The
fifty-five Third Gruppe victory claims listed below have
been obtained from microfilms recently released by the German
military archives. These claims are not listed in the author's
published unit history, The JG
26 War Diary, and fill most of the "claims
gap" mentioned in that book. The microfilms end in
December 1944, and so no 1945 claims are included; also,
much of the microfilm is illegible, and several more claims
cannot be read in sufficient detail to list. So the list
is still incomplete; efforts to finish it will continue.
Thanks are owed to Tony Wood, Russell Guest, and Don Pearson
for their help in reading and interpreting the microfilms.
The
table follows the format of those in the book. "Cl
#" is the number of this claim in the pilot's own
list; in the absence of an official Gruppe list, it is only
the author's estimate. Where available, "Place"
lists the co-ordinates on the Jägergradnetz, or fighter
control map; the map for the Western theater has been published,
but unfortunately the author is unaware of the existence
of any map platting the USSR. "Conf?" denotes
the status of the claim as noted on the microfilm. "Yes"
means that the claim was definitely confirmed; "unk"
(unknown) means that the final status of the claim cannot
be determined from the microfilm.
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