In aerial warfare, the term overclaiming describes a combatant (or group) that claims the destruction of more enemy aircraft than actually achieved.
In order to reduce the risk of overclaiming, the various militaries participating in World War II developed methods and procedures for confirmation of claimed aerial victories in an attempt to more reliably report actual losses.
Former Canadian Armed Forces pilot and Wings editor Wayne Ralph (2008) cautioned that the term "flying ace", emerging during the First World War, 'was first coined by the French in 1915.
'[1] Ralph argued that 'books about aces create mythologies of good, better and best, portraying air-to-air combat as a kind of international sporting event where bronze, silver and gold medals are awarded based on scores.
To pre-empt comments about overclaiming, the author wishes to stress that a victory is not necessarily a kill: it is a combat in which an enemy aircraft appears to be hit, and goes down in such a manner as to make the successful pilot believe that it is a total loss.
[citation needed] There were also issues of competition and rivalry between individual pilots, as well as aircrew teams or units, where a higher score of aerial victories increased social prestige, and could lead to both official and informal military and civilian decorations, awards and honours, which added pressure to inflate claims, and contributed to overclaiming.
[citation needed] Defenders of the German fighter pilots maintain that overclaims were eliminated during the confirmation process, but the microfilms show that this was not always the case.
[9] Overclaiming during World War II has been the centre of much scrutiny, partly because of the significant amount of air combat relative to other conflicts.
'From the first dedicate fighter sweep on 17 December, [1943] through the month's end, IJN [Imperial Japanese Navy] records 25 Zero losses among 492 sorties, whereas US Marine Corps squadrons alone claimed 79 victories.
US Navy pilots added nine more, so excluding USAAF and RNZAF claims, the naval squadrons reckoned 3.5 victories for every actual Japanese loss.
The remarkable thing is that the Japanese believed their own figures, despite the fact that as [sic] no successful Solomons air campaign could have sustained such grievous losses.