Billy Bishop Part 3

[alex_revell]

In Courage of the Early Morning it is stated that Ball landed at 60 Sqdn on the evening of** May 6th** to ask B to accompany him on an aerodrome raid. Why Ball should have asked B, a stranger serving in another sqdn, is unclear. In 56 Sqdn, Ball was flying with Meintjes and Billy Crowe, both pilots who were know to him and with whom he had flown before. Added to this, Ball had flown a patrol from 7.00pm to 8.00pm that evening and earlier, between 4.50pm and 5.00pm, had collected SE5 4850 from Candas. This visit is complete fiction, as are the long, quoted conversations between Ball and Bishop. The whole book is peppered with these conversations. Why do people write such obvious palpable nonsense?

While in London during his first leave from 60, B is entertained to dinner by Lord Beaverbrook, who discusses with him the formation of a Canadian Air Force. This is pretty heavy stuff for a young Captain, even one with 18 victories. Beaverbrook, a Canadian, had been with the CEF as an eyewitness in 1915, the Canadian representative at the Front in 1916,and in 1917 was in charge of Canadian War Records.** The Canadian Government was unhappy over the British use of its troops and there was public unease in Canada over the heavy casualties suffered by the Canadians in the ground fighting.

The combat reports. It is many years since I have seen these but my memory of them is that they were, in general, unusually brief, sometimes only three or four lines, and carried a scribbled ‘confirmed’ or similar comment under them. Despite what you read in OTF, this was not usual. An added point is that even if a sqdn CO had awarded a victory, it still had to go before Wing, who might have further information to allow or disallow the claim

To take the most remarkable of B’s claims. On June 19 1918 the weather was extremely bad, with rain and low cloud down to 800 feet. Because of the weather conditions Caldwell, CO of 74 Sqdn, washed out the offensive patrols, but sent Jones, Giles and Gordon out to do a line patrol, probably to placate Wing. After a while the three pilots gave up the patrol as a bad job and returned. An hour later they were told of Bishop’s feat of shooting down four Huns over the Front at the same time as they had been patrolling. They went over to St Omer to read Bishop’s report. He had gone up through the clouds and found a formation of enemy scouts at 15,000ft. He attacked them. Two collided and B shot down another. Coming down through the clouds, B found another enemy and shot it down. What puzzled the 74 Sqdn pilots was what was a formation of enemy scouts doing above the clouds in the first place, a thick layer, with no breaks. - the Germans were notorious for being fair weather fliers-** and why hadn’t they seen the Huns below the cloud. Ira Jones was asked about the show by the Colonel when he later visited 74. As the general weather conditions were overcast and rain along the entire Ypres Front ‘ he exonerated us from our failure to assist Bishop in his heroic achievement’. It’s hard not to miss the heavy irony of that last sentence.**

So, to sum up.

We have a young, unknown Lt who is finding it hard to be accepted for pilot training He then meets a Lady St Helier who claims to be a friend of his father. He is then given a period of home leave in Canada and on his return his path to pilot training is smoothed out.

After a period of extremely high-rate scoring, he is awarded the VC under unprecedented circumstances, and in direct contravention of the terms officially laid out, and within a month of arriving in France is a Captain and a Flight Commander.

His claims, both for the aerodrome raid and victories are unconditionally accepted at both sqdn level and Wing, despite lack of witnesses.

He is allowed to neglect his duties as a Flight Commander and fly solo missions almost exclusively. Other pilots – such as McCudden – who undertook solo missions, did so as extra duty and still led their Flights in the normal manner.

There is something very strange here. I feel that it is possible that there may have been a hidden agenda in the elevation of this young, unknown and possibly malleable Lt, who had a reputation of being not particularly truthful and was regarded by his fellow pilots as being a ‘medal chaser’.

I hope I’ve given some food for thought with these observations. Again, I cannot stress too strongly that I am not anti-Bishop in any shape or form. I am just presenting the questions raised as I see them. I would like to take up the question of Willie Fry’s letter in another post.

Bravo Alex!

The comments initiating a previous thread "Canadian Senate Investigation re: Billy
Bishop" referred to a book which referenced reports by British agents which observed Bishop's
famed raid on a German aerodrome. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to join the discussion of matters pertaining to Bishop, but it seems to me that if such reports exist they could tilt the balance in Bishop's favor or at least reduce the acrimony demonstrated. I hope you can (and will) address these reports more specifically than thus far has been done.

