OK EYE, this is my last post on this topic, it's obvious that you are willing to argue through your teeth about him, and that in your eyes he's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Your pretty rambly so I will try and just address the things that stood out. (PS please use enter after every few sentences, a wall of words makes it harder for me to follow you)
Godfrey: As far as I know no-one ever called him a coward, he stuck buerling in tail end in the 403 because he trusted buerling's skill. Tail end is rather hard to describe it- they were flying in a finger 4 by the time buerling got back to them after malta. He merely had the last, and highest position in the group.
In the first tour Buerling did he was tail end because he was a new pilot. As the riskiest spot in a formation it was the one the older guys wanted least. Everyone pulled their time in it, by the point Buerling was there JeJ was allready reforming new tactics along with godfrey. This wasn't flown as formation because they hated Buerling or because godfrey was a coward.. it was the SOP of the time. everyone flew it not just them. The time frame is tricky (any help spitfry affectionado's of the BoB?) but Buerling arrived just at the end of the "Vic" formation as standard.
Buerling DID help folks. Resentfully. No-one called him a willing teacher, he wanted to fly and kill things not teach new pilots. But damn, once they got him talking he taught them some damn fine stuff!
Wingmen: A comparison of his diary and some general info shows that from the time he started flying at Malta until the point where no-one would fly with him anymore he lost 16 pilots that were in his wing. This was in approx 6 months. Many many more were left alone and lost him in the fights. His fault was not that THEY didn't stick close enough or that they didn't try and follow him- usually he just peeled off and dropped before they saw him leave. Then they couldn't find him again and were left calling him on the radio and trying to understand a meelee below them.
A case in point of this was on his second england tour, the reason why JeJ told him to leave his wing and never come back to active duty. On a flight over france 3 groups of fighters met 190's at moderately high altitude. As they engaged the fighters (roughly co-alt) Buerlings wingman heard him say "i'm a goner" or words to that effect. Looked around and realized he was gone without a trace.
Not knowing what happenned he was reported as MIA on return. Turns out he saw a 190 10k below him as they entered the fight and put is IX into a steep dive to try for it without telling anyone. Since the IX was faster than his V he had to pull out from a high G dive. The force ripped bolts from his wingmounts and turned his eyes blood red.
He did this kind of stuff ALL THE TIME!
As for haeslin, the two of them were bloody lone wolf types. They didn't really fly any wingman tactics, just hunted together. Would have been fun to watch but hardly indicative of his general behaviour.
And yes, if they had of just figured out he was not working out the way they wanted and let him hunt like they did earlier RAF aces Buerling would have done fine. Unfortunatly he didn't have the capacity to get people to like him enough to let him do that.
(BTW 8 on 1? where the hell are you getting that? he would have never run against those numbers unless he had a superior position.. in which case the numbers are pointless)
BTW Pongo I am not really that hard on him, he was a real puzzling personality. Amazingly good and deadly yet despicable cold blooded killer wrapped up in a church boy who was too shy to say much. But I don't like seeing folks hero worship him either- he wasn't much of a hero. Most of my stuff came from a comparison research of him and billy bishop & collishaw. The similarities between all of them are mind boggling... yet he stands far far out from the others. He was the same but so disturbingly different.
