That was Billy Bishop's uncorroborated combat report for June 2, 1917. A debate raged over Billy Bishop being awarded the Victoria Cross - no one saw him attack the German airfield - the medal was awarded only on what he claimed he did ! He was the only Victoria Cross winner not to have his deeds witnessed or proved ! So ......... what do you think ??
Bishop is the most controversial airman of The Great War. The Germans don't seem to have noticed Bishop's attack on the aerodrome, as the action isn't reflected listed in the records of the Jastas who were in the area at the time. Bishop supporters often claim that the German records aren't complete, but it does seem odd that while many of the claims of most aces are supported by German casualty records, just about none of Bishop's 72 victories are reflected in the enemy's documents. There's a theory that Bishop went off alone on 2 June 1917 (the pilot who was to have accompanied him cried off with a hangover) and then landed somewhere behind Allied lines to shoot up his Nieuport with a revolver to simulate battle damage before returning to his aerodrome with the story of the aerodrome attack. A problem with this theory is that he would have needed someone to assist him by swinging the propeller when re-starting his engine (Nieuports didn't have brakes to hold the aeroplane steady). His helper, if there was one, remains unkown. An argument in support of Bishop's account is that the Germans were so embarrassed by Bishop's single handed exploit that they deleted all reference from their records. To me, this does not seem likely. There is contemporaneous evidence that Bishop's account of his VC deed was greeted with skepticism by at least some in the RFC. There have been suggestions that a VC was needed at the time to boost Canadian and/or RFC morale. In May and June 1918 Bishop was credited with 24 victories over enemy aircraft, generally single machines that he encountered while on solo patrols, often in poor weather when visibility was limited. Only one of these victories can be possibly connected with a German loss. It does seem odd that in mid 1918, when large formations had become standard operations for both sides, that Bishop kept encountering enemy aircraft out on their own. We shall never know the truth. Gareth
I was waiting for this subject to come up; I've written posts for this forum on some of the other aces (perhaps that should read "some of the aces..") but I wasn't going to start on Bishop until someone else did! He has his supporters, particularly from Canada, and I can understand that. I would be very upset if some suggested McCudden or Mannock were frauds - or Von Richthofen for that matter. But with all these three men, we can tie most of their victory claims to a specific German loss (Allied loss in MvR's case) where the names of the crew, serial number of the machine, etc are known. There are almost none of Bishop's claims where this can be done. Even if verification was difficult during the war, because victims of Allied fliers were more likely to come down in opposing territory than victims of German fliers, it was often possible to compare with German records after the war. Some German records were lost - but Bishop would have been very unfortunate if more of his corroboration was lost than everyone else's. To be fair, Bishop's combat report for his VC action as quoted above is very understated. If he intended to go on a fraudulent exercise, why endeavour to take a companion? It was his commanding officer, Jack Scott, who seems to have pushed through the VC award, going over the head of the RFC brigade direct to Allenby, the Army commander. Maybe Bishop felt trapped by this, and felt that he had a reputation to live up to subsequently. The pilot to whom Gareth refers, who cried off accompanying Bishop due to a hangover, was Willie Fry, who died in 1993 aged 96. It was he who gave various documents to be published after his death, to WW1 researcher Alex Revell, that increased the doubts over Bishop's reputation. But questions had been raised by other researchers as long ago as the 1950s - and with very little outcry from surviving Canadian WW1 pilots. The question that has to be asked is: what motive would these researchers have for questioning Bishop's reputation, other than believing they had good reason? Adrian
I have seen debates elsewhere regarding the accuracy of Allied claims vs the accuracy of German records. The McLeod/Hammond description of a fight ( for example ) is very detailed - 1st German plane on fire - blew the head off the pilot in the 2nd plane - 3rd plane disintegrated. Apparently the German records confirm none of the kills claimed by McLeod/Hammond ( possibly one ? ) Either McLeod/Hammond were telling stories also or the German records were terribly incomplete or inaccurate !!
Annie I suspect that it's a combination of factors: the excitement and confusion of combat, which made accurate observation impossible; a bit of wishful thinking - "I shot at the aeroplane at short range, so I must have hit it"; and the German practice of not recording a loss if the aircraft crew survived, even though the machine itself was written off. I read somewhere that the RFC/RNAS/AFC/RAF claimed about three times the actual number of German aircraft that were lost on the British sectors of the Western Front. Gareth
The Germans were very precise with their record keeping and they usually did not gloss over anything. There war dirary's have been used by many allied historians to help tell the story of their own troops. And these historians used these diary's to confirm what their men did.
This might help anyone who doesn't know what Bishop done to earn his VC. (If it did happen which I now doult happened) http://www.acepilots.com/wwi/can_bishop.html
