Jasta B. Score

[Barrett]

Just finished reviewing Norman Franks' history of Jasta Boelcke (see book review) but did some extra checking along the way. Interesting to note with other sources that the huge majority of Jasta B's claims were valid. From 1916-1918 the staffel was credited with 336 kills of which 249 appear genuine with another 41 possible/probable (mainly against the French, whose records are maddeningly incomplete.) So that's a valid range of 74-86% during more than two years of combat: many pilots, different a/c and opponents.

The biggest problem is Bäumer, who consistently overclaimed. Of his 40 with Jasta B, he got 15 fershure and mebbe another 8. Franks ponders why an NCO got such a high rate of dubious confirmations but no answer arises.

Odd thing about Jasta B is the very high number of "B Boys": Boelcke Himself, Bäumer, Bernert, Bolle, Boehm, Bassenge, and Bormann!

[Reinout]

You missed Werner Boss and Manfred von Bichthofen...

But seriously...

I am actually a little bit surprised to hear about JB's percentage. I'd have assumed it to be nearer the 90% rate - but hey, not having seen any original source material on victories and claims, what do I know?

Baumer a consistent overclaimer? Hmmmm, puzzling. In all of what I've read about him his reputation seems to be high. What did other JB pilots say of him? If he consistently got "easy" or false victories, those around him must have noticed eventually?

I did a quick check in ATL: of the 43 victories, 22 are matched. Quite decent considering that the other B's you mentioned show up like this in ATL:
- Karl Bolle: 18/36
- Gerhard Bassenge: 6/7
- Fritz Otto Bernert: 16/27 (one match was to an unconfirmed claim and I left it out)
- Ernst Bormann: 4/16
- Erwin Böhme: 21/24

I left out Boelcke himself since the new JB book advances the number of identified victims. I wonder how many other JB pilots got more match ups in the new book? Or less?

While I was paging through the "B" section I noticed some other famous ones whose match ups are low. Some may be due to no spotlight attention, like Blume who's almost never mentioned - anywhere.

- Oliver von Beaulieu-Marconnay: 10/25
- Hermann Becker: 8/23
- Rudolf Berthold: 26/44
- Hans Bethge: 11/20
- Walter Blume: 7/28
- Oskar von Boenigk: 4/26
- Franz Büchner: 11/40

List goes on and on, but you get the picture already: many aces go with a match up rate below 50%.

Few will have done as well as Paul Billik with 28/31 match ups though!

I must confess of course that I cannot say how much of these match ups are certain nor how reliable they are (some only list a victim's squadron). Hopefully Rick himself will elaborate on that.

Kind regards,

Reinout

[Immo_Frese]

Reinout,

the list given in Above the Lines isn't up to date anymore. A newer documentation you will find in the The Jasta War Chronology and of course even this documentation about claims and losses is not the last word in this matter...

Immo

[Barrett]

Another thing to keep in mind from the matchups in Above the Lines is that they reflect the opponents--not necessarily the losers. As Reinout noted, about half of Bäumer's entries have identifications but in many cases the "victims" escaped with little or no damage. Some would have been credted as FTLs under the British system.

As to how PB got so many invalid credits, I doubt if the primary documents still exist. Am uncertain of the confirmation bureaucracy but I believe it had to go beyond the staffel. It's interesting to note that only about 2-3 of the first 50 or so victories (Aug-Dec 1916) fail to match up with known losses. I surmise that when larger formations began clashing in 1917 that there was naturally more room for error.

Still, if Jasta B's actual tally was "only" 75 to 80%, that's mighty impressive over so long a period. Archie Whitehouse would be shocked--shocked, I tell you!

[Reinout]

Another thing to keep in mind from the matchups in Above the Lines is that they reflect the opponents--not necessarily the losers. As Reinout noted, about half of Bäumer's entries have identifications but in many cases the "victims" escaped with little or no damage. Some would have been credted as FTLs under the British system.

Ah, so that's what it is... I guess no reports of how artillery smashed up the FTL's? That would make the claim valid in German terms.

