FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Thanks!
And if any aviation writer can be trusted - it would be Toliver, may he rest in peace....
hartmanns victories
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And if any aviation writer can be trusted - it would be Toliver, may he rest in peace....
Not to mention there were several Allied pilots who actually achieved a higher kill/mission rate then Erich or many other German aces. Allied pilots never had a target rich area as the Germans did in the east or west.
Why do they also not question those allied kill totals (many did not have cameras to back up their claims). Look at the massive over claiming done by all allied nations when the battle was held over enemy territory.
Pilots from all nations made claims with good intentions and tried to be honest as they could in such crazy times as a battle. They are made mistakes.
Why do they also not question those allied kill totals (many did not have cameras to back up their claims). Look at the massive over claiming done by all allied nations when the battle was held over enemy territory.
Pilots from all nations made claims with good intentions and tried to be honest as they could in such crazy times as a battle. They are made mistakes.
Ramirezzz
Senior Airman
I didn't say that - I meant the highest number of his victories confirmed by the russian sources can't exceed 150 because the lost part of his log book wasn't been used in the research - and the first part contained exactly 150 victories.
Even if you are correct about the the number confirmed by the Russians (which I am not 100% you are correct I am still looking for my source), that does not in anyway, shape or form mean he did not shoot down more then 150 planes.
That doesn't mean that he couldn't shoot down more than 150 planes - we simply don't have the another source (second part of his log book) to compare with.
Ramirezzz
Senior Airman
this is not quite true. He was accused in the destroying of the socialist properity (railcars and a factory - not airplanes!) and and killing of civilians. Any numbers of any destroyed aircrafts were simply not been mentioned in the final sentence, as he was never accused in the destroying of it.
The Toliver and Constable book is sometimes "incorrect" regarding some historical facts.
drgondog
Major
and we remember that Rall was taken out of the chase on May12, 1944 - nearly a year`before war ended...
And maybe still alive, albeit with only nine digits left, because of constant infections to his left hand. My hat is off to all of them
Ramirezzz
Senior Airman
this is an urban legend. That didn't happen.
He became actually the common sentence for german war prisoners after war - 25 years of prison if my memory serves me correct. And NOT for killing the VVS aircrafts.
SoD Stitch
Banned
A good example of "socialist" logic is the assertion by the Soviets that, due to the massive amount of ammunition Hartmann expended over the Eastern front shooting down a/c, some of the bullets MUST have fallen to the ground and killed innocent Russian civilians; this was one of the charges levelled at Hartmann during his years of captivity in Russia.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
The following is from a 2002 Pravda Article about Hartmann...
"The Soviet government wanted to put Hartmann on trial as a war criminal. In this case he would be deprived of his prisoner of war status. This would also push all international conventions away from him. As a result, there were three major allegations: the destruction of 345 planes of the Red Army, the destruction of a bakery on the outskirts of Smolensk and the elimination of 700 civilians (Hartmann shot them from his plane near the city of Bryansk). Erich Hartmann agreed with the first part of the indictment, but rejected all others. He claimed that his military unit did not conduct any military actions either in Smolensk or Bryansk. To crown it all, he said that it was impossible to kill 700 people from a plane."
<font color=#e00000>Soviet Union Prisoner Number One: German Pilot Nicknamed Devil </font> - Pravda.Ru
Can you name some, I'm curious...
Again from the same article
"When Erich achieved his first success in sky battles, he painted the front part of his plane black. British historians say that Erich was nicknamed the "Black Devil of the South" because of that. To be honest, it is hard to believe that Soviet pilots would make up such a metaphorical name for a German pilot. Russian historians found more prosaic names for Hartmann – either the "Black" or the "Devil."
Soviet pilots hunted for the Black; the reward was ten thousand rubles. Erich had to hide."
He was put on trial as a "War Criminal" and then sentenced to 25 years. Again from the same Pravda article.
"The Soviet government wanted to put Hartmann on trial as a war criminal. In this case he would be deprived of his prisoner of war status. This would also push all international conventions away from him. As a result, there were three major allegations: the destruction of 345 planes of the Red Army, the destruction of a bakery on the outskirts of Smolensk and the elimination of 700 civilians (Hartmann shot them from his plane near the city of Bryansk). Erich Hartmann agreed with the first part of the indictment, but rejected all others. He claimed that his military unit did not conduct any military actions either in Smolensk or Bryansk. To crown it all, he said that it was impossible to kill 700 people from a plane.
