part 2
by robert
I've previously looked at John Lowell's claims in detail, so excuse me for posting on this subject at length. I don't trust Lowell as a source because a very large percentage of his claims that can be checked turn out to be either factual mistakes or embellishments. He's also recounting the events for a book published in 1991 - close to 50 years after the fact. Memory at that distance can be hazy.
Let's concentrate on what he says in Top Guns: America's Fighter Aces Tell Their Stories, by Joe Foss and Matthew Brennan. The book from which I quote is the first hardcover printing of June, 1991, published by Pocket Books, ISBN 0-671-68317-9.
The only RAF ace named Donaldson was E.M. "Teddy" Donaldson. He was indeed an RAF ace, although he's much better known for setting a post-war world speed record in the Gloster Meteor. He was named C/O of No. 151 Squadron in November 1938, and led that Squadron until August 5, 1940. His score was 5 destroyed, 1 shared destroyed, and 1 damaged, all on Hurricanes in the summer of 1940. On June 30, 1940 he was shot down into the sea (reportedly by Adolf Galland!). I don't know if he suffered injuries that contributed to him being relieved of command and given a staff assignment in August 1940, but from what I can gather, he saw no more operational flying after 1940. One source I have says he was later attached to the Polish Wing, but it must have been in a primarily non-flying capacity as the detailed table of British aces who had kills with the Polish Wing in Polish Air Aces of World War 2, does not mention him, and neither do the two other detailed works I have on Polish fighter units in WW2. Donaldson, interestingly, spent most of 1942 in America, as an air gunnery instructor at Luke Field!
So it looks like if the identification is correct, Donaldson had not flown combat for four years, or at the very least had not had a kill for four years, when the mock combat occurred. He may have been a little out of practice...
Lowell claims that Donaldson was "one of the top English aces" - his five kills would put him somewhere around 800th on the list of RAF/Commonwealth aces. There's no disrespect intended towards Donaldson - he was an ace, and anyone who served during WW2 to ensure our freedom has my respect and gratitude, but he clearly was nowhere near being "one of the top English aces", as Lowell describes him.
In the short bio at the end of the book, Lowell is credited with "sixteen and a half confirmed; nine probable; eleven damaged."
However, according to the official USAAF figures, Lowell's actual totals are nowhere near that. Frank Olynyk's American Stars and Bars, the definitive book on the combat totals of US fighter aces, gives Lowell's actual totals as 7.5 kills, 1 probable, and 2 damaged, or about one-third of what Top Guns credits him with. Someone's way off here, and it isn't Olynyk, a man who has devoted himself to the study of USAAF fighter claims, and whose massive 668-page book is written directly from USAAF claim records. Lowell is credited by Olynyk with 9 ground kills, but these are different from air-to-air kills, and even though the 8th AF uniquely recorded ground kills at the time, they were not grouped in with air-to-air kills.
Lowell is also quoted in Top Guns as saying, "A few years ago, the American Fighter Aces had their annual reunion at Maxwell AFB in Alabama...Gabreski saw me and called me over to his little group...He introduced me as the highest scoring P-38 Ace in Europe..."
Admittedly this is not Lowell himself talking, but he doesn't bother to right the incorrect impression. Lowell wasn't anywhere close to being the leading P-38 ace in Europe. He had exactly 3 kills and 1 probable while flying the P-38, which puts him behind James Morris (7.333 ETO P-38 kills) and Robin Olds (5.0 ETO P-38 kills), and five other P-38 ETO aces.
Lowell incorrectly gives the model number of the Spitfire he talks about. He describes it as having "a five-bladed prop, a bigger engine, and more firepower." From the description, it would have to be either a Mk.XII or Mk.XIV, most probably a Mk.XIV. Lowell, however, calls it a Mk.XV, not once, but three times. There was no Spitfire Mk.XV. It didn't exist. The mark number XV was given to the Seafire Mk.XV, which was a Royal Navy aircraft, of which the first one was delivered in October, 1944 (the P-38/Spitfire duel must have taken place in June or July 1944, if Lowell was flying a P-38L as claimed, as the first P-38L was not delivered until June 1944, and the 364th FG was flying missions fully equipped with P-51s by July 27). The fact he gets the mark number wrong may seem insignificant, but it proves that he doesn't have much familiarity with the aircraft he's talking about, and it also proves that the authors did not edit the stories that they recount in the book for historical accuracy. (The book is a series of 27 chapters, each recounting a particular ace's career in his own words. It has a feel remarkably similar to Lawrence Ritter's great baseball book, The Glory of Their Times.)
Lowell quotes Donaldson as saying, "If one of you bloody bastards has enough guts, I'll fly mock combat above your field and show you how easily this Spit XV can whip your best pilot's ass!"
I'm sorry, but British people don't talk like that. Americans do. Heck, British people don't even use the word "ass". After the war, Donaldson was the air correspondant for several British newspapers and magazines. I've read his writing, and this doesn't sound like his style.
Lowell spends much time recounting an air battle between himself and Adolf Galland, when the latter was flying an Fw 190D. Lowell states "One of our last P-38 missions was a flight to protect bombers on a mission to Berlin. My squadron was flying top cover. We were attacked from above, out of the sun, by sixteen long nosed FW-190s."
Let's hold it right there for a minute. We know that this couldn't have been any later than late July, 1944, for they were an all-Mustang group by that date. When did the Fw 190D, the long-nosed variant, enter service? The Fw 190D-9 entered service with III./JG 54 in September, 1944, two months after the latest date that the fight could have taken place, given Lowell's account. The type of aircraft he claims that he fought in squadron strength was not even in service!
A poster on another WW2 board who has looked into Lowell's story in detail has tried to reconcile Lowell's claim by seeing if it was possible that Galland was flying a prototype Fw 190D, but says that, "There's a complete list of the prototypes and their history. I couldn't find any suitable prototype that might have been used by Galland - and Lowell mentions an entire flight of "long-nose" Fw 190s anyway, which is entirely impossible at the time. Lowell's account is contradictory in a number of points - for example, the position he quotes doesn't match the landscape he describes."
So it's not just me that has doubts about Lowell's credibility.
Lowell, by the way, describes Galland as having "over three hundred victories". Galland actually had 104, which the last time I checked was 196 less than 300.
