Suffice it to say, the rumour of my death has been greatly exaggerated.
Now, as for BB, I will be among the first to say that he probably over claimed at least as much as any other WWI pilot did. Let's face it, in a swirling dogfight, how could he NOT overclaim, unless he had a computerized gun camera taking pictures of all of his victims.
As to BB's VC, I think Barrett will bear me out here, there is NO way of knowing whether or not witnesses were ever found to his VC action since all the paper work was destroyed long ago, most likely by bureaucatical cleaning of the records. So, to say "Without a doubt" that BB's VC was unwitnessed, is at least as much of a stretch as it is for me to say that they did find witnesses.
My personal opinion, I think they did. After all, they did wait a little over 2 months before announcing the award. As far as I can tell, that's the longest time for any ACE that was awared the VC for a single action.
As for Dave Johnson's comments, well, everyone is entitled to their opinions, even if they're wrong.
VBR,
Al Lowe