide an answer.

[Rasmussen]

An question to Mr. Grabowski.

You wrote: "Please provide a document stating that the aircraft was written off! I am not interested in your beliefs."

Can you give an document that the aircraft wasn't written off?? If not your words are poor, only polemic - not more, not less.

Best wishes
Rasmussen