31/05/40:Missing claims III/JG26

[focusfocus]

31/05/40
According Prien,20 claims for III/JG26 that day
According Caldwell (JG 26 Books vol.1),ONLY 14 claims for III/JG26

"Quid" of claims of Lt Westphal (2) stab/III
Uffz Burkardt (1) 8/staffel
Uffz Brugelmann (1) 8/staffel
Fw Gartner (1) 8/staffel
Lt Sprick (1) 8/staffel

Why this important difference between two excellent authors and WHO is right?
Thank's in advance
Michel

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Prien's team's book are more recent, so should be closer to the truth.

And at some stage in the JG 26 books (probably in vol 2), Caldwell says that he is missing some claims

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

Answer is between twenty-two and twenty four:-

7./JG 26

Klaus Mietusch Hurricane 1540
Georg Beyer Hurricane 1540
Franz Lüders Hurricane 1300......also appears on ASM list, but with 6./JG 26(assume one claim)

8./JG 26

Heinz Ebeling Hurricane 1545
Gerhard Grzymalla Hurricane 1545
Helmut Brugelmann Hurricane 1530
Gustav Sprick Hurricane 1540

9./JG 26

Josef Haibock Spitfire 1540
Erwin Buschella Spitfire 1540
Gerhard Schopfel Spitfire x two 1540(but again one on ASM list)
Erwin Busch Hurricane 1540

Stab.III./JG 26

Joachim Müncheberg Lysander 1535, Hurricanes at 1540, 1545, Spitfire 2025
Alfred Burchardt Hurricane 1530
Ernst-Helmut von Berg Hurricane 1540, Lysander 2020
Heinrich Otteking Hurricane 1540
Hans-Jürgen Westphal Hurricane 1540, Spitfire 2015
Josef Gartner Spitfire 2030.

Kind Regards

Johannes

P.S sometimes on the ASM list 8./JG 26 just shows as III./JG 26, same for other Staffels.

[John Vasco]

Originally Posted by Laurent Rizzotti

Prien's team's book are more recent, so should be closer to the truth.

Not logical (and not a tilt at Jochen).

You should see the shedloads of crap that is STILL touted around about the Bf 110, despite the facts I have published years ago (I will not name individuals...).

[Peter Cornwell]

Agreed - we seem intent on re-inventing the wheel at every turn. Advent of the www. has simply made the situation worse with websites replicating nonsense which is then duplicated ad nauseam until it becomes acknowledged as fact. Meanwhile publishers are only interested in churning out constant variations on a theme and precious little true progress is made. God help future historians trying to sort the wheat from all this chaff.

[focusfocus]

There is no confusion ? between Erwin BUSCH and Erwin BUSCHELLA,despite my efforts I don't find a trace of an BUSCHELLA (losse for example)

Michel

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

I totally agree with the replication. I ignored all previous publications, and worked solely on evidence i.e mikrofilms and flugbücher. The mikrofilms are finite, seems unless there is a discovery in a archive somewhere, but I am still acquiring diaries and flightbooks. My writing partner says "Once published, it's cast in stone"

Kind Regards

Johannes

[John Vasco]

Originally Posted by Johannes

My writing partner says "Once published, it's cast in stone"

Rubbish! Unless you writing partner is misconstruing things.

Once published, it's published. If we were to take your writing partner's premise, then everything published about the Battle of Britain since the 1960s is 'cast in stone'. Oh dear! The only things that can be certain are undisputed pieces of information backed up by hard facts.

Your partner may be into writing; have they ever done any research...?

"Very soon, the big lick" Yeah, right!!!

[Johannes]

Hi John

Well I think he has been misunderstood, he is a avid researcher with dozens of published books. What he ment was once something is published it's "fact", and these "facts" are used by other authors, though they could be very, very wrong.
Example in our most recent book(by memory) we list Oskar-Heinz Bar with three unconfirmed Thunderbolts on 27th March 1945, but have recently acquired a copy of his flugbook, which shows that he didn't fly this day, and that they were duplications for those of 27th April 1945 ! Could have been a previous mistype that caused the confusion.

Even American habit of putting the month before the day when numerically writing a date causes problems.

The fact that something has been in every publication since the beginning of time, doesn't make it correct.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[John Vasco]

Johannes,
Your first sentence: thanks for qualifying your point. I understand where you are coming from now. However, notwithstanding the 'fact' (sorry, terrible word to use in this context) that other authors use such information, the thing is that the legal tenet of 'He who asserts must prove' SHOULD be used on every single occasion in order to apply the necessary checks and balances to every single incident. Failure to do so results in things being published like Wilhelm-Richard Rößiger being shot down deep inland on 27th September 1940. WHAT???

Your last sentence: again correct. 'Check, check, and check again' is the watch phrase. Check on the reliability and provenance of the source(s). One particular incident would make you blanche if I gave the full details, which I won't as a certain person is a member here...