[nzwilliam]

Just for arguments sake, lets say he did shoot down 352 enemy aircraft during his recorded 1,404 combat missions, it would average out to coming in contact with one enemy aircraft once roughly every 4 sorties and shooting it down. Of these 1,404 combat missions he was engaged in with enemy aircraft 825 times which means he shot someone down in an engagement 42.6% of the time, the other 57.4% of the time I'm guessing they weren't in an advantageous position and chose to run or an opportunity didn't present itself to him.

I'm not saying 352 is accurate, I'm just putting forward the argument that it is not as far fetched as you may believe and it is plausible that it could very well be in the ball-park.