For Billy Bishop, according to the linked article above, only 22-27 of his victories were backed by losses on the German side. That was how inflated his score was. Most of those "verified" victories were witnessed, unlike the rest of his tally, including, "Twenty-four victories in 23 sorties flown over 22 days, with only one of them confirmed by an independent witness" while he was flying an SE5a as a squadron commander and could "confirm" his own claims.
Raymond Collishaw also gave away kills to rookies, for the same reason. By some investigative research and discussions/interviews with pilots who flew with Collishaw, he under-reported and some of the rookies swore (after the war) that their first kill was not actually theirs. They may have fired at it, were convinced they had missed, but the plane went down anyway. The only conclusion was that Collishaw was shooting at the same time from below them, and told all the pilots in the
mess on arriving after the flight that the new guy was now "one of the boys". Estimates through this investigation suggest Collishaw may have had over 100 kills (sketchy, but possible, if all the witnesses gave up their firsts. Collishaw's personal claims were 81 planes and balloons, but the RNAS didn't count them all, and discounted balloons.
Constable on Collishaw). Oh, and this doesn't count his flying with the Russians, in Mesopotamia or during WWII.
There were no Canadian squadrons in Europe during the Great War, although there were Home Defence squadrons and training squadrons in Canada. Australia must have had better politicians, or Galipoli may have had something to do with why (but I'd be guessing).
And you have to love 'revisionist history'.
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