Which Allied Fighter scored the most victories in World War Two? I believe I know the answer
There is a popular idea that the P-51 or Hellcat scored the most victories of all the Allied fighter aircraft. What is the truth? Edward Rippeth believes he knows the answer to what many would consider an impossible question to answer.
By Edward Rippeth
For whatever reason, there is no published Spitfire count of victories – or at least not one I could find. It is in this apparent absence of this vital information, people have laid claim that the better documented Mustang (attributed 5599 kills) and the Hellcat (a very precise 5173 kills) are the top-scoring aircraft. However, it is my view that there is enough evidence to prove that the Spitfire achieved the edge in terms of total victories in World War II. And please note, this article is based on confirmed claims, not admitted losses by the Axis. Perhaps the real figures are lower, maybe by 25- to 30%, but that applies to both US air forces as well as the RAF. But my base assumption is that neither the RAF nor US Air Forces were more or less prone to over-claiming.
So the case for the Spitfire rests on four key elements.
1. The diminution of the Battle of Britain
Firstly, the Battle of Britain effect serves to negate the Spitfire’s overall contribution. The combination of the Spitfire’s apparently low and second-place tally (behind the Hawker Hurricane), combining with the unique importance of the Battle has overshadowed the Spitfire’s incredible overall contribution to the war. No air battle has been studied so intensely, and at no other point have victory claims been so thoroughly dissected. They were even the subject of UK Parliamentary debate in 1947, with full ‘official’ figures matched to German records published in the permanent Parliamentary record Hansard. This has inevitably brought the number down – with 2600+ claims whittled down to 1733, even though Luftwaffe records also record over 600 damaged aircraft. This means that the Battle history is based on documented Luftwaffe losses – and not confirmed pilot claims, unlike the big scores of the Mustang and the Hellcat. In addition, the more numerous Hurricane scored more kills in the Battle (with over 50% of kills to the Spitfire’s 42%), putting a question mark next to how effective the Spitfire could be. And finally, most tallies use an arbitrary cut-off at the end of the battle which reduces the number of kills significantly.
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One measure counts the battle as the intensive period between 8 August and 30 September – during which time the Spitfire scored 529 kills confirmed against Luftwaffe losses, i.e. not a huge number. In fact, for the pilots involved, German raids over Britain started over the Channel convoys immediately following the fall of France towards the end of June, and continued to the end of the year (interestingly, the 1947 Hansard record shows that in the preliminary period and after the start of October, RAF claims were significantly less than Luftwaffe losses). Therefore, in terms of confirmed pilot claims, the Spitfire in fact should be credited with about 1,400 victories for this campaign. This, though, is only the start of the Spitfire’s stellar career, and indeed the major role that RAF and Commonwealth fighters played in the war. Just 23% of RAF fighter victories occurred during the Battle of Britain.
2. The Spitfire fought the whole war
It is a rarely acknowledged fact that uniquely, the Spitfire both started and finished the war as a front-line fighter; only its great rival the Messerschmitt Bf 109 comes close. While the only aircraft the Spit shot down in the first month of the war were Hurricanes in the unfortunate Battle of Barking Creek, it was off the mark within six weeks of World War II starting, with its final kill in its naval Seafire guise out in the Pacific on VJ-Day – six years in which it was, if not always the most numerous, always the pre-eminent fighter plane of the Royal Air Force. In that time the Spitfire fought at Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, had two years of battling over France before providing escort to the early USAAF raids; it also fought and won in North Africa, Malta, Italy, the reconquest of Burma, not to mention continuing to fight in western Europe until VE-Day. Spitfires had likely claimed over 3,000 victories before the Mustang or Hellcat even opened their accounts.
It’s probably fair to say wherever it turned up, the Spitfire won; it is perhaps no coincidence that Spitfires were not present during defeats like France, Greece, Crete, Singapore and the retreat from Burma. It couldn’t have served as the RAF’s number one fighter for so long, without knocking down lots of aircraft – and did so to decisive effect most notably in Malta and North Africa, where the course of the entire war changed dramatically. The pity is that the Spitfire hadn’t been deployed here sooner, which leads us to the one blemish on the record. The Spitfire’s bone-headed deployment in Sholto Douglas / Leigh Mallory’s Circus and Rhubarb raids of 1941 and 1942 with an unflattering loss ratio, due to using this brilliant short-range interceptor in large-formation fighter sweeps and strafing missions.
