LUFTWAFFE EXPERTEN Claims vs. Kills

[drgondog]

Perhaps the better yardstick for vulnerability is loss/sortie. ETO numbers 1942-1945:
P-47: 0.7%
P-51: 1.2%
P-38: 1.4%

The P-47's dropped around 20 times as much bombs as P-51. So it was the dedicated late war fighter-bomber, where as P-51's could seek more lightly defended targets.

See the data in this page:
P-51 Mustang by Ray Wagner - Page 3

Timppa - the same data is shown on p 133 of his book "Mustang Designer".

I suspect the loss per sortie statistics for the 8th AF will fairly closely mirror the above ETO (includes 9th AF) figures for the USAAF Statistical Digest even though the blend of mission profiles for 9th AF was materially different (except for Pioneer Mustang 354FG)

The P-38 in the MTO closely approached the P-47 in the 9th with a mixture of escort and fighter bombing missions throughout the 1943-1945 timeframe so the P-47 did not have that role entirely or dominantly for all of Europe (USAAF).

So, what is your definition of 'lightly defended targets'? Airfields around Munich, Berlin, Brunswick, Hannover, Prague, Leipzig? What made them lighty defended in contrast to your notions of 8th AF P-47 strafing targets? (restricted to airfields in France, Belgium, Holland, western Germany until late 1944)..

I don't have my arms around the bomb tonnage dropped by 8th AF P-51's, P-47's and P-38's but a.) not many fighter bomber sweeps other than Normandy Campaign were flown by 8th AF. When they did occur the 47 and 38 could carry twice the bomb load but most of those missions were flown with parafrags, 250 and 500 pound bombs. 9th AF flew a significant amount of missions with 1000 pound bombs - particularly when attacking bridges...

But during the Normandy campaign there were more Mustang groups than Jug Groups and only two P-38 Groups remained.

So back to the point of this particular discussion - namely 8th AF P-47 versus P-51.

The loss per sortie rate of the P-47 is superior to the P-51
The award of enemy aircraft destroyed to the loss in air to air is superior for the P-51 by 43%.
The award of enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground to the lost while strafing favors the P-51 by 51%
The loss of bomber crews to enemy aircraft was greatly reduced by the P-51 over the P-47

The P-47 was slightly superior in Awards to Total a/c lost (all causes ops and accidents) 2.88:1 vs 2.64:1 perhaps reflecting more Mechanical related (i.e Coolant loss, engine failure, etc) issues with the 51.

PS - I apologise for taking this thread away from the Experten - we'll set up something later or move it to P-51 vs P-47 as a subtopic?

 

[drgondog]

Bill most probably know this but one book from which one might find some clues is Osprey's A/c of the Aces 51 Special "Down to Earth" Strafing Aces of the Eight Air Force. It is based on the training manual compiled by battle-seasoned USAAF fighter pilots during the war. IMHO with Osprey's A/c of the Aces 31 Special VIII Fighter Command at War "Long Reach" and Osprey's A/c of the Aces 61 Special "Twelve to One" V Fighter Command Aces of the Pacific, which both are also based on same kind war time material, it is the most important book published in that series. They give a good insight of thinking the leading USAAF aces and of course some inkling to their ability to transfer their thoughts onto paper.

Juha

Juha - I have them. Scutts made a lot of mistakes in his particular contributions so I don't reference him so very much.

The prime sources (ground) for me are 8th FC Victory Credits Board from which the USAF parsed and extracted dubious awards (air to air) to compile the USAF Study 85. USAF is prime source for me because it remains The Official Source - but I believe Olynyk's scholarship.

Dr Frank Olynyk further researched returning POW Questionnaires as well as as complete a set of encounter reports for all services to compile his totals. The difference being awards cited and substantiated After USAF 85 was published. But he remains THE source for USN/USMC details.

The only 'official' ground award source for 8th AF is 8th AF VCB developed after WWII in 1945. It has bot omissions and errors (some double entries, name mispelling, etc, as well as some conflicts with final totals from original VCB Awards reports - which are mystifying but a very small % of the total.

Kent Miller did a fine job of rolling those up in his Fighter Units and Pilot of 8th AF. I have found errors but only a small percecentage. His totals and mine and Olynyk and USAF are at variance +/- about 10 awards over 5,170+ air awards

 

[Timppa]

So, what is your definition of 'lightly defended targets'?