The trial took place in December of 1949. Erich was sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment. After the mentioned rebellion, his imprisonment term became 25 years longer. Erich's wife and mother wrote letter after letter to the Soviet government, begging for Hartmann's release. In her 51st letter to Stalin Erich's mother, Elizabeth Hartmann, promised that she would make her son swear that he would never take any participation in the actions against the USSR. She said that she would make him lead peaceful and quiet life."
It's amazing how this article mirrors the same information in Toliver's book, and from Pravda no less.......
I'm not sure what exact research, how thorough, what quality, *what level of objectivity*, has been done assessing Hartmann's claims, but it wouldn't seem lack of his personal logbook would prevent investigating his later claims altogether. Those are also listed in OKL records. They give pilot, unit, approx location and altitude. Those records are only incomplete right at the end of the war, AFAIK. Anyway a researcher could sample a portion of his career, if it was really possible to tell which planes he'd shot down personally.
The usual problem is: how do you know which losses of the Soviets (or USAAF in a few cases) actually correspond to Hartmann's claims rather than another German pilot's claims? For example December 5 1944 there were 3 claims of La-5's at around the same time, 2 of them by Hartmanm. I don't know the Soviet results, but let's say for arguments sake 1 La-5 was really lost (it's possible 2, 3, 4 or 0 were lost, 1 is a just a what if to illustrate the issue). Is Hartmann's 'real score' that day automatically 1 or 0.33 (as I'd say) or do we try to somehow parse the details and say it was a 0 or 1 based on those details? How about if the La-5 'failed to return cause unknown' (as a big % of Soviet WWII losses were actually recorded)? The method and biases of the researcher can really affect results in that sort of analysis.
And by 'bias' I don't just mean jingoist promotion of your own country (or the one you've adopted as your 'favorite' in WWII air combat for whatever reason), but also some people sometimes seem to feel a sort of 'honor' or 'politeness' requires them to give the ace every benefit of the doubt, IOW bias the result in his favor. And some people have a bias toward overestimating the possibility of researching their way to the exact answer for everything. Anyway, methodologies can easy vary enough to make analyses of individual scores by different researchers non-comparable.
My view is it would be better first step to estimate the general claim accuracy of the air arm, or perhaps unit, with which the pilot flew, in that period of the war, and use this is as very general proxy for the likely range of accuracy of his claims. You can state stuff like what you're assuming about 'failed to return' and heavily damaged planes etc., but a lot of the specific assumptions about who shot down whom exactly, drop out of the analysis. Very generally speaking, overall German claim accuracy in the 1941-42 period was good, often well about 50%; in a lot of Hartmann's period it wasn't as good, so as a first guess I'd guess his personal score accuracy was lower than German super aces who scored mostly in 1941-42.
Joe
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Joe I was waiting for you to chime in here!
The point here if even we diminish some of Hartmann's claims based on records of both sides, he will always be the target of controversy based on being the recognized "top ace" of WW2. In the same zeal many question Hartmann's claims, it seems other neglect the "runners-up" and whose claims may be subject to scrutiny in the manner you have demostrated here. I do suspect that if we were able to truly confirm the scores of Germany's "superaces" the end result might reveal fewer confirmed kills but the pecking order will more than likely come out the same, as Hartmann on top.
The point here if even we diminish some of Hartmann's claims based on records of both sides, he will always be the target of controversy based on being the recognized "top ace" of WW2. In the same zeal many question Hartmann's claims, it seems other neglect the "runners-up" and whose claims may be subject to scrutiny in the manner you have demostrated here. I do suspect that if we were able to truly confirm the scores of Germany's "superaces" the end result might reveal fewer confirmed kills but the pecking order will more than likely come out the same, as Hartmann on top.
Ramirezzz
Senior Airman
The Toliver's book was translated into Russian in 1997 or in 1998, so they probably just some of its passages into article - as I went through the russian original of the article ,most of them are completely copied from the book .And as I can see, the autors of this article are either professional historians nor they give any sources for their statements.
There's no evidence whatsoever ,that:
1) His head was rewarded (just like Rudel identical self-made claim)
2)he was nicknamed by soviet pilots (I don't know which historians the autor of the article refers to), although the known fact is that the soviet radio intelligence knew some of his callsigns
3) he was accused in destruction of the 345 or of any amount of planes
All those claims were stated by Hartmann itself in his interview to Toliver and Constable. There's no another evidence.
As for inaccuracy of the book itself, the whole "russian" part of it lacks it - I'll went trough it and just mention some of them when I have enough time. This doesn't wonder me at all - the book was written in the late 60ies, where the autors - Colonels of the USAF! - certainly could not gain any access to russian archives.
