A Sukeutese Fw-506 pilot scoring their 16th kill. The Ebrian crew survived, having abandoned the plane shortly before the missile hit. Someone’ll fish them out of the water eventually.

Typically, guns would still be considered the primary armament for a fairly simple reason. Missiles are new, and frankly not very good. Poor homing in particular would cause headaches for many pilots attempting to use them. As a result, gun kills would be far, far more common. So at the time, getting a missile kill has far more prestige than it would in pretty much any case.