Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin claims

[GMichalski]

hello,

i checked his claims years and its incredible the versions i found about it...

why so many different?


Final tally
Pokryshkin's score is heavily disputed among historians. Overclaiming was not uncommon in World War II, and Pokryshkin's claims in his memoir are much higher than recent estimates by historians and official records, and recent estimates are generally lower than older estimates. In 1986 Oleg Levchenko claimed that Pokryshkin in fact shot down 94 enemy aircraft, damaged 19 and destroyed three more on the ground, and said that no less than 15 victories scored in 1941 were not taken into account, because the documents confirming them were destroyed during the hurried withdrawal from encirclement during the Battle of Uman.[17] However, Levchenko's claims are generally disputed in 21st century estimates, which tend to place Pokryshkin's tally in the mid 40s. Thomas Polak and Christopher Shores credited him with 53 solo and 6 shared victories in their 1999 book, however the bibliography of the book cites Pokryshkin's memoirs instead of any official documents, and the tallies of several other aviators are heavily inflated to match the official Soviet claims.[18] Russian historian Mikhail Bykov credited him with 43 individual and 3 shared victories in a 2014 book;[9] a decade earlier, in an article titled Мутное Небо 1941 года ("The Murky Sky of 1941") with Aleksandr Rodionov he claimed that Pokryshkin tried to steal Rechkalov's kills during 1941.[19] Andrey Simonov and Nikolai Bodrikhin credited him with 45 solo and 4 shared shootdowns in a 2017 book

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pokryshkin

regards