Stefan,
I share your interest in the (few) less well substantiated victories of MvR, he is a fascinating study and I regard his record as the highest scoring ace of the conflict as appropriate. I think we all agree that documentation of any of the aces scores is "shaky" at best however the efforts of many historians and authors are truly impressive. Like all, I have my own favorites and heroes; in my Military Flying career I had the privilege of instructing an academic course on the history of air combat to student Fighter Pilots and the lessons, tactics, and methods of the great aces such as Boelcke, von Richthofen, Bishop, and McCudden to name only a few astounded me with their timelessness, they still apply today. The Red Baron was a master, in my judgement, at maintaining priorities and particularly at having a well thought out plan for combat and sticking to it. His demise came when he suffered a rare lapse in that dictum, and followed his quarry too long and too low. His 15th victim surmised to be JTB McCudden, is fascinating to me as McCudden was in his own right a great one in his realm.
In 1982 I had the privilege of chatting with one of our Canadian Aces, Donald Maclaren, who recorded 54 victories flying Camels. He said many things I will never forget: he stated that "they" were all (of both sides) frightened young men just doing what they believed was their duty to their countries and he spoke of the men he served with equally as well as those he fought. He said air combat in Europe was very busy, very fast, and completely confusing most of the time; survival and prosecuting the battle being the only two priorities in his cockpit, in that order! Little wonder that it's hard to match claim to kill and vice versa. In his speech (he was a Guest Speaker at our units formal diner) he quoted von Richthofen several times, particularly the quote on a fighting pilot's duty being to clear out the opposing fighters and everything else is rubbish!
Forgive me, I live and breathe this stuff and new findings, information, or just informed speculation fascinate me. I have a considerable collection of books written about the "Der rote Kampfflieger" and always welcome more knowledge about him. Let me know if you do find more related to your question!
Cheers,
Lance
