Luftwaffe losses. Rhubarb 22/05/1941.

[robert]

And in which way? Each second or third plane lost? Overclaiming did happen on both sides.

Robert

[Andy Saunders]

Exactly so Robert. Overclaiming was, and is, an element of warfare. It happened and happens. And that does not mean to say that the "overclaimers" (of any side) were being dishonest. I am sure I am not alone in thinking that the allegations that the Luftwaffe hid the real extent of their losses is in any way credible.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, guys.

Once again it seems I cannot help but get involved in a 'futile' discussion... I had set my mind on not doing this, at least not until I had finished my article on the loss reporting system. But I do believe that one should at least try to counter statements like the one you made in your last post if possible.

Dear Bernard - you speak of the Luftwaffe 'hiding losses'. I think what should be done before one makes allogations like that is to have all possible documentation on both sides available.

1. First and foremost - the CLAIM (and I write claim with large letters here) for a JU 52 PROBABLY destroyed is not the same thing as a Ju 52 destroyed. Why do you think these two pilots reported this aircraft as a probable? Because they did not see it go down, and thus could not state otherwise! What they did say was that they had opened fire on an aircraft and seen smoke emit from TWO of three engines of the aircraft... and that it was gradually loosing altitude over a wooded area. They assumed it would be impossible for it to get down in one piece - but they werent 100% about it so they chalked it up as a possible aircraft destroyed. I think that is a good way of doing things - namely stating that they THOUGHT this aircraft would eventually be destroyed, but couldn't be entirely sure, so they did not claim it as destroyed. And this is your basis for making the statement that Luftwaffe were not reporting their losses... nice!

2. Do you know from wartime documentation on the German side what degree of damage an aircraft damage accessor would set on a damaged or destroyed engine on a three engined aircraft? 3%? 5%? 8%? 10%? 15%? or....? Please take into account that NO aircraft damage BELOW 10% would necessitate a report outside of the unit or airfield we are talking about. When will people start to understand what this means I wonder...

3. If the aircraft made it to the nearest airfield (or an open field that the RAF pilots did not see) and landed without further damage, and with no personnel injuries, where would you find the documentation for this loss?

4. Do you have a searchable database for all Ju 52 damage during the war so that you can rule out the possibility that a Ju 52 were reported at one time or another? This database would of course have to consist of all reports to the central units like the GenQu 6 Abt for both secondary and frontline units from 23.05.1941 through to the capitulation, all unit record books for the units operating Ju 52's, all logbooks for aircrew on Ju 52's for the duration of the war, all records from both frontline and larger repair facilities and I could probably go on for a long time.

If you can complete this checklist, and show that according to it NO Ju 52 were attacked on the above mentioned date, I will be willing to accept that the Luftwaffe were purposely hiding this loss.

So please post a new message when you have completed it. For the 1944 period I would be delighted if you can enter what you find into The 1944 Project database, so as to help expand the knowledge of that period of time.

Also - I would like to make another point - mostly to Franek:

It is entirely possible that the 'political' wing of the OKW and RLM were reporting losses in a rosy way - for the war in the air, on the ground and at sea. But you never seem to get past this high level approach in your discussion or your thinking! I will mention a few things to you:

1. German mothers and fathers seemed to care about their children during this conflict - and the german government seemed to care enough to at least inform the parents or relatives when a loved one was killed or injured. This is a further source for loss information! And one that can add to what we have in the archives.

2. At least the catholic part of Germany used to pray for their lost relatives, using the well known prayer cards. If one or more of these contain information on pilots or aircrew that were never reported as killed,
please let us identify these and try to find out whay and how many!

also

3. We KNOW that the archival material from the WWII Wehrmacht is not complete due to the fact that things get destroyed during war (and remember that our friends in the east still keep tons of documents locked up in original unopened paper sacks to this day... or at least up until a few years ago... as experienced by Holocaust researchers less than a decade ago!)

