must be an achievement to down even just one, especially if you're flying a technically inferior craft (except maybe an me-262 or a ta-152.) the saburo sakai/martin caidin book tells of a japanese pilot akamatsu who was said to have downed 15 mustangs over japan, flying a raiden. the japanese definitely thought this to be an astounding feat, assuming it was true. i don't think sakai ever tangled with a mustang.
Take Caiden's numbers with a grain of salt. Sadaaki Akamatsu downed a solid 4 or 5 Mustangs, possibly as many as ten, but 15 is likely too high. If I had to guess, I would say that it would be a German pilot, as they encountered the Ds more often.
I would nor considered a "clean configuration" late war Me 109 or Fw 190 significantly inferior to a P51D given equally competent pilots, the more heavily loaded fighter bombers or bomber destroyer variants would be at a disadvantage, the German's problem was that putting enough firepower in a single seater to down a B17 was a very tough engineering feat, and not really doable on the 109 that was originally designed around a less that 1000HP engine and was just "too small" to carry a heavy armament. Multiple P51D kills were not unlikely, we have even a recoded instance of a Soviet ace ( Ivan Kozhedub ) that got two in one mission in a blue on blue incident, IIRC he was flying a La 7, a plane the Germans di not consider better than what they had, so a Japanese ace bagging 15 is not impossible, even though the Raiden was a "second generation" Japanese fighter not a "third generation" one, unlikely though given the relatively short time the P51D operated over Japan.
There were a number of Luftwaffe P51 "aces". Here's the top-scorers, courtesy of WW2Aircraft.net forums: Major Wilhelm Steinmann 12 Oberfeldwebel Heinrich Bartels 11 Oberstleutnant Heinz Bär 10 Hauptmann Franz Schall 10 Oberleutnant Wilhelm Hofmann 10
Now I am left to wonder what he could have possibly thought he was shooting at. I don't recall any Luftwaffe airplane that favored the P-51, other than to say they had two wings, a propeller, and a tail. Do you know the circumstances around this incident?
AFAIK, he attacked some German aircraft that were attacking an American B-17, the escorting American fighters then mistakenly attacked his aircraft and he shot two down in self-defense, one American pilot was killed, and the two P-51 losses were confirmed in American records.
The fog of war can thrown terrible monkey wrenches in the works sometimes. Obviously it extends into air combat as well. I have read about this incident in the past as well. Bad business this friendly fire thing, but so is getting shelled by your own artillery or bombed by your own air force. Maybe the weather was bad, a bit overcast. Aircraft flying around real fast, some shooting at B-17s, some defending them, some others trying to help out. Bound to happen sooner or later.
With the Germans throwing everything into the air that they could get airborne, would you stop and ask politely first? If they could've gotten away with strapping 15 year-old kids onto pogo-sticks and arming them with slingshots, they would have.
My guess is that Ob.lt Heinz Bar got most of his Mustang kills in a ME 262. He was the leading jet ace of the LW and I think second or third jet ace in the world.
The Doras were tasked with protecting the 262 from marauding 51s...I would have said a Dora pilot would be right up there...