Hi Frank et al,
It is probably good to get in early. What I hope comes out in the book is a "victory" table that includes what the "victory" is based on (oh how Stan Dallas disliked the concept as a guide to a pilot's caliber) be it Combat Report, Official Service Record, Squadron Record book, logbook, German records (which I've tended to put in the too hard basket and anyway I look more at what was considered claimable
at the time),contemporary accounts, claims made by other researchers, or combitations of those.
I think "victory lists" should stay at what they are. A good book like
ATT puts him at 32 - I know that some records I had access to the authors of ATT didn't know the location of, so what do we do? Change it every time something new comes out? It's fun to find out new info but let us not kid ourselves that we can ever be anyway near definitive about what this or that Ace got.
Most important though this isn't a book about victories or trying to claim he should now be recognised as Australia's greatest Ace. I want to tell the story of Stan as I came to know him - though his letters home, his logbbok, what his contemporaries had to say about him, etc.
He was a great bloke and would probably be as embarrassed as all heck about me getting him more widely know - but what the hell!