Battle of Britain - who shot what down?

[Icare9]

Is there already any definitive work that has examined each days action and established who shot what down?

It seems to me that this is one area that hasn't been exhaustively researched, not least because of the uncertainty when say a German pilot shot down a British aircraft but in turn was shot down himself, there wouldn't necessarily be any way of accrediting that in the melee of a dogfight..

However, this many years later we can establish what pilots took off from each side and who returned, so whilst it may not be possible to attribute a loss to a specific pilot, but perhaps to a likely unit.

Has this already been done, or is this an area that both the Allied and the Luftwaffe board experts can work on?

[edwest]

Well, quite a bit has been written. For example:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fighter-Comm...9254405&sr=1-1

There are also books about Bomber Command losses. Just scroll down a little on that page for examples. On the German side, I am unfamiliar with any German titles that cover the period.



Hope this helps,
Ed

[Larry Hickey]

Icare9,

This is precisely one of the tasks of the "Eagles over Europe" (EoE) Project Working Group (WG). If you've been following this board for a while, you'll have seen many posts from our revised EoE Luftwaffe Loss DB, compiled by Peter Cornwell, but with support and inputs from many others, which includes what can reasonably be interpreted from the records of the opposing sides. We have carefully documented all of the thousands of Luftwaffe losses/damages/casualties from 1 Sept. 1939 through 31 Dec. 40, which has resulted in hundreds of updates, changes and reinterpretation of the data that Peter had previously published in his classic "Then and Now" books on the Western (French) Campaign, the Battle of Britain and the Blitz to the end of 1940. In addition, the Scandinavian Campaign, Bomber Command Operations, and all aviation activities anywhere else in Europe have been added, including all coastal and British Navy operations. Everything except training losses. We have especially added a great deal of new material to the "damaged" category from analyzing Luft. photography, Flugbuchs, KTBs, and recon unit reports included in German Heer records. In fact, this massive DB is still undergoing constant updates, and probably will continue to be modified almost indefinitely. In addition to the German side, we are now well into a parallel upgrade to Peter's previous lists of all British losses, in all theaters and during all campaigns in Europe during this same period. This effort has included using all known existing Luftwaffe and Allied claims reports (about 40% of the German Bf110 claims are missing for 1940) and evaluate and attribute these claims against losses/damages/casualties on the opposing sides.

If you want to see what can be done, use the search tool on this DB for posts made by Peter Cornwell, and to a much lesser extent myself, although I cover many other topics, to see specifically what this effort has produced in specific instances. I'd like to make the point that your comments indicate that you may expect a rather high degree of precision from doing this in matching man to man over the skies of Europe during this period. Many relatively isolated combats can, and often do, produce pretty compelling results, but a great many of the combats involve multiple aircraft on both sides in a relatively limited time frame and airspace, making it impossible to say who shot down who with a high degree of confidence. The fact that we've added so many new damage reports to the data helps explain many heretofore puzzling claims on either side, but it is still evident that over-claiming, sometimes quite extensively, took place on all sides of the action, which further complicates an already difficult effort to attribute losses and damages on one side to a pilot, pilots or sometimes even a specific unit on the other side. However, what can be done is being done and will continue for that 16-month period until we're finished. This will also include the addition of Polish and Norwegian air operations, as well as updating Peter's previous work on the Dutch, Belgians and French. A huge amount of time and effort has been expended on this but we're well on our way towards concluding this part of the EoE project this year.

Regards,

[Icare9]

Gents
Thanks for the clarifications
I had rather expected to find that there was already a large body of research, but despite being a familiar here I haven't found anything than individual sets of reports, not as a collective whole.

Thanks for putting me right on that.
As to "expecting a high level of precision" I think you read too much into my post. I was asking if there was a level of research to establish who shot down whom but did accept that in the melee of a dogfight where one victor may shortly thereafter become a victim without the claim being able to be made by the pilot.

It is precisely because of the amount of information that I see daily coming up on the board that I asked the question as there is such a high level of quality information analysing claims. I just hadn't realised that it was all being pulled together in one place.

Thanks for the info, I look forward to doing some more trawling through the threads!

[Larry Hickey]

Icare9,

It is being pulled together in a comprehensive way for the first 16 months of the war, and many others besides or EoE research team are doing projects on other parts of the war. Much of what you see from the EoE WG has not yet been published, particularly in its greatly improved and upgraded form. That will yet come in the future. We're still struggling mightily with the fact that such a high percent of Bf110 unit claims info was lost during the war. We've replaced some of it from KTBs, FB and other sources, but a great deal, especially for certain specific units is largely still unknown.

Regards,

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Icare9

I was asking if there was a level of research to establish who shot down whom but did accept that in the melee of a dogfight where one victor may shortly thereafter become a victim without the claim being able to be made by the pilot.

My experience is that where numerous aircraft are involved, you simply don't have enough information reliably to assign a claim to a particular loss (in the unlikely event that the numbers of claims and losses match up in the first place). The best you can say for a lot of actions is that these pilots made claims and those aircraft were lost but you can't identify personal responsibility.

Also it's worth having a look at Alfred Price's books "The Hardest Day" and "Battle of Britain Day." In one of those he unravels the tale of a stricken He 111 fired on by something like half a dozen different RAF pilots as it tried to get home and claimed separately by all of them.

[Bombphoon]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Battle-Brita...9309072&sr=1-1

and

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blitz-Then-N...9309117&sr=1-1

and

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blitz-Then-N...ref=pd_sim_b_1

[John Vasco]

If you want to have a bit of fun, try the following:

1) Verifying the claims of III./ZG 26; and
2) Sorting out the claims made by 74 Sqdn. on 11th August 1940.

In short, the above are part of the reason I gave up trying to attribute claims to losses in any great depth. As has been posted earlier, if you can in particular combats, great. But don't expect things to fall neatly into place right across the board.

[ahafan]

Originally Posted by Icare9

Is there already any definitive work that has examined each days action and established who shot what down?

It seems to me that this is one area that hasn't been exhaustively researched, not least because of the uncertainty when say a German pilot shot down a British aircraft but in turn was shot down himself, there wouldn't necessarily be any way of accrediting that in the melee of a dogfight..

However, this many years later we can establish what pilots took off from each side and who returned, so whilst it may not be possible to attribute a loss to a specific pilot, but perhaps to a likely unit.

Has this already been done, or is this an area that both the Allied and the Luftwaffe board experts can work on?

Tricky subjection-how about Hans Joachim Marseilles claims..
NOW EXPERTS- tell me who he shot down..the full 7 from the 10/8
Sharon

[Icare9]

Thanks for the helpful responses.
Specifically, what is known of the loss of Hurricane V6699 from 605 Squadron on 28th September 1940 for example? Was H-J Marseilles possibly involved?