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By contrast, the Hellcat and the Merlin-engined Mustang both served for less than two years and joined the war when in both Eastern and Western theatres, the early offensive onslaught of the Japanese and the Luftwaffe had been blunted, defeated and put on the defensive – thanks to aircraft such as the Spitfire, the Hurricane, the P40 and the Wildcat. In both cases, these two aircraft were not the only widespread and high-scoring US fighters – the Mustang was sharing its kills with the Thunderbolt and Lightning during the Defence of the Reich, while the Hellcat was sharing with the Wildcat, Corsair and Lightning in the Pacific. Nonetheless, it needs stating – both Hellcat and Mustang ran up massive totals very quickly and achieved a level of dominance over enemy fighters which the Spitfire seldom managed. The Spitfire of course shared its early glories with the Hawker Hurricane, but by April 1942 onwards was replacing it and for the last three years of the war, the Hurricane was very rarely used other than as a fighter-bomber. Thereafter the Spitfire was the key RAF day fighter in all theatres except the open oceans and after nightfall.
A lazy assumption I expected to see proven was that from the end of 1943, all the shooting down was being done over Germany by P51s and some by P47s, with Spitfires scarcely getting a look in. Undoubtedly the carnage inflicted by the US fighters was the major factor in the defeat of the Luftwaffe – but it doesn’t cover the whole story. It is clear from the scores of major aces (i.e. those with 12 or more kills) the Spitfire was a significant contributor, with 26% of the aerial kills in this group (the Mustang scores 39%). This was in the main due to the major role Spitfires played in clearing the skies of the Luftwaffe above the battlefields of western Europe post-D-Day. On the 29th June, 1944, the Canadian Fighter Wing led by Johnny Johnson destroyed 26 of the 34 aircraft shot down over the Normandy battle area that day. Further evidence is provided by the impressive number of Spitfire aces in the Northern European theatre between 1943 and 1945 – with Johnny Johnson himself claiming more kills than any other allied pilot (30 of his 38 total) in this campaign, with a pack of others including Canadians Don Laubman and William Kersley, Frenchman Pierre Clostermann, Englishman Stephen Daniel and Kiwi Johnny Checketts all achieving dozens of kills in Spitfires.
‘Defence of the Reich’ aces
Johnny Johnson (Eng, Spitfire) 30
Francis Gabreski (US P47) 28
Robert S.Johnson (US P47) 27
George Preddy (US P51) 26.83
John C.Meyer (US P51 / P47) 25
Pierre Clostermann (Spitfire / Tempest) 23.5
3. Statistics and more statistics – the scores of aces
While there isn’t a definitive ‘score’ for the Spitfire, the available statistical evidence points to the Spitfire shooting down more planes than its rivals. There are several ways to look at this. One available source is the scores of significant aces. While the top positions are broadly shared, significantly more RAF and Commonwealth aces than US aces have achieved more than 12 or more kills – 164 to just 125; a breakdown of totals for each of the aircraft types among these aces sees the Spitfire strikingly far ahead in terms of victories with the Hurricane in second. The Hellcat scores notably less on this measure, and is in fifth place behind the Mustang and Thunderbolt. Why the advantage to the RAF planes here? This is probably due to RAF aces being more likely to return to the fray than US aces and doing two or more tours over the course of a longer war. A lot of US pilots had only a short period of a few months to get their scoring in; this is reflected in the mission counts – for example, Robert S.Johnson flew 89 missions for his 27 kills – compared to Johnny Johnson’s 515 for 38 kills.
Total scores for 12-plus aces by aircraft type
| Supermarine Spitfire | 1272.7 |
| Hawker Hurricane | 919 |
| North American P51 Mustang | 651.5 |
| Republic P47 Thunderbolt | 375.2 |
| Grumman F6F Hellcat | 328 |
| Lockheed P38 Lightning | 293 |
Overall, the combined RAF total of aces is behind the US total (918 against 1,234). This is using the strictest criteria for RAF aces – i.e. at least five confirmed kills, with shared kills aggregated. However, the split by different aircraft types shows the Spitfire is top of the pile by number of aces, with the Hellcat ahead of the Mustang on this measure, the Hurricane and the Thunderbolt a little way behind. Another very telling split is that of the US aces, just 476 aced in the west; against 891 for the RAF. The Pacific was a much bigger theatre for US fighter aces.
