Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II

[Nokose]

Just recently I noticed in JFV 9/II that it has "10.08.42 8./JG 52 Oblt. Guenther Rall LaGG-3 (46) 06:09 Pl.Qu. 05232/ S. Krasnodar". That location and S. of Krasnodar doesn't match. In Tony Woods list I believe its 85 232. Is there a confirmation in Rall's log book?

[Johannes]

Hi

tony Woods is correct in his reading of grid quadrant 85232 altitude 1800 metres, which I worked-out to be East of Stawropoliskaja. But there would be several places with this reference as the grid quadrants reoccure, but they are just about as far apart as can be......it all depends on where the unit is at that time. Also Southwest of Boston would be the same place as Northeast of New York!

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Nokose]

Thank you Johannes! The 85 is probably the correct Pl.Qu. even though the Lutwaffe was flying in the 05 and I have found claims in this area on occasion. The S. of Krasnodar seemed kind of wrong for that Pl.Qu. I found Stavropolskaya to the south of Krasnodar. Now I need to verify the Soviet pilot's location and time that I suspect.

[Johannes]

Hi

Rall was particulary meticulous in claiming, he never really had large numbers of claims in a day as he "didn't take risks"! Sad thing is that he lamented the fact that his closest competition Graf, Nowotny and Hartmann received the Brillianten, and he only the Schwerter, yet he would appear to be the only honest claimer amongst them. The Author Bernd Barbas questioned him about the confirmation of number 275, and it would appear that Rall didn't complete the paperwork as he was incapacitated at the time, so 274 it is! All others are confirmed on the micro films, and numbers 199 and 200 are duplicated exactly a month later, which proves that the micro films do harbor mistakes!!!

You will find that if a pilot makes huge daily claims that he is usually being dis-honest, but it's not always the case!

Regards

Johannes

[Oberst]

Hartmann wasn't a honest claimer? I beg to differ on that. The Russians tended to lie more about there losses. Easier to do that then to end up in the Gulag.

[Nick Hector]

If you read the Lipfert war diary, he talks of intercepting the Russian weather reconnaissance flights on many occasions and getting kills that way.
Then go through Rall's victory list and look at the altitudes of some of his kills...

...It starts to become clear that he made kind of a 'career' out of shooting down single aircraft flying at relatively high altitude in comparison to most of the eastern front combats e.g. the weather reconaissance fighters that Lipfert wrote of.

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

Originally Posted by Oberst

The Russians tended to lie more about there losses. Easier to do that then to end up in the Gulag.

Looks like a cold war stereotype. Info about losses moved by several ways. It wasn't possible to hide the losses. And military archives (TsAMO, TsVMA) contains huge amount of documents with info about losses, and they suitable for cross-checking.

Documents with personal losses are available on-line, in contrast with German NVM, which still unavailable after the closing in the end of Eighties.

[Rasmussen]

Originally Posted by Andrey Kuznetsov

Documents with personal losses are available on-line, ...

Where? What's the link?

Regards
Rasmussen

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

http://obd-memorial.ru/flash/

Regards,
Andrey

[Oberst]

Originally Posted by Andrey Kuznetsov

Looks like a cold war stereotype. Info about losses moved by several ways. It wasn't possible to hide the losses. And military archives (TsAMO, TsVMA) contains huge amount of documents with info about losses, and they suitable for cross-checking.

Documents with personal losses are available on-line, in contrast with German NVM, which still unavailable after the closing in the end of Eighties.

Doubt that very much. Things like that to hide is easy to do, in fact, its still common place today.