Tanaka
Posts: 4378
Joined: 4/8/2003
From: USA
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quote:
ORIGINAL: CynicAl
The fun thing about Japanese victory claims is that, unlike the air services of every other nation I'm aware of, it doesn't seem that anyone in Japan was even trying to verify those claims at the time. It doesn't even appear to have occurred to anyone. The deliberate destruction of records by the Japanese at war's end makes it difficult to go back and verify individual claims against actual Allied losses, but what records did survive don't give any reason to believe that Japanese fighter pilots were any more immune to overclaiming than any other fighter pilots in the world.
The true figures are probably lower.
Nope they have already been lowered:
You will find the same estimates most everywhere you look. These are estimates after lowering thus why many consider them higher.
You will find very similiar numbers on this very well researched webpage and most other sources. Check it out:
http://users.accesscomm.ca/magnusfamily/ww2jap.htm
Also: http://www.frenkenstein.com/ww2/japan/Japan.htm
Japanese Aces:
Unlike their western bretheren, Japanese aviators did not leave much of
a paper trail regarding their aerial combat claims. Most western nations
had set up some form of "official" recognition, whether it be as part of
the record keeping for the unit, or with an official bureau to register
claims.
In the China and Nomonhan Wars, and the early part of World War Two, various
units did record individual claims, but this was largely discontinued in the
later years of World War Two, usually with official directives prohibiting
the practice of recognizing individual claims.
But, like fighter pilots elsewhere, many pilots did keep personal scores in
such things like diaries and logs.
Thus, when it comes to creating a list of Japanese aces, information
regarding victories is incomplete, and in many cases speculative and based on
personal versus official records.
Many scholars have recognized the problem with trying to validate claims, and
many have compensated by adjusting total claims to lower values by using a
percentage, which is often very arbitrary, and sometimes can be as much as 50
percent.
< Message edited by Tanaka -- 1/4/2005 5:07:19 PM >
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