ost (Chris Mark) wrote in message ...
Little item from my friend doing P-39 research:

7 P-39s escort 7 A-24s on an anti-shipping strike to Buna summer 1942. Flying
sniP

If you were an intelligence officer evaluating these reports, what would you
make of them?

great post!

if I were an intelligence officer evaluating these reports, I'd:

credit any US loss reported by US sources.

credit any IJN loss reported by radio intercepts of IJN sources.

for intelligence purposes, discount by half any damage to IJN ships or
aircraft reported by US sources. report ship types per the A-24
reports, but with a caveat that numbers and types should probably be
downgraded.

for public relations purposes, fully credit all damage to IJN ships or
a/c reported by US sources.

I'd estimate that the Zeros were returning from a mission with empty
magazines, if they had the time to expend flying acrobatics around the
bombers but did not attack. Outbound on a mission they would
presumably be concerned with fuel resources.

I'd love to find out what the official IJN reports (if they still
exist) said.