Quote:
Dear Albert,
*Now, Al, please, are you now going to claim that Caldwell is pro-Bishop? I can give you another point of view concerning his report -- that he was just giving the facts as he knew them and because that was all that was asked of him to do by the higer-ups. How can you honestly say that he would have used this report as an opportunity to debunk Bishop (or, for that matter, support Bishop)? I repeat my question -- why was this report submitted almost one month after the fact? Was it simply to be used as more support for Bishop's decorations/commendations?
*If you are going to bring up the mechanics, why not also cite what Fry had to say about them -- as well as his own observations -- regarding the damage to Bishop's Nieuport?
*Further, on your webpage, about a year ago, you cited a German aviator who said that Bishop's raid was (supposedly) common knowledge. Could you possibly elaborate on this? Or has this account been discounted?
* Lastly, please forgive any aggressive 'tone' that this post might imply (or you might infer) -- I'm not trying to prod you. That was the "old" Al; the "new" Al is much more reasonable. You've shown this by your reply to my post concerning Libby.
* (But I must admit, the "old" Al was a helluva lot more fun; just the mention of Bishop, and all hell broke loose!)
* *Now I'm off to celebrate Russian Easter -- God Bless you, Leo, and Mother Russia, too!
VBR,
Captain Lewis
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Dear Captain Lewis,
The report from Capt. Caldwell came almost a month later, as it was in response to a phone call, from the day of Capt. Caldwell's report! To which, Capt. Caldwell's report starts out thusly:
"Reference our telepone conversation of to-day. Herewith information as requested:"
THAT is why the report was made when it was.
As for what the report was for, I'd say it was likely part of the 2+ month long investigation as to whether or not the VC was warranted for Bishop's actions. But since Capt. Caldwell didn't write down the conversation in detail, I doubt we'll know for sure.
As to whether or not Capt. Caldwell was pro or anti-Bishop, later correspondence suggests that his attitude of doubting Bishop only came AFTER the war, when things did not match. How far after? I have no idea. The comments he made came out in 1977, and there he stated his doubts because of a lack of corroboration with German records. I find this funny, since not all of his matched German records either.
In either event, I think from that, and from earlier articles it is clear that Capt. Caldwell didn't express any doubts about Bishop until around 1977.
As to the evidence being personal evidence only, I'm of the opinion that the people investigating the award found the evidence they were looking for. Unfortunately, we'll never know for sure since the information was destroyed either during the war, or during the "housekeeping" that was done from time to time to reduce the amount of paperwork being stored.
As for Fry's remarks about the mechanics, where do you suppose the inspiration behind my remark of "Another thing. Someone, I forget who (conviently I might add) stated that the mechanics had doubts about Bishop's raid on 2 June, 1917." came from???
With regard to the "award on his say so" routine, I still think there were witnesses, those witnesses were interrogated and the information stored with the rest of the paperwork....until some bureaucrat came along and destroyed it all, thinking it would not be important!!
I can't prove I'm right, but no one can prove I'm wrong either.
VBR,
Al Lowe
(Now, where did I put those other drums for the Lewis??)