>As a further followup on this topic, I'd like to recommend a recent
>book by Norman Franks, Russel Guest, and Frank Bailey entitled Bloody >April... Black September.
An excellent book! As you say, the Allied overclaims are truly
staggering. It really is comparing apples to oranges, to talk about
the leading triplane ace from *any* country.
I think the main reason why the German claims are so much closer to
reality is the fact that physical evidence was (for the most part)
needed to substantiate German claims. When you have to actually have
a crashed airplane for a victory to be confirmed ... Also, I believe
the German scoring system did not allow for shared claims; only one
pilot received credit for a given downed aircraft.
This should be an interesting topic of discussion for years to come.
In light of the number of OOC claims by Collishaw, I'd certainly
hesitate to name him the leading triplane ace.
Bill Ciciora