Warbird Information Exchange

WW1 French ace Georges Madon was known for not claiming victories, his comment was, "The Boche know thier losses..."
Through the efforts of his squadron mates he was still credited with 41 victories, and reportedly had many more.




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http://www.biplanerides1.com/

Really? Why! here's proof that Boyington was quite generous with his kills. Here he's giving a few away. That Gregg Boyington sure must have been a neat guy.


(photo courtesy of the J Cook Pappy Boyington commemorative memorial & lifetime appreciation archives)

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“Knowing what’s right, doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.”

The rumor that has surfaced here on WIX was that Robin Olds did not claim additional kills in Vietnam because he would be taken off flying status. I guess it was easy to say "the missle was cold" or simply that it missed and no one would raise any eyebrows given the reliability of 60's era air to air missles.

Long wars can bring out a lot of different emotions and motivations in people. Differing states of maturity and education can also have an impact on a person's attitude toward his efforts not only at war but at any endeavor. Do people play golf without keeping score; do others cheat at their scores? Most follow the rules of the game. So I think it is very possible that someone who didn't really care about keeping score but tried to do his job could fly and fight without claiming his victories. It might have been as simple as not adding the usual sentence " I claim XX aircraft shot down" but reporting everything else including firing at and seeing the aircraft crash. A word to the intelligence officer or CO would probably keep the pilot out of the mix of people trying to run up thier scores. You could and some people did refuse to accept medals and other awards as well. It was a long war, anything was possible.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

That's right John,

And if you take into account the last 9 or 10 months of the war in Europe (1944-1945) the Luftwaffe 'aces' were fighting on in diminishing numbers, whether by day or night, Eastern or Western Front, just to try and stem the Allied tide. Towards the end there are plenty of confirmed stories where the 'normal' Luftwaffe system of recording kills broke down, either partially or completely, and additions to personal scores went unrecorded due to the overwhelming pressure of the daily flying and fighting for survival. There were plenty of Luftwaffe fighter pilots who stopped claiming kills in this period due to the above reasons.

Personally, I have the utmost respect and admiration for any of the combat pilots, whether they chose to claim a kill or not, whatever the national markings on the aircraft they flew. Real men.

BG

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Little Johnny : "When I grow up I want to be a pilot!"

Johnny's Mother : "Don't be silly Dear - you can't do both!"

mr dorr's subject pilot in his book who did not claim his victories sighted maturity, as he was in his 30's, in comparision as an old man as compared to his fellow pilots. I've seen in many instances in books / mags that very many Japanese pilots did not state their claims for many reasons, most notably they credited the kills to the aircraft in use regardless of who the pilot was.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

How do you fake a claim??? The Luftwaffe was shot down three times based on claims and verified post war....

The heat of battle and reliability of witnesses and gun cameras coupled with adrenaline makes an unreliable cocktail...

I agree Invader26,

You only have to look at the over-exaggerated claims the German fighter pilots made during the Battle of Britain, and the subsequent Intel given to their own high command that there were very few frontline RAF fighters left to put up against them. This falsely optimistic appreciation of the RAF Fighter Command's strength led in many ways for the Luftwaffe to take the decision to go all out and plan maximum strength daylight raids (Eagle Day etc).

Also much later in the war, when the V1 flying bombs were assaulting London there were frequent instances of verified RAF fighter 'kills' against the V1's, but higher command giving the credit to the AA gunners in order to keep up their morale, effectively denying the pilots incremental victories. (Sorry slightly off topic).

As you say - when the adrenalin and emotions are rife in a fire-fight then a de-brief back at base can be unreliable. It wouldn't be that difficult to avoid putting in a claim or two if you wanted to.

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Little Johnny : "When I grow up I want to be a pilot!"

Johnny's Mother : "Don't be silly Dear - you can't do both!"

Post war verification was flawed for sure. How much effort do you think someone was going to put into what was essentially a "game over" analysis. Many pilots did have their scores adjusted down or had to split credits. The real trouble was with bomber gunners who had no camera to help verify and also had multiple planes shooting at the same plane. German sides were also more of an honor system. There were Germans who lied about inflated kills and were disciplined. The other problem was that Soviet records were essential off limits for years. As late as the early nineties it wasn't clear how some pilots that went missing on Russian shuttle missions were actually killed or which Yugoslav units engaged them. I personally think that there were few that would have kept quiet about scoring a kill. It was the main point of their job. To come back and be humble wouldn't really help unless it would have gotten them in trouble for not staying on task. Inflated scores I'm sure past muster and helped justify the effort similar to kill reports for Vietnam. But face it, fighter pilots like to brag.

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Better is the enemy of Good.

General Olds himself discredits that. In his book he addresses the issue and flatly stated that no, he did not shoot down more than four. And knowing how he viewed dishonest officers I believe what he said.

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Had God intended for man to fly behind inline engines, Pratt & Whitney would have made them.

CB

http://www.angelfire.com/dc/jinxx1/Desrt_Wings.html

Given the number of clerical mistakes (intentional, innocent, or due to changes in rules) made even in today's uber-computerized world, I can see this happening. Things you're supposed to be credited with, you sometimes have to fight to get documented - other times I've seen credits appear that I knew nothing about and was never informed of, they just appeared on my record. (A hurricane relief mission generated an unexpected Humanitarian Service Medal a year later, whoop-dee-doo.) Or mission rules during Bosnia kept changing where one day "combat time" was logged only while in hostile airspace and a month later it was from takeoff to landing ... so your buddy has 200 hours of combat in his record and you have 57, yet you flew more sorties in the previous months before the rules changed, whatever. As a result, I wouldn't put much faith in "the system".

I can imagine that a guy who comes back from a mission and simply says he fired on a bandit and leaves it at that wasn't going to have his gun camera film developed - I doubt the film processors wasted their time unless they were told to develop a specific can. So a buddy in the squadron says, "Hey man, good shootin', did you get credit?" and it would be easy to say, "I dunno, camera circuit breaker was out, they'll check it, let's go grab a beer". I think we forget what life was like before computers, cell phones, the internet, etc. And I think we over-estimate our ability to assume we know how people feel or felt. So did it happen, I dunno, but as they say on "Mythbusters": PLAUSIBLE.

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"Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."