 A fellow pilot later said, "He was an Australian and had thrown himself into the fray with a reckless abandon that was magnificent in its way".Estimates of Clisby's total number of victories in his short career range from nine to twenty or more, but the most common—and official—score attributed to him is sixteen.The loss of much of the RAF's documentation in the chaotic retreat through France and across the English Channel in May 1940 meant that many squadron records and combat claims had to be reconstructed from the memory of surviving personnel.