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Hi Bill,
As you know I recently posted my most recent attempt at Tony Woods German aerial victory files. In it I did a basic analysis of the claims by type victim and date. To get there I literally went through the victories and inserted generic types for the victims in a column I added. So a P-40, P-40E, Kittyhawk, Tomohawk, Warhawk were all transformed into "P-40" in my "generic type" column, as an A-20, Havoc, and Boston were all turned into "A-20." The main reason for the time involved between my last try at the file and this one was going through things to verify them. I know you understand that one well.
That being said, I turned P-51, P-51A, P-51B, P-51D, Mustang, Mustang I, Mustang II, etc. into "P-51."
That gives me a total claims for the generic P-51s claimed as 1,190 claimed P-51s in Tony's files. I am working toward a question here. I have Naval losses broken out by losses to enemy aircraft, losses to AAA, and operational losses ... but while I have victories by theaters versus Germany aircraft USAAF including P-51s, I have never found losses of P-51s (or anything else) broken out by loss type, or even total losses. All I have is combat losses to enemy aircraft. In the USAAF statistics table they are shown, but not broken out by type, and not all loss types are represented.
I thought if anyone in here knew the losses of P-51s in theaters versus Germany including losses to enemy aircraft, AAA, and operations, it would be you. Since I have a reasonable estimate of German claims, if you know the losses, we could arrive at a reasonable estimate of overclaims of P-51s.
Greg - I have the 8th AF losses by category but all the individual losses including a/c number and pilot and 'theoretical' loss location and cause in 50 pages of handwritten format. I am working on 354FG and 363FG but short of going Macr by Macr I am not going to get to the Recon groups of the 9th AF.
Naturally, I'd like to get to P-47s and P-40s, too, as well as all the others, but it helps to start somewhere.
If you have the losses, perhaps you'd share them?
In any case, Merry Christmas to you and to all the member in here.
My totals for P-51 losses ------> 324 air, 569 strafing, 473 operational = 1366 total all causes.
Thanks again, Bill,
When I saw flak missing, that's what I figured. Bill, when I find a copy of your book, I'll pick it up. The price wasn't out of site and the source is well respected, at least by me.
And thank you, Andrew!