So I suggest that until you at least have some real evidence that the records were doctored, that you refrain from making these statements again and again... and please... if you find 5 cases... it is not proving your point... even today an error rate of 5 to 90000 in a timespan of 5+ years is not considered as 'doctoring' the records.... find us a couple of thousand verified losses from both sides that were not recorded, and I will be more than willing to accept your claim that the loss records were doctored.

And one final thing... why the f*** would the Luftwaffe Generalstab 6. Abteilung go to such an effort, employing dozens of people, to get aircraft damage down to 10%!!! with no personnel loss!!! reported every frigging day of the war if the point was to hide their losses... why not just stop making the records? Ever thought of that??

Regards,
Andreas B

[Andreas Brekken]

Hehe... seems I was not the only one...

Regards,
Andreas B

[Andy Saunders]

Very well said, Andreas. Everything you say is absolutely correct.

[Don Caldwell]

Agitators who have no data to back their wild speculations have pretty much destroyed the useful dialogue that once distinguished this site. As Andreas says, there is no reason whatsoever for the combat units themselves to have covered up their losses -- and the data for 1941 are very good, and come from several independent sources. RAF Fighter Command claims for Luftwaffe fighters on the Kanalfront in 1941 exceeded true Luftwaffe losses by a factor of 7 to 1 -- see my JG 26 War Diary Volume 1 for the day-to-day details. AFAIK no-one has published anything similar for claims over non-fighter types, so here's a "hole" someone can fill, but there's no reason to expect this ratio to change by much. Fighter Command claims remained excessive until early 1943, when the spread of gun cameras and the (possibly coincidental) arrival of the 8th Fighter Command in the UK led to a dramatic tightening of standards.

Horrido!

Don

[Juha]

Hello
well I definitely agree that overclaiming was/is a fact in aerial warfare but according to Foreman's 1941 Part 2 there were 2 LW twin engine losses on 22 May 1941. Not very probable but pilots sometimes made bad target identification errors.
Ju 88A5 2281 from K.Gr. 806 force landed at Caen with battle damage . 80% damaged.
He 59 1518 from SNF.Kdo 6 was reported missing in the Channel area. Fw Paul Erdmann and crew missing.

Juha

[Franek Grabowski]

Andreas
You have almost fully answered your own questions.
Yes, the main problem is lack of resources. I have no doubt, that most of losses were recorded some way, but having a fraction of original documents, we are unable to verify most of existing data, not to mention filling any possible gaps. More, we are unable to use all of documents, as as we know eg. personnel records are not accessible to researchers. Of course, you are right, that it is possible to look for obituaries and death notices, but the problem is with access to these data as well as with numbers involved, combined with limited information then released to the public. More, I expect most of possible gaps are aircraft with various degree of damage and not involving human losses. How many of them were not recorded, how many aircraft of older types were written off despite minor level of damage, how many aircraft were reassessed to another degree of damage?
You say that "five" losses is not enough to prove the point. All I can say is that I have found those "five" losses without any deep research into the Luftwaffe. I suppose that with a more complex research you can multiply those "five", but do not ask me about the factor. Still, there is no reason to avoid discussion on those "five" cases, as well as Galland's loss estimates. Also, please note, that talking about reasonable 10% of total losses, we can get a totally different percentage in individual cases.
Finally, talking about Allied records, do not be silly! Of course, there was some overclaim, but this is a completely different matter. Let's talk about small skirmishes, where multiple witnesses reported German losses, and where various evidence was gathered. Let's talk about the case of Norwegian pilot, whose Spitfire was damaged by debris from a Focke Wulf, which is IIRC not listed by GQ6. I challenge you to provide logical explanation to such cases, and not a simple note that there is nothing in the book.
Finally, about GQ6 reports, have you ever read Kafka? Or perhaps bothered to read newspapers to find some information about eurobureaucrats spending their time on classifying carrot as a fruit, analysing curvature of banana or inventing a standarised europenis? I bet they were quite busy trying to prove they are much more necessary behind their desks, rather than on the Eastern Front!