Defined by those P-51 bomber escort pilots who had no specific orders to strafe any target after they were released by other escort groups. It was their call.

Versus fighter-bomber groups who were under orders to attack a predestined target, whatever the resistance or cost.

 

[drgondog]

Defined by those P-51 bomber escort pilots who had no specific orders to strafe any target after they were released by other escort groups. It was their call.

Versus fighter-bomber groups who were under orders to attack a predestined target, whatever the resistance or cost.

You may wish to research 8th AF FC Field Orders a little more. There were Many FO's directing individual Fighter Groups to attack specific airfields. Examples include such attacks on airfields during a bombing attack on the same airfields.

8th AF mustangs had the leeway to strafe airfields and targets of opportunity after relief from escort - true. Equally true is that Sweep assignments often included specific orders to sweep certain airfields 100 miles out in fron of the Task Forces or simply attack specific airfields.

Just as an example look at FO 288 in which the 355th was directed to attack Oberphaffenhofen, Landsberg, Ottingen. On that same FO, the 4th FG was directed to Freidersdorf, Stendahl, Brandenburg, Plaue and Pottsdam a/d near Berlin. All 8th AF FG were on airfield attack fighter sweeps to specific airfields all over Germany.

In a two week period alone the 355th had assignments to strafe Biscarrosse a/d, Dijon a/d, Munich area a/d, Bourges a/d, and Oberphaffenhofen (again). These were specific orders either as a stand alone fighter sweeop or directives following break escort.

 

[Juha]

Hello Bill
I agree on Scutts, that's why I didn't mention his books. Osprey's series is rather uneven but there are some very good books in it.

On losses, I agree that strafing remained dangerous right to the end of war. For ex some a/fs in Czech were very well defended and strafing P-51s suffered accordingly. IMHO one cannot say that P-51 jockeys lacked aggressiveness.

Juha

 

[Spurius]

Hi there in Oregon!
I am looking for a good book which logs the losses incurred by the 8th 9th USAF Bomber Groups during their European ToO.

Also, having recently read "Bomber Command" by Max Hastings, do you know if there is a comparable book about the USAF Bomber Groups. I am particularly interested in Government v USAF strategy on such things as area bombing of German cities.

Thank you

Spurius

 

[vanir]

I found the article OP controversial. It's funny, I was just discussing on another forum the problem of using a closed system in research, which garners assumption about discrepencies without considering tangential explanations not related to the method of research.

For example wrt the daily records of the DAF in North Africa, many of Marsielle's kills were SAAF machines which may not have been entered as RAF losses. His 6 P-40 kills during one mission on 5 June 1942 were variously confirmed by fellow pilots and German ground forces, who noted they had SAAF markings, but what was remarkable to the propaganda machine was his ground crew report that only 10 twenty-millimetre shells and 180rds of 7.92mm ammunition had been used from his magazines during that mission.
This was the momentum of his legendary status rather than the presumption of supreme killing capabilities in terms of numbers downed. His precision, defining the term experten. Marsielle himself was somewhat humble, he attributed his success to a familiarity with low speed manoeuvring and like other Luftwaffe experten-celebrities was quick with tips for fresh cadets. He was also well liked and respected among peers, a perfect media celebrity and role model. He even had an unsavoury past to keep hidden just as many media celebrities today.
So it's not just a case of goose stepping German propaganda inflating kill records in an attempt to make Allied pilots shake in their boots. It would be an entirely ridiculous project because of patriotism and the attraction of the underdog. The thing to remember about propaganda is that it is aimed at your own population. Modern political media is for example propaganda, American media is inherently Americentric, British is (Anglo-) Eurocentric, etc. It will always only view things from that nation's cultural point of view, that is in point of fact the true target market. German propaganda has a target market of the German public. Naturally it exaggerated when things went poorly, but there was no reason to when things went well, that is simply when it becomes topical and personal, talking less about sweeping strategic successes and more about individual personalities involved in specific instances.