[Craig]

Acrimony and skepticism are not synonymous. Nor is reporting an unpleasantry the same as causing it. I didn't sense one iota of malevolence in any of Mr. Revell's posts. That he reported his findings and his conclusions faithfully doesn't mean he enjoyed it. People doubt the veracity of Bishop's claims for a reason OTHER THAN SPITE. They doubt them because there is ample evidence to do so, and precious little evidence to dissuade them.
However, I would like to hear more about these British agents.

Ah, Chris Carter would be proud: the X-Files live!

Nothing like a little conspiracy theory these days is there?

Let me see if I understand this. The British government decides they need heroes to bolster more support for flagging morale, and so contrive a fictitious VC, using Bishop (a known cheat and fraud) as their co-consipirator. Presumably they couldn't find any REAL heroes to give the award to in the the ranks of the RFC or RNAS. So, the only solution was to make one up. Nice thought.

And since the British were doing the conspiring, they might as well make it a colonial hero rather than one of their own. That makes sense. Oh, maybe not...

Perhaps they had originally intended to use Ball, with Bishop's help (if we assume it's correct that Ball approached Bishop with the original plan). Unfortunately, Ball went and got himself killed before the fake raid could be pulled off, so they were left with the Canadian. Hmmm, that doesn't make much sense. No, Bishop must have made up the whole Ball thing afterwards (a little risky since there could be records of Ball's visit), perhaps coached by the conspirators, to add a British flavour to the story later. After all, with the conspirators including the highest levels of government and perhaps Scott, such records could be easily faked if called into question. Scott may have just been a gullible fool who took Bishop's claims at face value and passed them on; the many conspirators at the higher levels then simply rubber-stamped just his claims to inflate his score. Yeah, that's it. Nothing odd there.

Lady St. Helier, highly involved in the ploy, lures Bishop into the inner circle and offers him the chance to become a hero. The sly and ruthless Bishop, seeing the extent of the conspiracy (including but not limited to Brigade, Headquarters, the staff that review the Victoria Cross awards--dozens or hundreds of people) leaps at the chance. Yes, it's all perfectly logical, isn't it?

Okay, that was a little sarcastic, but come ON.

For Craig: Who said anything about Alex Revell's posting being acrimonious, malevolent, or spiteful?
Not me.

[Droops]

Gentlemen,

Before this spirals out of control here. . .

I asked earlier for more facts involving Bishop. I have no stake in this other than learning as much about the situation as possible. Mr. Revell has given to us a series of facts, with a bit of speculation added in.

Now, given the order of the facts presented, one might conclude that there was an effort to manufacture a hero for the British war effort. Its certainly to the advantage of a government at war to play up perceived weaknesses/faults in the enemy, and play up the strenghts of your own forces. Deception, or at least misleading information, is part of that effort.

To me, what's necessary here is to examine the facts and attempt to ascertain whether there are logical and rational explanations for the facts as presented.

Rather than getting your hackles up, let's concentrate on the task at hand, shall we?

VBR,

John

[Billy_Bishop]

In this post, I'm simply going to address the rank issue. Bishop was made temporary Captain on 8 April, 1917.

Is this so odd? He'd been a Lieutenant since 30 September, 1914. So to be promoted from Lieutenant in 2 and a half years is fast?

I'm only asking, mind you. Does anyone know how long it took Ball or Mannock, or any other ace to go from Lieutenant to Captain?

VBR,

Al Lowe

[Billy_Bishop]

Regarding the question of confirmation by British agents. This is a claim made by several authors AFTER WWI, in several books. There is, (and this applies to a lot of different subjects,) NO remaining evidence as to how/if/whynot his claims on 2 June, 1917 were confirmed. Practically all records relating to his VC award, with the notable exception of the warrant it's self, are GONE.

On a side note, I notice that Mr. Revell either overlooked, or missed the reference to D.W. "Joe" Warne. HE, was reported to have helped in the research that Dennis Hylands and Dan McCaffery did for McCaffery's book, " Billy Bishop, Canadian Hero".

Perhaps Joe Warne is unreliable too?
(Just an observation, tempered with a little speculation. Nothing new for this place)

VBR,

Al Lowe

[Billy_Bishop]

Regarding Dan McCaffery's book on Bishop, I note that among others, he thanks the following individuals:
The following Englishmen;
Cross And Cockade editor Paul Leaman
Dennis Hylands,
60 Squadron Historian Joe Warne

The Following Americans:
George Cook
Ed Ferko,

Followed by a host of Canadians who are likely to be considered suspect and in on the so-called "conspiracy" anyway, with the possible exception of Paul Cowan.

VBR,

Al Lowe