Luftwaffe Aerial Victory Claims from 1939 - 1945

[GregP]

I sure hope so, Wayne. I have the sorties and losses and bomb tonnage for Bomber Command, but have not been able ... so far ... to find the same for Fighter Command.

Of couse I looked for some years for claims and only found them in ONE place until another one was posted above by Milosh. Where was he 10 years ago? Thanks, Milosh! Most of the rest of the kill lists were top aces only or a "selected list." Ah well, good information is where and when you find it, sort of likie finding an antique. If you see it and want it, better get it because you may never find it again.

For the Brits, all I see around are selected lists for some battle or another, and no confidence they cover all the battles. I can't even find a good, reliable list of the supposed battles. If I did, what about the odd combat air patrol that suddenly finds three or four Spitfire pilots chancing uopn a small enemy attack ... that has no "battle name? There doesn't seem to be a complete list for the entire war, for all units combined, for Fighter Command. I'm sure it is around somewhere.

I hope I can find it before I croak, at least in time to enjoy it.

 

[asma18]

My friend your analysis is flawed The Spitfire made its combat debut in October 39. The P51 in Dec 43. Therefore the Spitfires were in combat 4 years longer than the P51 Your figures should show the Spitfire losses up to Dec 43 and then the losses after Dec 43. You will then get a more accurate figure.
The analysis should also include sorties conducted by both planes, how many contacts there were, how many planes were involved.

 

[Milosh]

RAF squadron stats are available at the National Archives, KEW.

 

[GregP]

Thanks again, Milosh!

Next time I have a question about WWII stats, I'll PM you first!

 

[Hop]

Well, Wuzak, I can draw this conclusion easily.

The Spitfire was the type most often claimed by the Germans. They weren't arpticularly after Spitfires, they were out to bomb the UK. Spitfies didn't escort the daylight or night bomber streams, they were basically defensive versus the Germans and STILL they were the most claimed aircraft the Germans downed.

Don't know what that tells you specifically, but Spitfires were in the war for five years fighting defensively. The Germans claimed 4,997 ... call it 5,000, or 1,000 per year on average.

What it tells you is the Luftwaffe suffered from what's been called "Spitfire snobbery". The Luftwaffe respected the Spitfire, so it featured highly in both their claims and attributed losses.

During the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe fighters claimed 720 Hurricanes, 1,228 Spitfires.

The RAF lost 603 Hurricanes and 394 Spitfires according to Wood and Dempster.

The Luftwaffe claimed 1.2 Hurricanes for every 1 lost. They claimed 3.1 Spitfires for every 1 lost.

And its wrong to claim the Spitfire was "defensive". In 1940, yes, from then on the Spitfire fought mainly over enemy held territory.

 

[Hop]

I've just done a spreadsheet from Tony Wood's allied list for 1943.

UK based Spitfire losses on operations, 1943:

Bomber Return Fire - 3
Unknown - 11
Mechanical failure - 25
Crashes - 35
Flak - 46
Enemy Fighters - 287
Total - 407

Of the losses to enemy fighters, 11 were over the UK or off the UK coast, about 270 over enemy territory or off the coast.

The RAF wasn't doing a lot of "defending" (edit: on the channel front) versus the Luftwaffe from the end of 1940 onwards.

 

[Juha]

Hello Hop
Interesting info. Surprisingly few losses to the feared Flak. But by 43 Typhoons had taken over most of the low level work, I think. And probably fewer ineffective and costly Rhubarbs were flown by Spits in 43 than in 42.

 

[Clayton Magnet]

Not to belabour this point, but one must also consider what percent of the 15000ish Mustangs built ever made it to the combat theater, let alone actual combat. I would suspect that of the 22000 spitfires built, a significantly larger percentage would have seen action.,In some cases, aircraft being lost before even making it to their operational unit.

 

[Njaco]

Wow.

 

[GregP]

Well, I haven't received any "don't post this drivel" from the moderators, so here is the file.

I still have a few issues with first names and may have gotten a few staffles and units slightly wrong ... maybe a few hundred out of 63,000+, but the date, last name, victim, and location are correct.

Any feedback is ok.

- Greg

 

[Crimea_River]

Saved! Thanks Greg!

 

[GregP]

You are all welcome.

I hope it stimulates some discussion and I shall continue to make the file better until I am satisfied. The dates, victims, and comments won't change ... only a few Staffels and units and maybe a few ranks.