What is also odd is that the kill reports distributed officially between nations in part involved the politics and adminstration regarding downed, captured aircrews. I believe there is some code of military conduct to inform enemy nations of those combatants captured and incarcerated. Generally speaking it is in every belligerent nation's best interests to be relatively faithful with combat records distributed to the enemy, a practise infamously ignored by the Japanese although in this case a good intelligence network filled a lot of blanks. Generally speaking Germany had a reputation of adhering quite well, as did all the Allies. I don't think it unlikely that combat records would then be contested in media for the benefit of patriotic civilian morale, but official (closed) military records really shouldn't differ greatly or else there really ought to be some reasonable explanation for the discrepency other than flat out lies. It's just not in a military's best interests to do this.

I think it is a given however that kill claim awards and related decorations for individual pilots are more a propaganda (read: morale and media) device than an official military documentation, irrespective of the nation's reputation. Anecdote would claim Hartmann had downed more than 352, whilst other figures less than their record suggests.

Notably, the USSR had a prohibitively strict method of recording pilot kills: the enemy aircraft had to leave a wreck within Soviet held territory for the kill to be recorded, irrespective of pilot and peer claims or ground observer correlation. Hence among Soviet pilots their actual kills are likely to be almost always much higher than their individual records suggest. Decorations by comparison were given largely by patriotic examples, many were posthumous and all are largely propaganda related. Some individuals hailed as heroes of the Soviet Union are completely fictionalised, such as the famous Vasili Zaitsev (whose story is really the combination of three unrelated, successful snipers operating around Stalingrad and the entire duel with the Wehrmacht Oberst is totally made up, he never existed).

Russell Brown also states,

The inability of the German Fighter force to support its ground forces effectively, contrasted sharply with the evolution of the RAF's tactics and operational procedures as the Desert War progressed.
The tactical use of Medium Bombers, and the highly effective Kittyhawks which were able to offer direct support to the troops with their bombing and strafing was never matched by the Luftwaffe. The fact that many of the fighter pilots ran up big personal scores was irrelevant to the prosecution of the war and the undue emphasis placed on such achievements was an indication of the failure by German Commanders at all levels to understand the principles of Air Power.

Claims like this are definitely the product of propaganda. It is in complete reverse of the events by theme, including the general consensus of dozens of historians, and is deliberately and entirely misleading. This Russel Brown sounds like a poster boy.
The "inability of the German forces to support its ground forces effectively" was a wholly circumstantial conclusion, misleading because the prelimenary statements ought to be a time frame, this was only the situation from about mid-1942, was directly the result of the inability of the German forces to maintain usable and adequate supply to the Front, which is celebrated as the primary focus of the North African campaign, also the nature of maintaining usable airfields throughout the campaign (easier during retreat, next to impossible during fast advances), and the industrial situation in Germany with no adequate replacement for the Stuka which required air superiority to function, it had nothing whatsoever to do with Luftwaffe aerial doctrine and is in fact claims a direct reverse of what that doctrine entails.
It is agreed by the majority of historians in publication that it was the Allied air forces which only began to understand the necessity of combined operations between land and air (and sea) which leads to successful operations. This is clearly stated in documentation surrounding the rewriting of the American military handbook of 1943, which was the first time a notation stressing the importance of Army and Air Force cooperation was officially made by the United States or Great Britain. The official aerial doctrine of Great Britain was that Army and Air Force operated completely independently.
Once again the success of the DAF was entirely circumstantial, it most certainly had not the slightest thing to do with doctrine. It had to do with winning superiority in supply and proliference during 1942. Even at the very end, the Luftwaffe managed to keep air superiority over Tunisia for example (but not anywhere else), and this whilst hopelessly outnumbered. In North Africa it is my contention the DAF approached Army support operations like ants rushing a dead bird, when numbers weren't overwhelming DAF ground attack missions died off whilst Luftwaffe ones soared. You could say in fact the Luftwaffe was built around Army support operations as a primary edict where this is not at all true for the Allies or GB until much later in the war.


If you ask me the whole thing seems like a simplistic, post modern, patriotic German bash. Let's attack the experten celebrities. Thing is, they were just media celebrities, there's no need. I don't think their awards are actually exaggerated, all things considered they aren't unrealistic, so much as their faults are absent which makes them seem superhuman. Luck played a huge part, for example. They were driven half mad. They got downed a lot but were lucky about that too.

 

[mhuxt]

Also, having recently read "Bomber Command" by Max Hastings, do you know if there is a comparable book about the USAF Bomber Groups. I am particularly interested in Government v USAF strategy on such things as area bombing of German cities.