Fighters listed by number of aces and their total kills
| Aircraft | Aces | Ace Kills |
| Supermarine Spitfire | 341 | 2967 |
| Grumman Hellcat | 305 | 2185 |
| Mustang | 274 | 2116 |
| Hawker Hurricane | 261 | 2230.5 |
If the victory totals of all aces are counted up, the Spitfire’s lead holds, but it’s closer. Thanks to the detailed breakdowns of individual ace scores in Shore / Williams Aces High, it is possible to very precise about the RAF ace scores and which aircraft the aces scored in which plane. This makes it very clear that one popular claim, that the Hurricane outscored the Spitfire, is incorrect. I’ve also added ace totals for the Mustang and the Hellcat, and this shows the Spitfire remains very clearly out in front on this measure – because more pilots became aces in the Spitfire, and of these aces, many more were high scorers. As you’d expect given the US has more aces, the combined total score of all RAF and Commonwealth aces is 7,983, significantly less than the US total – 9,341.
What the research also shows is that RAF pilots tended to switch their aircraft type more often than US pilots. A lot of Hurricane pilots from the Battle of Britain converted to Spitfires, or in the Mediterranean campaign, moved from Gladiators to Hurricanes and / or Tomahawks, and in plenty of cases moved from day fighter squadrons to night fighter squadrons where they ended up in twin-engine Beaufighters and Mosquitos. So aces in other planes may also have scored in Spitfires. The Williams and Shore record doesn’t stop with aces, they also include ‘near’ aces or pilots with some kind of claim on five aircraft, including probables and shared victories. Counting the scores of aces in other planes and ‘near’ aces, the Spitfire’s score moves up to 3,593, with the Hurricane on 2,730. And that’s the limit for logged confirmed RAF claims in the public domain for these two aircraft without having to dig through gazillions of archives.
4. The missing statistic – the non-ace scores
The ‘known known’ is the aces’ scores and for the Spitfire, the near aces’ scores; the unknown is a number for those under the waterline – all those hundreds, possibly thousands of pilots who shot down aircraft but not enough to achieve ace status. During the Battle of Britain, 2,937 pilots flew at least one sortie during the battle. Of these 178 were aces in the battle, and over 400 of these would become aces at some stage of World War 2, compiling over 3,500 kills. What of the other 2,500 pilots? What we do know is that 2,741 claims were registered up to October 31st, with about 400 more up to the end of the year. The Battle’s 178 aces scored 1,386 of these, and by my count, Shore and Williams logged 1,967 kills by WW2 aces and near aces. Therefore about 1,170 kills were claimed by non-WW2 aces – or 37% of the total. Is this ratio typical? Possibly not – very different circumstances may lead to a different ratio; pilots in a theatre like China-Burma-India with relatively little air combat (it saw just 20 RAF and C’wealth aces) are likely to see a proportionately much higher contribution by non-aces. But by getting to the non-ace percentage across the whole war, we can make an accurate estimate of all kills by the RAF and Commonwealth, including by plane type – and get to our Spitfire total.
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To do this, there is one further set of data. Squadron total claims, which are also available for many but not all RAF, RCAF, RAAF and SAAF squadrons. For example, the RAF’s second-highest scoring squadron, 92 Squadron, has 317.5 claimed scores, of which 204 are listed as by aces or near aces, i.e. 36% are ‘unknown’, i.e. very close to the Battle of Britain. However, some squadrons, like the South African 1 Squadron which fought primarily in North Africa, have over 50% unknown. A sample of ten squadrons shows well over 40% of kills are unlisted. Assuming this proportion is not affected by fighter type (and only two of the sampled squadrons did not use Spitfires at some time), this means that we can produce a final total for the Spitfire and Hurricane.
The victory totals of the US fighters accords with non-ace data for the USAAF Fighter groups and USN and USMC fighter squadrons. These show that non-aces for each squadron amount to about 62% of total kills – so the Mustang’s ace total of 2117 becomes 5570 – almost identical to the published number of kills for the Mustang (5599). So the squadron information effectively confirms the published numbers for US aircraft: the large gap between ace kills and total kills for the Mustang and the Hellcat has an explanation. The information on US aces doesn’t consistently include breakdown by aircraft type, and there’s no handy list of ‘near aces’, but I’ve put together a table including examples of US squadrons and fighter groups and RAF squadrons – including just the squadron ace totals, so it compares like with like. What it shows is that USAAF Fighter Groups tend to have higher non-ace scoring proportions than the RAF, which nonetheless tend to be greater than 50% of a squadron’s kills. What is also very clear is that high-scoring squadrons in all the air forces have a much lower percentage of kills by non-aces – notably David McCampbell’s high-scoring VF-15 US Navy squadron where they rack up just 31% of kills, even lower than the RAF’s 92 Squadron.