Now I want to find the awarded victories / claims for the UK, Soviet Union and Japan at a minimum. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. The objective is to have the aerial victories available on the website for anyone to look at on their own. It IS public information, but is VERY hard to come by in a useful form!

 

[parsifal]

about 60% of US aircraft produced did not leave the US. a significant proportion of british aircraft did the same, and after 1944, this meant they were out of the fighting effectively

 

[Juha]

...

Now I want to find the awarded victories / claims for the UK, Soviet Union and Japan at a minimum. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. The objective is to have the aerial victories available on the website for anyone to look at on their own. It IS public information, but is VERY hard to come by in a useful form!

For UK and Commonwealth incl Free French, Polish etc, Christopher Shores' Aces High, Aces High Vol 2 (corrections and additions to the first one) and Those other Eagles (those with 2 - 4 aerial kills)

For Finns, Suomen Ilmavoimien Historia 26 27, Kalevi Keskinen Kari Stenman Ilmavoitot/Aerial Victories osa/vol 1 (Lentäjät A-M) and Ilmavoitot/Aerial Victories osa/vol 2 (Lentäjät N-Y). Finnish/English texts all Finnish victories should be there.

For USSR, try Wiki or if you find Bykov's ace book, I'm not sure on its status, use it. And http://wio.ru/aces/ace2.htm , don't spend your money on the older in west published books, Polak's Stalin's Falcons and Hans D. Seidl's Stalin's Eagles, they are rather useless.

 

[fubar57]

Thanks for the Zip File Greg.

Geo

 

[mhuxt]

Thanks Greg.

 

[BiffF15]

Thanks Greg!

 

[Andrew Arthy]

Hi Greg,

RAF and USAAF victories and losses on the Channel Front are available from 1 November 1940 to 31 December 1943. Visit this page: http://lesliesawyer.com/claims/tonywood.htm, and they are the first available downloads.

Are you aware of Frank Olynyk's excellent USAAF victory claims books from the 1980s? He has plans to re-publish these at some point. I've attached a page from December 1944.

Cheers,
Andrew A.

 

[wuzak]

Thanks Greg.

That looks like a lot of work.

 

[GregP]

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate it. Hopefully was can add to it.

It was said above that the Spitfires were in combat longer than the P-51. I was waiting for that with baited breath and knew it was coming ... so ...

In my claims file, the first P-51 claim shows up on 19 Aug 1942. In fact, the first three P-51 claims show up on 19 Aug 1942.

The reason I put the data into Excel is for easy analysis.

An advanced filter tells me that from 19 Aug 1942 through the end of the war the Germans claimed 1,034 P-51's. During that same timeframe the Germans claimed 1,752 Spitfires. That's 69% more Spitfires claimed shot down over Europe, against the same air force, in the timeframe from when the P-51 first made an appearance in German claims through the end of the war. That's 35% of all the Spitfire claims (4,997) happening from when the P-51 showed up in claims through the end of the war, so we're backing out 65% of the Spitfire claims to make the comparison fair to the immortal Spitfire.

I don't care who is looking at the data or how they look at it, 69% more losses, rather claimed losses, over the same time period is significant. If it isn't, someone needs remndial math. Even if the losses are … say … 80% accurate (you pick the number), that difference is not insignificant. That's the beautry of having the data in Excel, it is easy to investigate these things without taking years.

I suppose it could be insiginficant if someone thinks the Germans overclaimed 3 to 1 for the Spitfire but somehow were 100% accurate for the P-51. That's a scenario I strongly doubt.

It wouldn't take much to look at the breakout of units claiming the P-51's versus units claiming the Spits, either ... just a few filters and pivot tables.

This at least gives me some good food for thought about the investigation of losses.

Now if was could get a good file of Allied losses in theaters versus Germany admitted by type, we'd have some real opportunities for investigation. Personally I KNOW the Germans overcalimed, everyone did, so they aren't alone there and it's no knock against German pilots ... it was war. However, I also doubt very much that the admitted losses were 100% accurate. Again, this was war. Lying aboyut one's losses was standard procedure everywhere to keep up morale and deceive the enemy.

So two good questions might be what % overcaliming is about fair and what percent under-admiting of losses is about fair?

If we can answer these two questions, we are 75% of the way toward having a reasonable tool for looking at victories and losses in theaters versus Germany during WWII ... which was a large part of my goal when I started. That's 2 questions answered (hopefully) and the fact that we have the German claim data, or at least one version of it. What we're missing is admitted Allied losses by type in the ETO and theatrers versus Germany.