Thank you

Spurius

There's a good docco here:


http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Indexes/author_ndx_bks.htm

with supporting spreadsheets etc here:

http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/catalog/books/Davis_B99.htm
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/books/Davis_B99/Davis_B99.pdf
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Davis CD/Pages/i.htm
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Davis CD/Pages/IIb.htm

 

[Vincenzo]

for me the pages linked give a not exist error

 

[Spurius]

There's a good docco here:


http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Indexes/author_ndx_bks.htm

with supporting spreadsheets etc here:

http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/catalog/books/Davis_B99.htm
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/books/Davis_B99/Davis_B99.pdf
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Davis CD/Pages/i.htm
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Davis CD/Pages/IIb.htm

Thank you forthe reply Mhuxt. However I can but concur with Vincenzo that the link comes up with an error stopping any investigation on the site you pointed me to. Any thougts?

Spurius

 

[mhuxt]

Try this one:

http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Books/Davis_B99/Davis_B99.pdf

You may have to hunt around that site for the supporting spreadsheets.

 

[Vincenzo]

thank you this is ok

 

[JoeB]

For example wrt the daily records of the DAF in North Africa, many of Marsielle's kills were SAAF machines which may not have been entered as RAF losses. His 6 P-40 kills during one mission on 5 June 1942 were variously confirmed by fellow pilots and German ground forces, who noted they had SAAF markings, but what was remarkable to the propaganda machine was his ground crew report that only 10 twenty-millimetre shells and 180rds of 7.92mm ammunition had been used from his magazines during that mission.

Notably, the USSR had a prohibitively strict method of recording pilot kills: the enemy aircraft had to leave a wreck within Soviet held territory for the kill to be recorded, irrespective of pilot and peer claims or ground observer correlation. Hence among Soviet pilots their actual kills are likely to be almost always much higher than their individual records suggest.
.

The claims of the Germans in Western Desert in time of Marseille were pretty accurate, not the most accurate claiming or even most accurate German claiming ever seen, but pretty good. Of course it's always hard to determine from opposing records exactly who shot down which plane, but the total German credits often didn't exceed the total Allied losses by that much, and Marseilles' claims often a significant % of total German claims, so implying he was a relatively accurate claimers. This has beed seen ever since "Fighters Over the Desert" by Shores, an old book now (1969).

I actually doubt German victory credits were affected specifically by propaganda concerns in the era when most of the German super-aces built up most of their scores (Hartmann of course built most of his score relatively later). As you say, the nature of propaganda depends in part on what facts need to be emphasized or nelgected to present a favorable picture, and for the first half of WWII the Germans were generally the best at fighter combat in the European/Med theaters. At higher levels the Germans made some serious mistakes in the employment of air power (like BoB and other episodes). But just on the matter of whose fighter pilots were likely to score more kills and suffer few llosses in fighter combat, through 1942 at least, it was the Germans rather than their opponents (we could debate German success v that of their allies).

So actually Allied propaganda, the long after-echoes of which we still read and hear in English sometimes, was the more distorted in emphasizing the (honestly claimed) successes of the best Allied fighter pilots which were not in line with the overall balance of fighter quality, whereas of course the exceptional German pilots were exceptional, but even on average German pilots and their a/c as units, with the tactics they used, etc, were generally the more effective. So the German propaganda accounts of experten were particularly favorable examples of a basic truth, not examples of exceptions to the basic truth as Allied propaganda about fighter aces tended to be. So for example when it come to Tomahawk/Kittyhawk in DAF v Bf109, some will to thise day characterize it in terms of the most successful Allied pilots' claims, as Allied public account did at the time, and are surprised to learn that the overall fighter kill ratio was several to one in the Germans' favor.

In general I think there are relatively few cases in history where individual official credits were strongly influenced by propaganda considerations, though there were certainly some such cases. For example the first USAAF ace of WWII, Buzz Wagner, seems to have been officially credited with victories he didn't originally claim (and there's no evidence the Japanese suffered) to get somebody up to the 5 kill mark quickly in the disastrous early campaigns. But again once things got going on a larger scale there was no reason to exaggerate kills when you could just focus on the pilots and units honestly claiming success (accurately or not is another issue) and neglect those who were having a tougher go.