| Squadron | Total | Aces total | Non-aces total | Non-aces % | Notes |
| 1 SAAF | 165.5 | 60.83 | 104 | 63.3% | Fought mainly North Africa, top ace Kenneth Driver |
| 92 ‘East India’ RAF | 317.5 | 154 | 163.5 | 51.5% | 17 aces headed by Kingaby, Duke, Tuck and Bartley |
| 112 RAF | 206 | 88 | 118 | 57.3% | Shark’s teeth motif. 12 aces headed by Billy Drake. |
| 264 RAF | 138 | 75.33 | 62.66 | 45.4% | First Defiant squadron; nightfighters from 1941.10 aces headed by Thorn, Cook and Young |
| 331 RAF (Norway) | 114 | 65 | 49 | 42.7% | All-Norwegian; 9 aces headed by Svein Heglund |
| 23 Fighter Group | 621 | 220 | 401 | 64.6% | Top Asia-Pacific fighter group. Formed from Flying Tigers, China-Burma-India. 30 aces including Herbst, McComas, Older and ‘Tex’ Hill. |
| 325 Fighter Group | 520 | 185 | 335 | 64.4% | North African and Mediterranean fighter group, headed by Herschel ‘Herky’ Green. |
| 354 Fighter Group | 701 | 320 | 381 | 54.4% | Top European fighter group. 40 aces headed by Eagleston and Beerbower. |
| US Navy VF-14 | 146 | 51 | 95 | 65.1% | 8 aces headed by William Knight (7.5k) |
| US Navy VF-15 | 310 | 214.5 | 95.5 | 30.8% | Top-scoring US Navy squadron, headed by McCampbell (34), Chamberlain (13.5) |
| US Marines VMF-121 | 208 | 114 | 94 | 45.2% | US Navy squadron, 22 aces |
So how many victories did the Spitfire get? By adding the uncounted scores, the RAF and Commonwealth Spitfires scored 5,988 kills. This puts the aircraft just ahead of the Mustang on 5599.
However, there is one further set of scores that I could factor in, which is scores of the fighter types with other air forces. The Spitfire was flown by the USAAF, the Mustang by the RAF (as was the P47), and the Hellcat by the Royal Navy. Hurricanes were flown quite extensively by the Russians. Figures given for the USAAF Spitfire is 350, and the Royal Navy Hellcat 50. The Mustang has 110 kills listed for eight RAF aces and near aces (mainly Polish pilots but headed by the Greek pilot Bassilios Vassiliados with 5.83 kills), which translates into 185 kills using the 40% for unlisted kills. One last note – the Red Air Force flew Hurricanes in combat, although they weren’t popular. They had 17 aces, which suggests about 300 kills, not enough to close the gap (Red Air Force figures are very sketchy indeed, hence I’ve not included in this analysis). So the final listing is as follows – the Spitfire heading the Mustang and Hellcat. Hence my declaration that the Supermarine Spitfire is the highest-scoring Allied fighter type of World War II.
| Aircraft type | Kills |
| Supermarine Spitfire | 6,338 |
| North American P51 Mustang | 5,784 |
| Grumman F6F Hellcat | 5,223 |
| Hawker Hurricane | 4,850 |
| Republic P47 Thunderbolt | 3,786 |
Sources: Aces High Christopher Shore / Clive Williams (Grub Street); American Fighter Aces Association website; Stephen Sherman’s Acepilots.com; Aces of WW2.com; Wikipedia; Most Dangerous Enemy Stephen Bungay.
Edward Rippeth
Head of Primary Publishing, International schools
Cambridge University Press
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Only a sadist wold ask the follow on question of which Mark of aircraft has the most kills…
I’d guess at a Hellcat version in first place?
That seems like the most definitive answer that can be obtained without meticulously analysing tens or even hundreds of thousands of official records and personal accounts, which would involve a level of effort which is totally disproportionate to the importance of the question. It is also inherently plausible, given that the Spitfire was so widely used throughout the war.
It’s also something that would be a good learning exercise for history students. At first glance it seems like a simple quantitative question that could be easily resolved by consulting official sources. But we soon get into the issue of what is being recorded and how, and how reliable any of those records actually are, which are fundamental questions when dealing with primary historical sources. Even the apparently simple questions dissolve into a spectrum of possibilities and probabilities.
You completely ignore the Russian front .
Not even any mention of Bong, PTO in the P38 Lightning.