As to how PB got so many invalid credits, I doubt if the primary documents still exist. Am uncertain of the confirmation bureaucracy but I believe it had to go beyond the staffel. It's interesting to note that only about 2-3 of the first 50 or so victories (Aug-Dec 1916) fail to match up with known losses. I surmise that when larger formations began clashing in 1917 that there was naturally more room for error.

Documentation probably does not exist any more, at least not primary. That's why I was curious about what his peers thought of him. If they see him getting claims confirmed for planes that were FTL's...how long would it take them to hold him accountable? German system did require witnesses especially if the planes didn't fall in German territory (which as it now stands must be the case in many of PB's victories).

Claims were -according to the ATL introduction- forwarded from the unit CO to KoFL who in turn would ask the HQ of KogenLuft to confirm the claims.

Yes, I also believe the administration began to lag when air battles increased in duration, size and complexity with multiple units involved (claims from different units for the same victim). In 1918, when so many things began to break down in the German military apparatus, the administrative reliability must have varied a lot per Armee (KoFL) and even per individual unit.

Having taken a further look at PB's victory list in ATL, I note that he scored numbers 1 through 18 in 1917, the rest in 1918. However, his 1918 record shows (due to a wound on 29 May keeping him out of the fighting until September) 4 victories in March, 16 in September and 5 in October. From simply looking at the list it is obvious he scored at least half of his total during a period in which the German administrative system was strained beyond recovery. How much that unfluences the possibilities of match ups I cannot say - hopefully you Barrett or Rick can.

I also crossreferenced the ATL victory list of Paul Bäumer against all his entries in The Jasta War Chronology (yes, I honestly did, all 43 of 'em). I begin to see the picture now: I have found a few cases where Jasta B claims one or two planes more than were actually lost and I also found an entry about an enemy being forced to land in No-Man's Land. All in all, TJWC links 26 of PB's claims to opponents and known losses if possible. Again, a link in itself establishes not always a certified loss but a probable opponent. I did find that TJWC footnotes give more detailed info on claims than ATL but I suppose it was to be expected considering the nature of the book.

Still, if Jasta B's actual tally was "only" 75 to 80%, that's mighty impressive over so long a period. Archie Whitehouse would be shocked--shocked, I tell you!

I'm sure Archie would! Like I said I've never seen any original source material on claim and loss documentations so I cannot say how admirable the 75-80% retreived claims are - perhaps if the number could be compared to other units? Like Jasta 5 perhaps? Or 11?

But thanks for sparking this interest and whetting my appetite for the new Franks book.

Kind regards,

Reinout

[Rick]

Playing the who-got-who game is fraught with peril, but that doesn't seem to stop any of us from trying. Perhaps we are lulled into a false sense of security by attempting to do it chronologically. Yes, 1915-1916 is fairly easy - few claims and few losses, especially on any given day. 1917 is a bit harder, but still more-or-less 'doable'. 1918 is a nightmare. (Have any of you taken a serious look at 8Aug18 for example. Something like 103 claims and even more losses). Times and locations are rarely given (for both the claim and the claimed) and things begin to unravel fast.

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, at best you can only add the word "Probably" or, if you are feeling confident, "Possibly", to any match up you've established. Unless you have solid evidence to establish a link, like a photo, entry in a log book or war diary, combat report, etc., it's very difficult to establish a match and present it with any degree of confidence, let alone defend your position to others.

As to any given pilot, I must admit I have never tried to dissect things that finely. Will have to review what I have on Bäumer, for example, and get back to you. Haven't bought the Jasta B book yet, so it is really difficult to comment at this stage.

Well, I've rambled on long enough. Time for another morning cup of coffee. R.

[Barrett]

I certainly agree that Jasta B's valid figures should be read in context of other staffels' figures (and will leave that computation to other Forumites!) But he was gaining unwarranted confirmations when others weren't. In March '18 he was the top scorer with 4 (one possible, one damaged and two invalids) while Plange got two real kills and one possible. Gallwitz and Pappenmeyer also scored real kills.