Re: Soviets, in Korea they *theoretically* had the same standard, but in reality their claims were highly exaggerated according to evidence in opposing secret records. And serious holes are apparent in the 'wreck confirmation' of Soviet claims in Korea as soon as you look at them closely. In the 1939 war with Japan the Soviets overclaimed about as much as in Korea (6+ *times* as many official victories credited as actual opposing losses in air combat). So while I've never seen a comprehensive accounting for WWII for the Soviets, my bet would be their credits in that war too were also exaggerated more than most otherAF's, not less. The theory of the claim verification process is only one part of the story. The theory of the German process didn't change explicitly later in WWII either, but the actual results clearly became a lot more exaggerated than in Marseille's time.

Joe

 

[mhuxt]

thank you this is ok

The spreadsheets and instructions are here:

New Page 1

 

[fastmongrel]

I dont want to denigrate Luftwaffe claims but how does the so called best system manage to have so many aircraft shot down in the Battle of Britain. I dont know the exact figures but didnt the Luftwaffe claim about twice as many victories as the RAF lost, just as RAF claims were about twice the Luftwaffe losses.

I have no experience of flying or combat but I used to race motorbikes and I know how hard it is to see things happening that arent in your focus. Once a guy dropped his bike just in front of me under hard braking for a corner at around about 100 mph, according to eyewitnesses his bike cartwheeled in front of me narrowly missing me I never even noticed. It took several people to convince me it happened.

Perhaps this is how claims get doubled up 2 pilots are attacking the same aircraft both honestly think they hit it both think they saw it go down.

 

[riacrato]

You have to take into account that the RAF was fighting over own territory, hence claims were much easier to verify by ground crews or even better the wreckage. LW had the channel in between, making claim verification much harder. If hte ratio was indeed 2:1 for both sides (I think it was worse for the LW fighters, iirc) that does imply the LW system was better.

 

[JoeB]

I dont want to denigrate Luftwaffe claims but how does the so called best system manage to have so many aircraft shot down in the Battle of Britain. I dont know the exact figures but didnt the Luftwaffe claim about twice as many victories as the RAF lost, just as RAF claims were about twice the Luftwaffe losses.

Seems like maybe you are talking about two different 'systems', 'system' of actually shooting down more planes than you lose, and 'system' of claim verification so number of planes you credit your pilots with doesn't exceed the actual number shot down by too wide a margin.

On the first as I referred to above the Germans obviously failed in their overall objective in the Battle of Britain, and that's certainly important. But that wasn't just a function of relative effectiveness of the two fighter forces. It was also heavily influenced by the German decisions about how to use bombers and fighters, the nature or their bomber force as well as fighter force, nature of the overally British defensive system not just fighters, basic geogrpaphy of the campaign, etc. But still in BoB German fighters downed more British fighters than vice versa, as had been true in the campaign over France before that to a greater extent, and as was true in the campaign over France after that through 1942 to greater extent still (so there was not even any trend against the German fighters until later on). It was also true over Malta, the Western Desert, etc. It was true in most cases through 1942: German fighters generally shot down more British fighters than vice versa, and similarly against all the other major German opponents.

On the system of claims, or the reality of the result of that system, again if we don't equate '1939-42 air combat =Battle of Britain', but look more broadly, German claims were more generally accurate than British in the first half of the war. German claim accuracy deteriorated seriously late in WWII, and Allied tended to improve. In general the side that's actually doing better tends to claim more accurately. But the Western Allies, driven by the British particularly but it tended to rub off on US air arms too, specifically tried to get more rigorous in claim verification based on intel information like Utra intercepts that told them how far off their total credits were v real German losses in some the early campaigns, llike over France ca. 1941, when Brit claims were considerably less than 1/2 accurate. Enemy losses=1/2 of destroyed claims was actually pretty good claim accuracy in WWII, the average accuracy for all claims by all AF's fighters* for all of WWII was surely lower.

*claims accuracy by bombers against attacking fighters is a whole different ball of wax, way less accurate across almost known cases. Also I'm not quibbling overthe terms 'claim' v 'credit' or 'victory'. Whatever the most official statistic an AF produced for how many it said it shot down, call it a claim or a credit or victory, the question is how one side's number compares with the real loss on the other side.