The Bell P-39/63 Airacobra/King Cobra should be made. The P-39 has the highest total number of individual victories attributed to any U.S. fighter type, not kill ratio; Finnish-modified Brewster Buffalos had the highest kill ratio.
So there are just too many variables here, and no one can really unravel all the stats…..because in many situations there were no stats…..I think from my perspective one fact is very clear… that the Spitfire was the most successful fighter of WW2 with a lot of VERY worthy contenders right behind…Just look at the thing… a graceful bird with a magnificent engine and the aerodynamics to win. I might add that I have spoken with German pilots… they agree.
A notable Allied fighter from WW2 is the Bell P-39 Air Cobra. One thing that made it unique is it’s tricycle landing gear. Large numbers of them were lend leased to the Soviet Union who had great success with it because their fights mostly occurred at low altitude.
I believe the number of enemy aircraft shot down was the most of all Allied fighters.
the results in battel of Britain showed that spitfire got only 42% because RAF had only 250 spitfires over 560 hurricanes . And while the spitfire was sent to fight with the 109 hurricane’s task was to bring down the bombers which was easy if there were no fighter escort.
As with most things the Yanks do they have a tendency to embellish their claims.
I believe you’re wrong. An American plane did score the most Allied Air to Air kills. It’s the Bell P-31 Air Cobra flown by Soviet Pilots.
The USA and Britain didn’t like the Air Cobra just like the early P-51 powered by the Allison Engine. They didn’t perform well at high altitudes. The Soviet Union loved the Air Cobra because they fought at low altitude and it had a cannon that fired through the propeller hub. The reason Bell was able to do that is because the engine was located behind the cockpit. The Air Cobra also had tricycle landing gear making it easier for the pilot to see over the front of the plane on takeoff and landing.
One area not mentioned was ground kills. From about December 1944, the Germans tried to husband their aircraft due to a lack of fuel, spare parts, and experienced pilots. Thus, many long-ranged P-51s and P-47s, with a few P-38s, tried to locate dispersed airfields and blast away at aircraft on the ground. Due to the heavy flak placed around these fields, the 8th AF began giving credit for aircraft destroyed on the ground. I don’t think anyone in the Pacific Theater did the same. By the way, it is fashionable to say the Axis were all but defeated in 1943. Tell that to the bomber crews shot down and the ships/bases attacked in the Pacific.
The name of the P-39 was Airacobra, not Air Cobra.
Hmm. The Spit, a great airplane fought from 1939 to 1945. Six years. It knocked down 6,338 according to your data. The Mustang (P-51 B and D) fought from January 1944 to April, 1945. That’s 15 months yet it knocked down 5,784. (I’m discounting the P-51A inasmuch as it was a ground attack plane with few victories). Both contributed significantly but we would never have won the air war without the Mustang.
The later, 1944/45 Mustang victories would go on to include aircraft destroyed in ground attacks. Also! The P51’s swarmed all over the (mainly heavily cannon ladened German fighter, bomber-destroyer FW190a/109G types, flow by lesser experienced pilots. either in hours flown or transferred from other flying duties)
I don’t know how you can say that in the internet, tell me please, what was the most advanced , most battle hardened air force in 1939? Well it was the Luftwaffe. Tell me how many aces it had after the spanish civil war. So in 1940 spitfires were fighting against the most experience pilots of the Luftwaffe. In the battle of Britain of the 250 spitfires only 220 were operational. RAF had about 700 operational fighters defending them( defients, hurricane , etc.) . so with that numbers isn’t that great that it claimed 42% of German aircraft shot down? And after the Blitz the RAF went on the offensive and gave the advantage that they had over the Germans , to them carrying out strafing runs and large fighter sweeps in France which lead to massive losses in the RAF. But still spitfire mk 5 s put up a desperate fight against the mighty fw 190 until the mk 9 evened the playing field . so in the mid 1942 we see that many 190s falling victim to the mk9 because it is so similar to the mk 5. And I don’t need to mention the other marks , but I suppose to so, the LF mk 9 was the best spitfire ever, it could keep up with the 109 or the 190 being only a little bit slower, and could outurn any German aircraft and out climb anything except the jets ( me 262, me 163-not a jet but a rocket plane , ho 229, etc…). And we have the Spitfire mk 14 which could outrun, out turn , outclimb almost all of the Luftwaffe s fighters and even the P51 D Mustang ! Why ? The answer is the Griffon 65. So let’s talk about those 15 months that the mustang had in the western front, so at first in 1944 most the Luftwaffe was made up by garbage. Still it is not to be considered defeated. Lack of oil and pilots made the planes to sit in the