[Franek Grabowski]

Chris
To make it clear, I do not put in doubt your research, but you must have in mind all the problems arising with documents. At last you have written some comments to the article written by me and Wojtek.

Any note in a Tempest Squadron ORB? None.

You perfectly know how inaccurate this document can be. A note that an airman has married, even if he was missing believed killed since three days, missing sorties, discrepancies between F.540 and F.541, and so on. Tom Neil put it perfectly in his preface to The Forgotten Months.

Any RAF combat report? None.

There would be no PCR (Form.F) if no claim was made. There should be Loss Reports or MACRs, but they are either destroyed or unavailable.

Any mention in the '2nd TAF Log of Casualty Claims, Assessments and Losses'? None.

The Log was based on Opflashes send every evening to respective command. If airmen were FTR and reported OK, this well may have ommit informations about damages.

Any Tempests other than McKenzie's lost that day? None.

If aircraft was not Cat. E, it could have been easily misreported, mentioned on another date, etc.

Any supporting documentation from the purveyors of this yarn? None.

Well, have we seen Clostermann's Log Book?

Furthermore, in my British edition of 'The Big Show' (1951) there is no record of any action after the combat of 20 April until the attack on Schwerin.

That is the valid point, the question is what was in the original French edition. I have heard that the translation is much shorter, is not it?
Otherwise this might be the point. I know a case of a certain pilot who wrote his memories but was unable to have them published. He was told more sex and action is needed. He could not add sex because of his wife, so added some action instead.
Well, I am not putting in doubt your knowledge and research. I am just noting that quite often people like Clostermann are accused of confabulation, but on a closer look their stories could be closer to the truth than initially expected. I recall a story of an airman describing a rather long dogfight with a Me 109, when he gradually gaining on him in sharp turns, and finally noticing his bursts hitting the target. His PCR clearly described this as a typical hit and run attack. Fortunatelly, his cine camera film survived to prove PCR was not telling the full story!