JG 51 victories (Part 2)

[Courtois Laurent]

Originally Posted by focusfocus

Bonjour Laurent

Analyse intéressante,it also seems that the 3 victories claimed by Normandie are injustified

Cordialement

Bonjour,

Indeed none of the victories granted to the French pilots are valid by the German losses which have only one damaged plane today. The victories were granted because the Soviet soldiers in the front lines reported the downing of three planes, but given the distance, it is impossible that the said planes could be identified.

The three French victories must be considered as "consolatory" for the French and to mitigate the potential sanctions of Moscow on the leaders of the first army weakened by the failed operation of February 23 (from memory) on German airfields.

On the first 10 days of April of which I put the translations on my site "normandie-niemen.fr", there are already 2 days when the first air army announces 4 victories against fock-wulf which are not confirmed by any division. In 1 case neither of them reported FW-190s and in the other two pilots repelled an attack by FW-190s against Il-2s, but claimed no victory. It seems that the staff of the first Soviet air force have inflated its victory to get out of the collimator of the Stavka (general staff of the Red Army).

Cordialement