Ahah, some hope for my sanity at last!! I thought the article may have been related to the business of Werner Molders flying with the Condor Legion which was in the news a couple of years back, but I can't find anywhere that says how many times he was shot down. BUT..............I did find Hans-Ulrich Rudel the Stuka ace was shot down 32 times, and Georg-Peter Eder an ace with 78 kills was shot down 17 times!! Neither of these died recently so it likely wasn't them, but evidently it was possible to be shot down that many times!!