airfields to get bombed or strafed. So the RAF don’t give credit to pilots when a aircraft is destroyed on the ground but the US army air corps did , and it was much harder to confirm a victory in the RAF than the USAAF. So we can say that the numbers in the RAF are more accurate. And the Pilots in the P51 s were well trained and Battle hardened because they were flying the p47 s , p40s and even spitfires also other aicrafts in battle. While the Luftwaffe had only a handful of experienced pilots and tons of new pilots without experience or even good flying hours. So it was just a turkey shoot. The mustang pilots were having the time of their lives ( not actually becuse war is hell) If you think I’m incorrect, then take a look at April the 07 th on 1945. When the Luftwaffe’s sonderkommando Elbe ( German kamakazi unit- yes they had them too but its a bit different) tasked with ramming the B17 s and B24 s tooked to the skies with more than a 150 aircrafts. Which were Bf 109 G s – without any armour and the guns stripped only to a 7.92 mm machine gun with only 50 rounds and no additional fuel to make it to the base.The Luftwaffe pilots would set a course straight towards a bomber and would bail out in the last moment letting the plane hit the bomber , unlike the Japanese. But in that raid only 15 managed to hit any bombers and only 8 bombers went down and the losses to the Luftwaffe? All ! All of the other BF 109 G s shot down by mustangs , in that day 300 German planes were shot down and a 700 a week later, literally most of them by mustangs ! So that was 2 weeks and the mustang literary got around a thousand kills , shooting what? I would say sitting ducks ! Well you are correct , P51 was the aircraft that was needed by the Allies at that time, from late 1943 not the spitfire. But if the Spitfire wasn’t in the war by 1939 to 1944 then we would be talking about a different history. ( I’m not talking about allies defeat, because the war had been desired in the late 1943) The spitfire was the best Fighter/Interceptor in WW2, but the mustang was the best escort fighter in the WW2 there is no doubt there. In the battle of britain many german pilots who were shot down didnt accept that they were shot down by a Hurricane , but kept telling that they were shot down by the Superior Spitfire . As Herman Gorieng said ” When I saw mustang over Berlin, I knew the Jig was up” Also capt Eric Brown of the RAF wrote ” if I was in a dogfight over Berlin I wanted to be on a spitfire, but if I was in a dogfight over Berlin and want to fly back to Britain I wanted to be on a mustang “. Have you ever heard that the Luftwaffe airmen would scream ” achtung Spitfire!!! ” every time they would see an aircraft comming towards them in the Battle of Britain ? And the German ace Adolf galland once said to the media about the new Spitfire mk 14 , ” the best thing about the spitfire is that there is so few of them. ” indeed they were few , because they couldn’t reach that much far inland of European continent, so Spitfires were only present in the front lines in France and later in Germany . Not in enemy territories. So any German plane that would dare to enter allied airspaces would be shot down by spitfires. Thank you
Dad was an Ace in the P-40 and P-38. The main factors are tactics, firepower and the big one is opportunity! Towards the end of the war, there wasn’t much left to shoot down. Much of what dad did was escort bombers and ground support.
The P-39 and Buffalo don’t even belong in a sentence where the best is being talked about. You also shouldn’t break out models, such as the FM-2 Wildcat and throw out it’s score as “the best.” The FM-2 belongs in with all the other Wildcats as a group and Finnish Buffalos belong in with all the other Buffalos as a group. They didn’t do all that well.
The real trick is getting the numbers for the various airplanes. Many are available for U.S. models, but are hard to find for British, German and Japanese models, let alone Soviet models. Collecting the data would be a real service to WWII buffs, or any other war, for that matter.
Of course, your opinions may vary, like your gas mileage. However, I’m pretty sure we can all find a mission in which some set of aircraft shot down the enemy and suffered no losses. That doesn’t mean it should be touted as “the fighter that never had a loss!” in print. Which is why any claims for various models should be with all the numbers from the entire war represented as much as possible. That way, we are at least comparing an aggregate accomplishment and not cherry-picking our favorite model using only its best missions.
The Spitfire was and always will be one of the most iconic WW2 fighter in my opinion, it was there at the start of the war and was there at the end. Without a doubt it got the most kills of any other plane, it’s very like the British to be straight forward and to the point, while also not ‘keeping score’ for us it was celebrating the victories we had when we landed safely on the ground. There were plenty of times British pilots did this and it’s what won us the war along with our allies, some of which were a little ‘late’ to a WORLD war.