regarding fighters you are mistaken, the 109F came in and was matched against the superior Mkv not BOB aircraft, by 41 the mk2's had been relagated to either second line service or training squadrons, the luftwaffe had sent thier 109Es to the med.when the fw190 first apeared it came as a hell of a shock, fortunately for the RAF it was unreliable and was withdrawn, giving the RAF a chance to catch up giving us the Mkix which was a near match for the fw190 (and already superior to the 109F or even the later G, most agree that the 109 never matched the performance of the Mkix. as to interception tactics, by 41 the german air control system was a fully intergrated system of fighter direction, radar, ground control and flak that was a whole generation ahead of what the RAF had in the BOB

To OBNW: Not at all. The escorts used in the early '41 raids still often included Hurricanes as well as early Mk Spitfires. The MkV only began entering service in March '41, so during the spring of that year, most of the RAF fighters were the earlier Spits. The '109F entered service in Jan. '41, and was a greater improvement over the 'Emile' than the MkV Spit was over the MkII. Compared to the MkV, the 'F' was faster, and its critical altitude was higher. Certainly, the USAAF learned from the RAFs errors, but, as I said previously, the early USAAF raids (well into '43) did not involve a large enough number of escort a/c (particularly the long range P38s) to even attempt to practice the kind of massive close escort tactics the RAF used in '41. They had no choice but to use tactics than involved heading off the Luft interceptors from positions above the bombers so that the smaller numbers could be effective. This proved to be much better tactics anyway, compared to either those used by the Germans in the BoB or those used the next year by the RAF, but it was a result of reacting to necessity, not from a prepared theory. Before early '43, nobody had gotten it right.

Hi Larry I took the liberty of checking on the combat you mentioned as occurring on this date. It appears that your belief that the RAF failed to shoot down any German aircraft is mistaken. Here is the relevant quote from Christopher Shores' book on the Second Tactical Airforce. I've omitted the details of who claimed what: 'Early in the afternoon Spitfires of 421 and 443 Squadrons were led by Wg Cdr Johnson to undertake a sweep in the Paris area. Here a force of some 80 Fw190s and Bf109s were seen to the north-east of the city in the Senlis area.' (The RAF pilots claimed 7 Fw190s and 5 Bf109s) 'Three Spitfires were lost.' (The Germans claimed 9 Spitfires) 'Their opponents were from I/JG2, 1/JG11 and II/JG26' (Caldwell says that aircraft from 5 German units were present) 'I/JG2 listed four Fw190s lost on this date, while 17 Bf109s were lost in total by a number of units, including III/JG1, II and III/JG11 and IV/JG27, total Luftwaffe losses amounting to 24. Five claims were made by US pilots, all for Bf109s over the Seine and in the Sens area.' Clearly, even if we accept that all the US claims were accurate, this still leaves 19 German aircraft to be accounted for. Since there seems to have been no other significant combats by British fighters, and even if we allow that half of the 19 losses were to accidents or flak, then it still implies that the RAF shot down 9 or 10 German aircraft on this occasion. Best regards C

Hi Larry Just a few quick points: I appreciate your intentions in pointing me in the direction of DVD's of gun-camera films, but I'm not altogether sure how such 'edited highlights' can have much relevance for a study of the average WWII film. The producers of these DVD's clearly choose the most spectacular and conclusive examples they can find. No purchaser is going to want to sit through perhaps 50 murky, blurred, inconclusive films to get one clear, unequivocal kill. To take these as typical is like arguing that police work consists entirely of wild car-chases on the basis of the 'Stop! Police' type videos which were so popular a few years ago. Secondly, it seems to me that your arguments are inconsistent: you accept that US pilots overclaimed, but then argue that the US verification system was foolproof. I tend to take a 'Popperian' view of such things: if someone claims that 'X is always true', then it only takes one counter-example to disprove this assertion. Either the US system was foolproof OR the Americans overclaimed, but not both. Once you accept the existence of overclaiming, then everything comes down to exactly how much overclaiming went on: the details of the US assessment procedure are fairly irrelevant. Lastly, I'm not altogether clear why you mention McCampbell. If you intend to show that US pilots' claims were not automatically confirmed, then I would be the last person to dispute this. On the other hand, if you are saying that McCampbell really shot down 11 aircraft but was denied two of these kills by a heartless US system, then I fear I must disagree. In my opinion it is the 9 kills he was granted that are the problem, not the two he was denied. Surely you are not arguing that the raw claims made by US pilots should be taken as accurate? For what it's worth I would guess that McCampbell shot down between 2 and 4 aircraft. All the best C

To Cromwell: My source was the article: BRITAIN'S TOP SPITFIRE ACE by Jon Guttman, appearing in the Sept.'05 issue of AVIATION HISTORY magazine. "On August 23, Johnson and his wing got into an aerial brawl with elements of JG>11 and JG.26, during which he found himself in a Lufbery circle with six Fw-190s. Johnson claimed two of his antagonists, but another enemy put some holes in his Spitfire -- the only time that his plane was ever hit in the course of his long career. A total of 12 Germans were claimed by 127 Wing in the confusing dogfight, while JG.11 alone claimed nine Spitfires. In fact, only three Spitfires were destroyed, while the Germans lost no planes. I do offer apologies for mis-stating claims as confirmations.