In september, his best month with 16 credits, PB got 8 fershure, 3 possible and 5 negats. Bormann got 4 fershure, 3 probable & 1 possible, and one negat. Loffler got 4 fershure, 3 probable and 1 possible. The probables are from the 2 Sept massacre of the 148th Aero in which JB had 2 invalid claims. So the other shooters were still making a higher % of valid claims than PB clear across the board.

PB finished in Oct with 2 good claims, 1 possible, and 2 no-gos.
Notably, of the jasta's other 13 claims, 11 are valid.

Pure speculation, but perhaps the foregoing explains why Bäumer's PlM was delayed so long. When he finally received it, he was a dozen or so abschussen past the 1918 average yardstick of 30.

[Reinout]

Hi Rick and Barrett,

Yes I do realise matching claims and losses is a nightmare, especially in 1918. that much became obvious from just paging through TJWC, especially the August - October period. But I am glad someone is trying. It's a thing that fascinates many of us - it certainly fascinates me!

Hopefully you'll find someting interesting on Bäumer, any of your comments are welcome.

I'm interested in seeing the confirmation rate of other German units but where that info is I don't know. I'm not sure any other unit has had such attention except maybe Jasta 5 (wasn't there a new book out on J5 recently? Did it delve into this matter?).

Barrett gives statistics of the Jasta B shooters and their valid claims which keeps me going back to a question I posed earlier. Perhaps no one can answer me this at the moment but what did the other pilots in Jasta B think of PB when he was getting more unwarranted claims confirmed than they were? And what was the reputation of PB in general?

Pure speculation, but perhaps the foregoing explains why Bäumer's PlM was delayed so long. When he finally received it, he was a dozen or so abschussen past the 1918 average yardstick of 30.

Barrett, my first response to this was:"Sorry, but you're wrong here, just like you were wrong in 1977." B) When I started gathering the material to refute this speculative statement, I came upon one or two interesting facts that might add to the speculation instead of disproving it! It became obvious however that to make any judgement based on the statistical facts I encountered I needed to do more research and fact-checking. I'll be doing just that in the coming days, sifting through ATL and various Aviation Awards volumes...

I'll keep you updated on the results, possibly in a new thread.

Before I turn to that task, I feel I must point out something: there was no 30 victories yardstick for PlM recommendations in 1918. First of all, no official directive stating 30 victories to be the new requirement has surfaced or even alluded to in biographies etc. and second of all, several men who were granted the PlM in 1918 got them while having scores below 30. Furthermore, of the 22 men who were recommended for the PlM but didn't get it, most had a score of just over 20 (some even had scores of under 20 but that may probably have been due to lack of official confirmation from higher up - the Jasta certainly counted those victories and of course, the Staffelführer made the PlM proposals...).

Hmmm, depending on one's viewpoint, one could say you were -gasp- wrong on the 30 victories yardstick!

Kind regards,

Reinout

[Barrett]

Reinout's keeping me honest; I shoulda been specific about my computation of the scores around the time Bäumer got his gong. And certainly there was no rule requiring 30 kills because of the number of awards made with 20+. However, from August onward there were numrous 30+ scores including Veltjens, Bolle, Konnecke, Buchner (40), Neckl and Degelow plus Bäumer. The avg score in that period was (ta-daa!) 29.

Break-break

As noted before, it's semi-impossible to determine the validity of claims against the French, whose records are often pitiful. So, for a comparison with Jasta B. we'd be advised to look for jastas who largely fought against the Brits and Americans.

Originally posted by Barrett@May 31 2004, 01:21 PM
[b]
As noted before, it's semi-impossible to determine the validity of claims against the French, whose records are often pitiful. So, for a comparison with Jasta B. we'd be advised to look for jastas who largely fought against the Brits and Americans.

Hi,

I think that this has been asked before, but here it goes again. Are the records of casualties for the French Air Service fairly complete as we know them today? I am grateful for the work that Frank Bailey and Christophe Cony has done with the French Air Service chronology, but is there a significant portion of casualties missing from this book due to lost records? I was informed a while back that the casualties for the French Air Service were reported daily in the Army reports of the period. Can anyone clear this up for me?

regards