... or: Why sometimes you only thought you had shot down your enemy!
There I was two days ago, mindlessly bombing ´GV's, err: bravely defending A1 in my B5N as this 190D came along and removed my wing:

I was falling down from 2500ft AGL towards my certain death

But I didn't give up... I noticed my fall being rather slow, so I dropped my remaining flap and remaining gear to further increase drag

I has falling almost vertically now
And then there was that tree. It's the first time ever that I was glad about flying into a tree!

That tree slowed my fall even more, and I ended up with a ditch!

I can imagine my enemy thinking "I removed his wing and didn't get a kill, not even an assist? BS!"

A rather extreme example, but it should remind you: We often don't know the whole story behind the things we see. With tens of thousands of fights each day, odd things are going to happen.