All sources fairly easy to get with some diligent web searching, but some require a little extra digging to make things like unit/aircraft type match up and some that is not so readily available, but, rather, the result of several years of research and balancing and cross referencing numerous spread sheets.
A lot of good, but somewhat generic, data on the USAAF is available in the USAAF Statistical Digest, found in various places on the web. The Naval Historical Center offers a download the US Naval Aviation Combat Statistics WW2 document.
The USAAF Stat Digest can be readily found in spreadsheet ready form, just a cut and past job for the pages you might want. The USN Aviation Combat Stats document is a PDF scan and it does have minor, but annoying, calculation errors found in the original. I moved all its tables to spread sheets and re formulated all the calculation fields. Having this stuff in spread sheets makes it easy to move around and make calculations/analysis not found in the originals but using the original data.
Also web available, from the USAF, though I can’t recall where (once I have it I don’t worry about where it came from) is a list of all USAAF credits, by pilot, with date of credit and the pilot’s unit. You can take that info and run it against the unit histories and pretty much determine for about 90% of cases the aircraft involved. Of course, it is a case of “rats, rats, rats” when you’ve laboriously done that long ago and then get your hands on the magnificent work done by Frank Olynyk and find he’s done it for you, but “goody, goody, goody” where in the process he cleared up any ambiguities in your own work. For example, a problem I found with the USAF list I was using long years ago was that it is pretty sparse on early action at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines. Frank’s work solves that problem.
I tend to stick to official publications, and steer away from any aficionado or enthusiast websites for my information. You might be surprised what’s out there . . . official USAAF unit histories, various statistical analyses and so on which some careful searches might uncover. For example, and this is odd because my field of interest is pretty much narrowed on US naval aviation in WW2, I haves some 90 official USAAF reports and/or unit histories. For US naval aviation in WW2, I’ve probably well over 600 related official reports, histories, manuals, and documents, plus about another 500 official documents of just general naval interest or covering naval aviation of other periods. All plucked from the internet. In all, the library consists of some 500 plus books on military subjects, including well over 300 on naval aviation subjects, and another 75 or so covering the USN, generally, USN interwar, USN WW2 and generally WW2 in the Pacific. The files have some 1450 document, reports, manuals, publications, studies, articles, and what have you, well over two thirds from official sources; and about 350 other periodicals mostly public, but many, albeit, somewhat restricted in their availability general public due to certain membership requirements, such as, for examples “American Fighter Aces Association Bulletin” or “Foundation - Journal of the National Museum of Naval Aviation” or “The Hook - Journal of Carrier Aviation” or “Wings of Gold - Journal of the Association of Naval Aviation”.
As far as credits for shooting up airplanes on the ground are concerned, why don’t we count trucks or, better yet, dog carts and wheelbarrows, too. Victory credits only count if they’re against somebody in the air. My personal opinion is that anyone who wants to count planes shot up on the ground and trying to equate that to victories is simply disingenuously trying to inflate the numbers.
If I may quote USAF Credits for the Destruction of Enemy Aircraft, WWII by Wesley P. Newton, Jr., Calvin F. Senning, et al, published by the Office of Air Force History, Headquarters USAF, 1978 (and some 685 pages in length): “Furthermore, for the Army Air Forces to record a claim for the destruction of an enemy aircraft as a credit, the flyer had to be a member of the Army Air Forces or an allied flyer assigned or attached to an Army Air Forces unit engaged in air-to-air combat during the period 7 December 1941 to 14 August 1945.” (Page 7)
Note “air-to-air combat”; nothing about planes on the ground.
Further, the document goes on to say, “An aircraft was deemed as destroyed if it were a heavier-than-air craft, manned and which one might expect to be armed, that, as a result of air-to-air action, crashed into the ground or water, disintegrated in the air, or was abandoned by its pilot. Credit was also given for intentional ramming of an enemy aircraft or for maneuvering in such a way as to cause the enemy plane to crash.” (Page 8)
Pretty much eliminates the concept of “credit” for hosing down parked airplanes, especially for the USAAF. I don’t ever recall having seen anything similar in print for the USN, but I’m not aware of any attempt to call planes shot up on the ground by USN pilots “victories” or “credits.” That’s not to say there’s no information on planes destroyed on the ground by USN pilots, there most certainly is, but that information is strictly noted as such and not as credits.
Of course, there’s the usual warnings about P-61 night fighter crew members in some theaters each receiving one victory credit for each shoot down. Pretty easy to spot most of them where you see privates and corporals with victory credits.
Beware of the afficiando/enthusiast website, except where they offer copies of original documents, unless you are absolutely sure of the quality of the research and it is not just some breathless, gee whiz, recounting and quoting from someone else’s site.
Beware of Martin Caiden types and, worse, those who would present his work as sources for their research. You only have to once read of P-38s with dead men at their controls appearing magically back over their bases hours after they should have run out of fuel with the words “it’s true” to realize there may be a problem with everything in the book (see Fork-Tailed Devils).
Also, here’s a freebee, the “USAF Credits for the Destruction of Enemy Aircraft, WWII” document can be found at http://www.au.af.mil/au/afhra/numbered_studies/1039707.pdf , however, be warned, it is 27.2 Mb. This document is not to be confused with the list mentioned in my paragraph 4 above. That was a list that I just cut and pasted into a spreadsheet. There are quite a few interesting documents available in the ‘numbered studies’ series. Check out
http://www.au.af.mil/au/afhra/numbered_studies/studiesintro.asp
Re: P-43’s
6 ? ? ? my bad, that’s a typo. Three (3) is the correct number.
17 Aug 42 – 1LT Burrall Barrum and 2LT Philip O’Connell, 75th FS USAAF, both flying P-43’s, share a credit for shooting down a twin engine type identified as a “type 45”.
3 Sep 42 – 2LT Martin Cluck, 75th FS USAAF, in a P-43, awarded a credit for shooting down a “Type 97” fighter.
2 Jan 43 – Capt Jeffery Wellborn, 76th FS USAAF, in a P-43, awarded a credit for shooting down a “I-45”
Ranking corrected in my earlier post . . . thanks for the good eyes!
Abbreviations are theaters
ETO - European Theater of Operations
MTO - Mediterranean Theater of Operations
POA - Pacific Operations Area (also denoted in some USAAF sources as CentPac or Central Pacific Theater)
FEAF - Far East Air Force (also denoted in some USAAF sources as SWPac or Southwest Pacific Theater
CBI - China-Burma-India Theater
Alaska - Alaska-Aleutians-North Pacific Theater
Rich
)