Don
Several points of disagreement.
First of all, Fighter Command claims varied through the period significantly, and no simple date of an end of overclaim can be established. Camera guns, were quite popular during 1941 and due to those experiences at the end of the year it was decided to introduce them as a standard equipment. Still, USAAF fighters continued rather high overclaim ratio well into 1944, despite their excellent gun cameras. I think it had more to general policy and verification system rather than to pilots themselves.
That said, German units continued to overclaim heavily, especially if combat was over sea. For example, it is believed (by Andy) that during the last flight of Bader, at least three Spitfires went down due to friendly fire. Therefore, we should subtract three kills from German victories, and add them to Fighter Command. Personally, I estimate friendly fire losses at about 10-20%, so this is quite substantial. It should not be forgotten, that several Fighter Command combat losses were due to accidents or malfunctions not related to enemy action. Thus, any statistic not based on individual research may be misleading.
Finally, how can you say that German data are excellent, if you wrote in your book that only two out of thirty KTBs have survived?

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, again

I have not mentioned overclaim from the allied side at all - I have only mentioned that we cannot find any loss related to some of the claims, and offered several explanations.

And again you twist the reality to suit your needs:

Your primary statement is that the Luftwaffe DELIBERATELY doctored their reports in order to hide their losses. You have repeated this in so many threads that it is kind of getting boring, but without offering evidence, except as far as I can recall from a former thread 5 'cases' where you indicate that a loss record was not filed, or there were errors in the reports. At least one of those 5 concerns a loss that happened in April 1945. The files we have accessible in archives stop on April 2nd, no doubt the reason being that the records filed after that date never made it out of Berlin, and could either be in former archives of the Soviet union or lost forever - but to use this as an example for a loss record not being made is not very scientific.

I have never stated that the records from the Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt are perfect, they are not! But they are not, as you dismiss them as, purely statistical data - they contain all data necessarily for detailed information on the aspect of aircraft damage and losses. The major problem is that we would like them to be complete (thus locate the missing records dated 03.01.1944 through 31.01.1944), not that the ones we have are not good enough for the dates covered.

One of the major aspects here is also in fact the problem related to destruction or poor handling of records by allied forces after the end of the war (for example the Auxerre repair facility records, where the original Lebenslaufakten for hundreds of FW 190's were destroyed, and the resulting lists made by the allied forces not being near as detailed as we should wish), and the fact that some archives are not open to the public (re archoves of the former Soviet Union and Luftwaffe records at the National archives in Olso, Norway).

And your statement about the people in the Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt. making up a workload not to end up at the eastern front is really not good form. The opposite is probably closer to the truth - the work they did in order to record and control the resources of the Luftwaffe was so important that they had to stay in Berlin to the bitter end. Original records I have researched show that they received basic infantry training in the courtyard of the RLM building in order to defend this if and when the Soviet forces appeared. And yes, they probably were more use behind a desk. If you had bothered to check the list of the employees, you would have noted that they were not men in the appropriate fighting age, but senior men and young women for the most part.

It is remarks like the ones you make with regards to fruit and eurobureaucrats that foils your entire line of argumentation... it does not come across as very serious.

And yes, I have read Kafka, and probably more literature than most. If you are trying to come across as an intellectual, I would suggest you try to rephrase and even reconsider some of your entries.

It would also be of interest if you could post some of your research with sources, so other people could see what you have done and give input with regards to the validity of your findings.

And as I stated in another thread this morning - maybe one should consider getting back to some real research, as I believe that you will not want to accept any opinions not coinciding with your own anyways.

Regards,
Andreas B

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, Juha

Yes, there are losses that could have been a match, and I have nearly 30 Ju 52 damaged/lost this day. There is only ine problem for me to accept a misidentification, and that is the fact that both pilots identify this as a Ju 52, and that they specifically mentions getting the central engine to stop...

Problem is that most of them are on Crete which is a fair bit from the claim area.

Will be interesting to see if we ever find anything relating directly to this incident.

Regards,
Andreas B