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EdStevens · 25 November 2002, 01:59 PM

The following is not based on personal first-hand experience, but is what I have read and believe to be accurate.

The argument goes: there is no corroborating evidence from any source today that Bishop's raid took place. It was a strict rule that VC's were not awarded without corroborating evidence; there is no evidence on file for Bishop's case. Therefore his VC was awarded even though there was no evidence. This suggests that Bishop was a liar and also that there was an exception made and a VC was awarded without evidence in this one instance. If this is true, it further suggests that political motives may have been behind the award.

IMHO, this is false logic.

True, there is currently no evidence for Bishop's VC on file. However, the same is true for many other VS's awarded during the Great War. The evidence boxes were cleared to save space some time ago and the evidence thrown away. Therefore, there will be a good number of other VC recipients for whom I can accurately say "there is currently no evidence on file," just as is done for Bishop. Does this mean that there never WAS evidence in any of these cases? No. No one would argue that those VCs were awarded without evidence. But the argument is used for Bishop. To infer that the evidence box was ALWAYS empty is just wrong. We do NOT KNOW that.

The difference with Bishop compared to other VC recipients is that there were no friendly witnesses to the action AT THE TIME. Usually, such actions take place in the view of corroborating witnesses, whose statements are used to validate the award. This posed a problem (not unique, but rare) for the committee. There are two possibilities: either they decided to make the award without evidence (we know they tried to obtain evidence--we DO NOT know that they failed); or they did in fact find sufficient corroboration to confirm the action and that evidence was many years later chucked out.

We can't know the answer, by the look of it. As of today there is no evidence from any source that confirms Bishop's raid. I admit that I'm an optimist: I still hope that such evidence will surface. But I do get PO'd when conclusions are drawn that to me seem illogical. There could have been evidence in the box. Don't assume something not there today wasn't there yesterday.

25 November 2002, 01:59 PM	#30 (permalink)
EdStevens Scout Pilot Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 320	The following is not based on personal first-hand experience, but is what I have read and believe to be accurate. The argument goes: there is no corroborating evidence from any source today that Bishop's raid took place. It was a strict rule that VC's were not awarded without corroborating evidence; there is no evidence on file for Bishop's case. Therefore his VC was awarded even though there was no evidence. This suggests that Bishop was a liar and also that there was an exception made and a VC was awarded without evidence in this one instance. If this is true, it further suggests that political motives may have been behind the award. IMHO, this is false logic. True, there is currently no evidence for Bishop's VC on file. However, the same is true for many other VS's awarded during the Great War. The evidence boxes were cleared to save space some time ago and the evidence thrown away. Therefore, there will be a good number of other VC recipients for whom I can accurately say "there is currently no evidence on file," just as is done for Bishop. Does this mean that there never WAS evidence in any of these cases? No. No one would argue that those VCs were awarded without evidence. But the argument is used for Bishop. To infer that the evidence box was ALWAYS empty is just wrong. We do NOT KNOW that. The difference with Bishop compared to other VC recipients is that there were no friendly witnesses to the action AT THE TIME. Usually, such actions take place in the view of corroborating witnesses, whose statements are used to validate the award. This posed a problem (not unique, but rare) for the committee. There are two possibilities: either they decided to make the award without evidence (we know they tried to obtain evidence--we DO NOT know that they failed); or they did in fact find sufficient corroboration to confirm the action and that evidence was many years later chucked out. We can't know the answer, by the look of it. As of today there is no evidence from any source that confirms Bishop's raid. I admit that I'm an optimist: I still hope that such evidence will surface. But I do get PO'd when conclusions are drawn that to me seem illogical. There could have been evidence in the box. Don't assume something not there today wasn't there yesterday.