By: XN923 - 28th April 2006 at 09:14
As I understand it, for fighters the enemy aircraft had to be seen to be destroyed (i.e. blow up, break up, hit the ground) or the pilot be seen to bail out, either on cameras or confirmed by a third party to be confirmed. If your claim was on fire and diving vertically at the ground, but you didn’t see it go in, it can only be counted as a probable.
For bombers, whoever claimed it was awarded it, leading to massive over claiming.
By: flyingcloggie - 28th April 2006 at 07:41
Who was credit with the kill in case of the bomber? They all where having a go at it.
By: BIGVERN1966 - 28th April 2006 at 07:31
Certainly in the RAF a ‘confirmed’ kill is just that, it had to be confirmed by a third party (either another pilot or maybe the Observer Coprps or even an army unit). If there was no confirmation possible it was usually listed as a ‘probable’.
Gun camera on the Claimant’s aircraft helped a lot in this case, an enemy aircraft with a wing missing on it on the film could only be classed as a Kill.
Not sure about a bomber kill, although there were obviously more pairs of eyes to confirm any claim.
and to massively over claim as well, as the USAAF box bomber formations regularly did throughout WW2. Claimed to have shot down 200+ German fighters, Actullay got 20, was a normal figure.
By: Mark V - 28th April 2006 at 07:09
Certainly in the RAF a ‘confirmed’ kill is just that, it had to be confirmed by a third party (either another pilot or maybe the Observer Coprps or even an army unit). If there was no confirmation possible it was usually listed as a ‘probable’. Not sure about a bomber kill, although there were obviously more pairs of eyes to confirm any claim.
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April 28, 2006 at 7:00 am