Gentlemen
This proves indeed how hard it is to write an accurate history about combat in WW 2.
Reading the new 2 TAF books by Shores/Thomas, we get listings of British losses that day. The list given by Shores/Thomas on April 21st excludes, if I read correctly, all damaged planes that returned, (and I believe that goes for all days) and what happened to them. Clostermann is not even mentioned as having his aeroplane damaged. From the answer by Chris Thomas above it is even not possible from the remaining British documents to know exactly which day the Tempest NV994 was damaged under cat B. It is not made easier that Clostermann himself seems to have been of the opinion his plane was damaged the same day he shot down his two Fw 190, that is the 20th. At least that is what I read out from the article in Avion published after his death. Impossible, it seems, to say if Clostermann's memory played tricks with him and/or his flying records are incomplete.
Only one Tempest was 100% lost on the 21st and that was B C McKenzie. As usual he is claimed to have been hit by flak. If he was Clostermann's wingman is not stated but the article in Avion implies that he was a friend and could well have covered his tail that day... Whatever other losses Clostermann may have remembered in his "edited books" listed by Erich does not seem to be true, or perhaps we have more slightly damaged Tempests around?
There were many eager Luftwaffe pilots still around and many claims were filed. I have no idea how either Clostermann nor Erich has come to the conclusion that it was Wurff that got McKenzie and himself. Clostermann was a very colourful man and a big personallity, but in my opinion also prone to overstate his cases.
Not many pilots or individuals would so completely have listed his idol de Gaulle in such a fashion as he did. How many other pilots have named their aeroplanes after a political leader?
I certainly have not followed the controvery surrounding Clostermann's victories and the by now rather famous letter written by AVM Harry Broadhurst on November 1st, 1945. Why did he write that letter in the first place? I can understand that the French authorities wished to have the records of their citizens which had served with the RAF transferred to themselves, but why would an AVM write a personal letter to that effect? Talking from memory here, I believe Clostermann was also a political figure in the post war French election circus, and what would suit better than an official letter from a high ranking officer in RAF confirming Clostermann as the greatest French ace in WW 2 and of course belonging to the side of de Gaulle?... Would be interesting to know on which side the returning pilots from the Soviet Union stood....
One of our members certainly found out the hard way that not even 60 years later was it possible to debate such a national hero in public and certainly not in writing. I think even today the official stand point is that he did get 33 victories in total, 19 by himself and 14 shared by others.
I think we all have an opinion about Clostermann. Personally I think it was his book more than anything else that made me become interested in aviation, to read history and in the end taking a pilot's license. To put it more rudely, fancy a Froggy being more inspiring than Biggles and the whole lot of other books I read in my youth about Limeys and Yanks
, but of course the book was in English....
Cheers
Stig