Joe

 

[vanir]

Your bring up a good point here Joe,

Re: Soviets, in Korea they *theoretically* had the same standard, but in reality their claims were highly exaggerated according to evidence in opposing secret records. And serious holes are apparent in the 'wreck confirmation' of Soviet claims in Korea as soon as you look at them closely. In the 1939 war with Japan the Soviets overclaimed about as much as in Korea (6+ *times* as many official victories credited as actual opposing losses in air combat). So while I've never seen a comprehensive accounting for WWII for the Soviets, my bet would be their credits in that war too were also exaggerated more than most otherAF's, not less. The theory of the claim verification process is only one part of the story. The theory of the German process didn't change explicitly later in WWII either, but the actual results clearly became a lot more exaggerated than in Marseille's time.

I do recall the claimed victories at Nomohan/Kalkin Gol and surrounding conflicts (the Chinese border prelimenary to this) were terrifically overblown on both sides according to postwar researchers. Modern thinking is that losses were in fact about even on both sides (ref. Robert Jackson).
What I had assumed is that during the Great Patriotic War the Soviet kill claim system was toughened. Then following this, such as in Korea the Cold War situation I should think makes such matters suddenly highly political, there were strict engagement rules and no fly zones, the Soviets themselves weren't supposed to be directly involved, it's an environment for exaggeration and untruth especially considering many pilots in the field just went ahead and ignored their official guidelines. Intelligence reporting in Korea I think was murky at times.

All this aside, according to Soviet WW2 pilots in recorded interviews the kill claim system was conservatively harsh and frequently didn't recognise celebrated victories, one pilot described how he desintegrated a Messerschmitt with the heavy gun of an Airacobra so it wasn't recorded as a kill, the wreckage was strewn across some German lines despite the whole squadron talking about it later.
Similarly Soviet aces, notably Lydia Litvak could not be awarded decorations posthumously unless their body was located and in Soviet hands, so she didn't get her Hero of the Soviet Union award until her crash site and body were found, which didn't happen until 1986 (decorated with the award in 1990).
The thinking seems to be, if it didn't happen within Soviet influence, it didn't happen.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

In general I think there are relatively few cases in history where individual official credits were strongly influenced by propaganda considerations, though there were certainly some such cases. For example the first USAAF ace of WWII, Buzz Wagner, seems to have been officially credited with victories he didn't originally claim (and there's no evidence the Japanese suffered) to get somebody up to the 5 kill mark quickly in the disastrous early campaigns. But again once things got going on a larger scale there was no reason to exaggerate kills when you could just focus on the pilots and units honestly claiming success (accurately or not is another issue) and neglect those who were having a tougher go.

I believe in the book "Peter 38" Dick Bong was being pressured to accept a credit for shooting up a transport plane on the ground after a mission he and Tom Lynch flew. According to the text Bong refused.

 

[vanir]

I think it is a fascinating subject taken in the right light, certainly I'd like to explore the atmosphere of pilot combat further along these lines to really get a feel of sitting in the cockpit and common regard for the authorities on your own side and the enemy military machine.

I can't help thinking the individual pilot awards/claim system is somewhat political. It seems to me the purposes of the propaganda department behind individual Luftwaffe experten was to promote effective training techniques in the same way modern celebrities are sometimes thought of as role models. Graf, Hartmann, Marsielle, Mölders, all had active roles in the modelling of fresh cadets by third party representation. They were the people to emulate to win victories and more than this, just to survive combat. Everybody has heard of Hartmann's famous reiteration of Immelman's maxim to let your opponent fill the window before firing, variously echoed from Boelcke to von Richtofen. Marsielle said to learn how to control your Messerschmitt at low speed handling to be a success, this is important not just for combat but consider the airfield accident record of the type, it is probably the best advice a Messerschmitt cadet could possibly receive.

It would seem logical those best suited to role modelling for combat pilots are going to be well decorated, promoted and awarded, even in some cases exempted from further combat missions or given full reign on their career development. Meantime some others like Wilcke remained largely unsung heroes in the public limelight despite a terrific combat record which cannot be denied. He did after all tell Göring to go jump off a cliff. Similarly Hartmann held Nazi protocol when meeting Hitler in sheer contempt but in this case remained luckily favoured by the leader himself (he refused to remove his sidearm, declaring if Hitler could not trust his own fighter pilots then he would prefer a jail cell, he remains one of few regular military personnel to be in the leader's presence in the later war when armed).

It's all very interesting to me.