Yes I agree, Hartmann tends to get special scrutiny because his credited score happens to be highest, there's no other special reason that I know of that question comes up *so* much more often with him than any number of 200+ and 100+ victory German aces. OTOH I think it's conceivable the 'true score' pecking order could reverse, since general German claiming was so much less accurate ca. 1944 than it had been in 1941, and Hartmann scored a lot of his victories then. But he'd have a big margin going in, so right quite likely would still be on top. And on the third hand
Hartmann fought in more difficult conditions on average than some of those other guys, overclaiming tended to be higher in a given AF when conditions were more difficult."Under the Guns of the Red Baron" by Norman Franks (and others) is a book specifically about the claims and actual victims of Richtofen (his 'real' score was very close to the 80 officially credited, but that was a different situation). It has all the details from both sides, which is the key to any 'real' score assessment being meaningful. I don't know of any books like that about Hartmann or if it's really possible to do in the same detail with same certainty.
Joe
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
No but they had access to those who were held captive by the Soviets and others were on hand to substantiate their stories. Again, from what I know of Pravda (even in this day and age) I doubt the authors would of not researched sources prior to printing this article.
BTW Toliver was the first author to attempt to gain the trust of former Luftwaffe pilots and tell their side of the story - he did it in an age where such journalism was unpopular.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
How about his surviving crew chief and fellow airman - you think they would continue a Nazi propaganda ploy in the post war years just for the hell of it?
The evidence is there, as JoeB stated earlier, its a matter of being able to fully substantiate his actual score.
Agree Joe, there was only one book written about the man AFAIK and that's all we could go on. I do hold Toliver very credible.
Do you have evidence that states otherwise? Or are you just going off what the commies have said?
Ramirezzz
Senior Airman
You're absolutely right, but I think to that time (early 90ies, I believe) the documents from "Abschussenteillist" of Luftwaffepersonalamt and KTG of the JG.52 weren't available for the russian researchers , so they used only the first part of the log book.
Very true, that's the common problem! The 100% correct comparison regardging individual scores is impossible
But somehow american researchers could correct the scores of the japanese aces, it's interesting , how they managed to avoid this problem and which methods were been used by them.
Ramirezzz
Senior Airman
No FLYBOYJ , I don't think so. In fact Hartmann was far away from being a nazi or a hater of all Russian whatsoever.
But in the book there're some facts stated , which are not correct - that's all what I'm trying to tell.
I believe as a researchers we have two options -
1) we can continue revising and looking for claims confirmations on both sides using data in archives
2) we can simply satisfact us with official scores issued
For most of the parts, yes.
As for planes and allegation - you can write to the Central Archive of FSB in Moscow and request a copy of his acts - its all in there.
As for reward and nickname - how can I prove what did never happen?
It was Toliver or Constable who had burden of proof!
No, the thing is that they are not the only ones that say that.There are plenty of sources that say it. Hartmann says it. I think I will take his word...
I don't know of that specifically, I've casually looked at Saburo Sakai's claims v various Allied reported outcomes...again I think one might find though that for any two researchers there might be two methods of dealing with the ambiguities.
Here's an accounting of the score of the leading Soviet ace in Korea, Nikolai Sutyagin, by me, based on original records of both sides. It's relatively easy to be highly confident in this case we're dealing with complete loss records on the US side (there are actually multiple layers of records with the same answers), and which units were involved (because both sides' accounts are complete and detailed what time and place the combats occurred). I give the result both on a prorated basis (eg. 1 loss v 5 claims is 0.2 'real' score for all 5 claimants) and benefit of doubt basis (1 loss v 5 claims means the ace's victory is 'verified' if he was one of the 5). However I think the first method is fair and the second is misleading, but common if you dig beneath the surface of many reported verifications of ace scores.
Acepilots Discussions
Some who have reacted angrily to that analysis have asked why don't I do it for US Korean War aces!!? Because, all of the top ones scored victories after the Chinese and North Korean MiG units had joined the Soviet ones which comprised virtually all the oppostion before September 1951, and we don't have the Chinese and NK losses day by day completely, yet
. It illustrates the larger point that it's more possible to do in some cases than others.Also if analyzing Sakai's score you'd generally have a clear picture what Allied units were involved, the total Japanese claims, and the actual Allied losses. But for most other famous Japanese pilots I don't think that would be true, there would be gaps (in their exact claims, those of unit mates in the same combats, and who exactly they were facing in those combats), so a complete 'real' score would be plugging those gaps somehow, another set of assumptions.
But I 100% agree with your implication, attempting such research is far preferable to just accepting official claim numbers and saying 'oh sure there were overclaims [but who really cares what they were]'.
Joe
