Accuracy of Intruder claims

[Stirrick]

I’ve been doing some research into the RAF’s night intruder operations over Occupied Europe. I'm aware that the accuracy of claims during Intruder operations, for various well-established reasons, lags behind that of operations over the UK, but I’ve got no figures to gauge the scale of this. Does anyone else ?

A particular area of interest is the intruder sorties flown by a handful of RAF Hurricane squadrons during the period Spring,1942 - Spring,1943; a lonely and (usually) unrewarding vigil if ever there was one.

Undoubtedly the highest profile of these were the operations mounted by 1 squadron during the period April-July,1942. During these 3-months, flying black-painted Hurricane IIc’s over France and the Low Countries, the squadron claimed 22 enemy aircraft shot down during 180 sorties. However these successes were achieved almost entirely by just two pilots; F/L Karel Kuttelwascher and S/L James MacLachlan. During this period, Kuttelwascher claimed 15 enemy aircraft destroyed (and 5 damaged), while MacLachlan claimed 5 destroyed (and 3 damaged).

Now I don’t want in any way to denigrate the bravery of such men – anyone willing to fly (and navigate) a single-seat aircraft for hours at low level over a darkened enemy landscape, fight a life-and-death action, and then successfully find their way home again deserves a medal the size of a bin-lid in my humble opinion – but does anyone have any data on the accuracy of these claims ? From what I've read, 'Mac' MacLachlan's claims are largely verifiable from Luftwaffe records, but 'Kut' Kuttelwascher's are much less so. Or am I missing part of the puzzle ?