Severe Overclaimers Vs. Reliable Claimers List

[Rob Romero]

Recently, I attempted to initiate a database of Historically Verifiable Victories (VV). Although some headway (especially with WWI German Aces) has been attained, the result, has not yet become what one might have hoped. Perhaps a more pragmatic approach would be to garner a sense of which aces were Reliable Vs. Exaggerated Claimants. Admittedly, as with Historically Verifiable Victories Thread, this would be an IMPERFECT and CONTROVERSIAL undertaking, however, eventually, and which much vetting, this avenue might garner some historical insight. To reduce my workload, I will keep this list EXCLUSIVE from the more concrete results obtained in the Historically Verifiable Victories (VV) Thread.

Alleged Heavy Overclaimers
352 Erich Hartmann –based on ‘research’ of Dimitri Khazanov
258 Walter Nowotny
224 Erich Rudorffer Afrika “Rudorffer's serious overclaims over the eastern front” Falsified Claims in Afrika?
173 Emil Lang
129 Walter Dahl –less than 100 credits according to J-Y Lorant
127 Walter Oesau
112 Kurt Bühlingen
99 Heinrich Bartels
94 Rudolf Muller
93 Sigfried Schnell
56 Helmut Wick
37 Thomas McGwire (Harry Brown (7) personally indicated McGwire scrambled, parachuted over base & claimed 3 kills he could not possibly have made!)
33 Erwin Sawallisch (Allegedly caught falsifying combats with schwarm in Afrika –may have subsequently killed himself -Source Hans Ring/Chris Shores)

JG2 in Afrika, JG5 , JG54 are some of the Luftwaffe Units Alleged to have had a licentious outlook on overclaiming.

Alleged Reliable Claimers
-Keep in mind that few pilots even come near to 100% reliablility in their claims!
221 Heinz Bär?
158 Hans-Joachim Marseille
103 Adolf Galland (Don Caldwell alleges that Galland deliberately overclaimed on at least one occaision)
102 Egon Mayer
101 Josef Priller (Kept meticulous record of combats apparently researched and largely verified by Johnny Johnson (38 )
35 Bruno Stolle

Thanx,
Rob Romero

P.S. On a related note, on 9 Feb 43 Erich Rudorffer claimed to have shot down 8 aircraft (6 P-40s and 2 P-38s) American records do not substatiate his P-38 claims –how about the P-40s?