Hartmann: claims vs. victories

[rof120]

Originally Posted by MW Giles

https://www.military-stuff.org/spitf...ncamera-video/

Galland is seen at the end of the film

Whether it is his gun camera footage is another matter

Martin

Interesting in any case. His gun footage? Maybe, maybe not but obviously this bit of film contains extracts from several, very different ones:

1. At least twice we can see a Me 109, probably F, with the typical new (large) nose and cowling. Not BoB, Fs started only at the very end of 1940 (with Mölders IIRC).

2. At least twice, too, we can see an aircraft under fire, seen with the eyes of the attacking pilot, but we can see, very clearly, multiple flight paths of tracers typical of BRITISH 1940 fighters armed with 8 light machine-guns. So this could hardly be Galland.

3. We can see several "Spitfires" (under attack) carrying one cannon in each wing. Hardly BoB for only a few Spits from ONE squadron flew with cannon a few times.

4. At the very end we can see Galland leaving his cockpit and walking on the ground. He has just come back from a combat mission, still wearing his inflatable life jacket etc. He is met by numerous, enthusiastic people so I suspect this part was shot at the peak of his success in the BoB, possibly in September or October 1940 (and he was already Wing Leader JG 26), and perhaps all these guys were acting especially for the PK-camera.

[rof120]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Having got that picture posted successfully, it's probably time to get back to this thread's original topic, i.e. Erich Hartmann's verifiable claims.

Luftwaffe gun-camera footage might well deserve a thread of its own, though.

Yes - you are perfectly right.

[Franek Grabowski]

Are there any known surviving combat reports of Hartmann?

[Johannes]

Hi Franek

Not that I know of.

Many of Barkhorn's survive, A.S.M, v.n.e-a.s.m claims for JG52 are completely surviving until mid-1944, but Hartmann's claims rather suspiciously seem all to have been the non-problem type. Actually I have all the JG52 A.S.M claims, and it is very noticeable, you would think with so many claims that there would be a few.

I assume that each pilot was given a copy at the time? Something we can be enlightened on hopefully.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Franek Grabowski]

Johannes
I understand that the German bureaucracy produced a number of reports, certainly no less than the RAF which had an extensive distribution list. I am surprised that so few survived. I would say that they are essential to make assessment of pilot's scoring.

[Johannes]

Hi Franek

Thank you for your input.

As stated before I believe that A.S.M claims were treated differently than non-disputed claims, perhaps going to a different department.

Barkhorn's non-disputed claims are interesting, sometimes it mentions the air witness having since being killed, sometimes months afterwards, so it shows that the witness report is likely to have been followed up on.

The A.S.M report evolve into more complex affairs with extensive air-witness reports, claimants report of combat, and an evolved concise sheet recording ammunition spent, how many bullets own aircraft received e.t.c, if enemy crew bailed-out. Many of these A.S.M reports have only ground-witnesses, lots for Wilhelm Batz early on, if he was making fake claims, then I can't see it being early on(early 1943).

Many of Georg-Peter Eder's claims reports also survive, don't know why so many pilots do not have these.

Helmut Mischke(SG2) was killed in the last days of the war, his daughter told me that her Mother buried all his paperwork and decorations in their garden because they feared what would happen to them if the Russian's found these items with them.

The only reason Hartmann has been fingered as an "over-claimer" is we can now due to the mikrofilms compare his exact claims details against Russian losses. Based on nothing, perhaps Hartmann destroyed his reports to keep his claims vague ?

Keep well

Johannes

[krichter33]

How many of Eder's claims are A.S.M.

[Franek Grabowski]

Johannes
I think that there is some unclarity about the process of reporting victories.
I understand that pilots following combat mission had to went through a debriefing, either on Staffel or Gruppe level, regardless of claims made. Claims submitted were then doubtless put through a preliminary verification at the same level. Those which passed were then submitted to RLM, no doubt with plenty of associated paperwork.
I guess that the pilots had liberty to keep their copies or not, they were in the unit's records anyway.

The problem is, as I understand, that this paperwork did not survive, except few cases. Nonetheless this paperwork is just essential to try to recreate combats and their results.
Based on time and place of a victory, without getting through the circumstances, I would not risk a definite statement that the claim was a fraud. More so, in several cases, at least in the period of my interest, there are no full details of all victories. Sometimes names are missing, sometimes no place, sometimes no time. In some cases it is possible to verify information provided, like wrong time, presumably typo error at some point. Without this complete data, any assessment of reliability of claims is nearly impossible.
In general there are two main reasons of overclaim. One is combats over sea or any other area, where it is not possible to see the wreck. Another intense dogfights involving numerous aircraft. The overclaim does not mean that the claims filed were frauds, however. I have seen several cases of same aircraft being fired by numerous pilots, neither noticing each other, or misidentification of aircraft going down due to eg. black out. Funny case was a one of a BoB pilot claiming He 111. He attacked the aircraft, scoring critical hits. Nonetheless following a break, he noticed another He 111 going down in the area of his attack, and claimed as his own. In fact, the one attacked crashed as well. Both were attacked by numerous fighters. Had been there no combat report with narrative, this could have been possibly considered a fraud, while it was a mistake in heat of combat.

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

Firstly Eder, he had one each A.S.M, E.V, V.N.E-A.S.M AND H.S.S, and in my humble opinion was a honest claimer.

The question of mistakes. We have been over the "didn't follow protocol" reason for an "over-claim", honest but not going by the book, or wingman too overworked to follow the book.

With water it's different, crash-sites were where possible investigated, in the East most claims were over Russian held territory so this was usually impossible to do, in the West it is more likely to be investigated, and in my opinion there are more unconfirmed claims in the west than East. But over water, there is usually no possibility to investigate, or should I say no wreck to investigate. Wilhelm Batz used ships and flak units for some of his earlier claims as witnesses over water..........what motivation is there for any of these to bare false witness?

The most accurate claimers were night-fighters, reasons for this are:-

1, the bombers were likely to burn very visibly.

2, the bombers were not able to escape using maneuvre like diving-away that looked like the aircraft was going down.

3, the night-fighters were in my opinion able to spend more time with a victim...........no swarms of escorting enemy fighters.

4, the calibre of guns was higher, you could say this for ZG units, but they would be more pressured by enemy fighters.

5, regarding witnesses, they would be the crew, the pilots got the majority of credit, therefore there was less incentive to bare false witness.

I think we have established that if two-thirds of a pilots claims actually crashed, then he was a honest, but sometimes mistaken pilot. I would add to this also "opportunity" a pilot would probably be able to make actual "fake claims" for only a limited period...........some pilots took this opportunity, other honest guys did not. I think of it like business men, the cheaters are often the most successful.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[rof120]

Hello Johannes,

You wrote this:

"2, the bombers were not able to escape using maneuvre like diving-away that looked like the aircraft was going down."

Are you aware of the RAF "corkscrewing" evading manoeuvre created with the help of a Ju 88 night-fighter which had landed in Scotland? I own a copy of an English book on this story but where is the bl... book right now?

Corkscrewing certainly made it possible for dozens, possibly hundreds, of RAF bombers to escape their tormentors (but not Harris), at least provisionally. They bloody needed this help.