As for the change in Romanian to Reich yes it is difficult to work out what Caldwell is referring to It seems this particular mission was a diversion to the synthetic oil plants in W Germany not Polesti RAF Bomber Command used an attack by the 8AF to attack this target The days loses were as already given Specifically Spitfire claims were not discussed so the Spitfire s percentage of the kill total is unknown which is conveyed in the article More importantly citations have been given for for the Order of Battle figures Your lack of understanding of how any historian presents his work work is palpable OOB are given in lists as you should know so your give me a quote tone is rather silly Caldwell makes it quit clear that these lists are incomplete with regard to strength returns given He gives known strength returns As for Total German day fighter strength again this estimated by Caldwell as strength returns for all 6 years are obviously incomplete He points out and totally refutes your claim that the bulk of these machines were deployed against the oilfields in September 1944 1 000 in the defence of central Europe were available for operations at this time while 1 800 alone were available for combat in the west German fighter units in Romania in September 1944 were mixed in with Eastern front units by June 1944 making it impossible to tell just how many fighters were operating in the oil capacity at this time Even considering that all E F fighters were at some point deployed in Romania they only reach a combined total of 2 250 compared to a total of 1 800 plus 1 000 for the other two fronts negating even the Med Theatre So your generalisation of a quote if this indeed is what it is makes the Bulk of the German fighter force concentrated in Romania false