New information on the Experte Schwarm

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by ahafan

Hi
well they were fighting for the -third Reich..Nick;

Pardon? I was writing about authors and researchers, who are you talking about?

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Regarding the 20 December 1943 incident, I found the story dubious when the presented proof was that Stigler remembered the name of the attacked bomber. Aircraft names were certainly not easy to read for a foreign pilot that has something else to do, not to speak of remembering an odd English expression for 45 years.

On the other hand, the discussion as reported in this thread by Bryan seems to me a far more serious base for the story.

As for FOTD, all that I have to say is that I still use it as one of my sources 40 years later. Apart from personal testimonies, it is the oldest book I use. I will still try to confirm and validate what is written inside it, and add data from other available sources, but I do the same for books written today.

[Juha]

I have one small question on the 16 Aug 42 combat, can we be sure that all 3 Tomahawks were damaged in the air combat and none by the “intense and accurate light and heavy Ack/Ack”?

[harrison987]

Originally Posted by Laurent Rizzotti

Regarding the 20 December 1943 incident, I found the story dubious when the presented proof was that Stigler remembered the name of the attacked bomber. Aircraft names were certainly not easy to read for a foreign pilot that has something else to do, not to speak of remembering an odd English expression for 45 years.
.

If I recall correctly, Stigler already spoke English at this time...and he flew next to the B-17 for an extended peiod of time - quite long enough to see the name. Regardless, if you were involved in such am incident, I "guarantee" you would remember the name of the aircraft...regardless of what language you spoke - "Ye Old Pub" is not exactly a hard name to remember, even if one had no concept of English.

[Nokose]

These two veterans obviously knew things about the 20Dec43 incident that only they knew on talking and the German side would not have any report on the incident. If there was any Luftwaffe pilot or someone they knew had knowledge of this incident being false they would have stepped forward by now. The other occurence was taken care and any of you that has stepped into a "bear trap" knows not to go there again.

[Edward L. Hsiao]

Did Franz Stigler did a few years ago?

Edward L. Hsiao

[NickM]

Originally Posted by jaepton

Historian Peter Randall posted this:
I tend to put things like this into the same category as the well known Bob Johnson story of the 190 shooting the crap out of him, saluting, then leaving him alone. It's part of the 56th legend, enhanced in print by Martin Caidin and very credible until you read Gerry Johnson's account of the action where he shot a 190 off of Bob's tail whilst a second one hightailed it.

This is a blast from the past and might be TOTALLY uncalled for by me, but Randall needs to check his facts--AFAIK, it was JG26 that bounced The 56th FG the day Bob Johnson had his encounter, and according to the JG26 Diary (IF my memory is correct) they didn't suffer any losses. I have no idea who Gerry Johnson was shooting at.

[VtwinVince]

I don't think there's any question that Stigler and Brown were honorable people, I knew them and can vouch for that. However, as I have posted in related threads on the activities of certain members of JG27, there are a lot of unanswered questions. I tried to clarify some of these with Edu Neumann many years ago, and even forwarded copies of documents from my uncle's archives. I got a very gruff 'piss off' from him which I found very telling. Obfuscation was the order of the day back then, which begs the question: why?

[NickM]

Originally Posted by VtwinVince

I don't think there's any question that Stigler and Brown were honorable people, I knew them and can vouch for that. However, as I have posted in related threads on the activities of certain members of JG27, there are a lot of unanswered questions. I tried to clarify some of these with Edu Neumann many years ago, and even forwarded copies of documents from my uncle's archives. I got a very gruff 'piss off' from him which I found very telling. Obfuscation was the order of the day back then, which begs the question: why?

Perhaps they don't want to speak ill of an old, departed comrade? I remember reading Axel Urbanke's 'Dora Era' book on III/JG54, and found some of the info/perspective was kind of different than even the 'thumbnail' information provided in the Caldwell JG26 War Diary (Heilman's landing at a captured airfield; Dortenmann's drive to get that Knight's Cross); perhaps a Non German will write stuff that a 'former comrade' will not?