Claims and Victims

Cam: thanks for your last on the German losses thread. Thought I'd start a new one (a)because the others are very long now, and (B) because I think a lot of us can reach a consensus on Allied claims.

My view is that even if officially credited allied victories did far exceed the number of German fliers killed and wounded it was because
(1) Many victories did not result in death or injury (2)a largish number were OOC's etc that were clearly "victories" in the moral and literal sense, even though they weren't "kills" in the modern sense: although even some of these (Richthofen, Gottsch, Kaufmann are just 3)were wounded although recorded as OOC's. As Al pointed out: Kills are always Victories but Victories aren't always kills; and "kill" as a term hardly existed then. Personally, I don't think badly either of the RFC or its pilots re their claims: I believe that most were made in good faith, and most were justified even if not 100% verifiable. The point being we should accept that allied pilots "scores" reflect both "victories" and "kills": and since many cannot be verified for lack of records they should be allowed to stand without impuning their owners' honesty.

Bob

[leo]

I have always held that honesty is not the exclusive realm of either the Allies or the Central Powers. The system of allowing claims by the British would seem to be less stringent than the one used by the Germans. Had the systems been reversed, I believe that the we would be questionnong the German claims just as we do now the British. Human nature being what it is, that should not be surprising.