To Cromwell: I offered McCampbell as an example of the US confirmation system. As he was alone, with his wingman, the only way he could get confirmation was by gun camera footage in absence of a second witness. The question isn't 'did he shoot down two more', the point is that the last two claims weren't even considered because they didn't meet the requirements. I have not said that the US system was foolproof. US confirmed claims were overstated by something like 50% average in the cases I've looked at after bomber gunner claims (off by 900-1000%) are taken out. I do think that the system was propably about as accurate as was practical under the circumstances. The claim was made (quoting Closterman) that the British system was much more strict and accurate than the US system. I'm offering rebuttal to that. Clearly the two periods I've mentioned for the RAF (last half of '41 over coastal Europe, and Spring '43 over NW Australia) involved MkV and earlier fighters, presumably without gun cameras, and involved overclaiming by 300-600%. I used those examples because I'd seen the numbers recently. By the way, as his kills were confirmed by camera, what is your basis for your contention that McCambell's kills were invalid, beyond your guess?? The supression of IJN and IJA a/c in the area during that operation would certainly seem to indicate that quite a lot of them were being shot down by someone.

I've got that book as well and it is great. Another good one is "Luftwaffe, Strategy for Defeat", very good overall numbers as well as insightful analysis. Which I cant find right now .. because my wife moves everything.

I've got that book as well and it is great. Another good one is "Luftwaffe, Strategy for Defeat", very good overall numbers as well as insightful analysis. Which I cant find right now .. because my wife moves everything.

Hi Larry Clearly our sources differ somewhat! I find it difficult to believe that a respected researcher like Christopher Shores could be so inaccurate. On the other hand, your magazine article makes no reference to JG2, so clearly, if the author failed to check the loss records for this unit, then he may well have thought that no German aircraft were lost. Additionally, Donald Caldwell says '...18 II/JG26 Fw190s met 5 III/JG26 Bf109s and aircraft of four other Jagdgruppen...' If there were two other units also present, then this could well explain the heavy losses of Bf109s suffered this day. Regards C

Hello Larry Browsing through one of the Google forums I came across this post. Here is the URL and the relevant extract: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.aviation.military/browse_frm/thread/f911befd00fe7cc7/f03f0622b8a8b8dd?lnk=st&q=group%3Arec.aviation.military+insubject%3Avalidations+insubject%3Afighter+insubject%3Aclaims&rnum=2#f03f0622b8a8b8dd 'On the subject of the importance of accurate intelligence to military planners and their actual possession of it, the raids on Rabaul in the fall of 1943 provide an interesting example. The 5th AF set out to smash Japanese air strength (as well as shipping and shore installations) there and made a determined effort. The best estimates they could make of e/a destroyed in the air and on the ground between 10 Oct and 11 Nov were 560 aircraft. This was no casually arrived at figure. Attacking aircraft used both still and motion picture cameras to record the strikes. F5 foto recon planes flew before and after and sometime during-raid missions and photographed everything. Of course, crews were debriefed carefully. Civilian newsmen who accompanied the raiders were also debriefed. And "Ultra"-type decrypts of radio traffic, coastwatcher observations, etc., were all used. Yet on 11 Nov, allied sitreps indicated the Japanese had 252 aircraft on Rabaul, just two fewer than they had before the raids began on 10 Oct. So the Japanese had to have poured in hundreds of replacements. 5AF HQ figured that the Japanese must have sent something like 1,000 planes to Rabaul (factoring in operational losses) in the 30-day period, a huge reinforcement that would have stripped other areas of crucial aircraft. Yet no trace of such a massive transshipment of aircraft could be discovered in radio traffic, ship movements, aircraft movements...nothing. …Japanese records--those that survive, most were burned at the time the war ended--are problematical in that they contain such phrases as "self-destroyed" and "not yet returned" that obscure true loss figures. On the American side, during this month of Rabaul raids, 38 P-38s were lost, 21 B-25s were lost and 20 B-24s.' Hmm...so the Americans claimed 560 aircraft destroyed, actually destroyed 2, and lost at least 79 of their own aircraft into the bargain. Makes the Darwin Spitfires look very successful ;-) But seriously, although I don't believe that the Japanese lost only two aircraft, it is clear that there was huge overclaiming going on, and that the Japanese records are far from complete. In the light of this it's pointless talking about how many kills the Darwin Spitfires achieved, or trying to estimate how much overclaiming was going on. On the subject of RAF kills and losses over the Channel in 1941, there was an interminable discussion of this on Tony Williams' excellent site, mostly due to our esteemed friend Shooter. One of the posters, Hop2002, said: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/ ‘The problem is, the Germans do not acknowledge 100 losses during the period. They acknowledge 100 Jg 2 and Jg 26 fighter pilots killed. Another 48 pilots were wounded, and 1 captured. Plane losses are always far ahead of pilot losses, and these figures only include losses by Jg 2 and Jg 26, so exclude the occasional bomber, trainer, recce and liaison aircraft losses.’ Regards C