Quote:
Dear Al,
*Yes, but not half as ridiculous as Bishop's claim that he jettisoned his Lewis gun to save weight in case he had to escape four German scouts; in Bishop's own words:
*"To my dismay I discovered four enemy scouts above me. I was terrified that they would see me, so flew directly underneath them, for some time -- almost a mile, I should think -- going directly south. Then, deciding that I must do something, I took the bit in my teeth and slipped away. They did not attempt to attack me at all, so I am not sure whether they even saw me or not."
*One wonders if he took the Bowden cable in his teeth as well...
VBR,
Captain "The Gun" Lewis
|
It's pretty clear that he was someone's fairhaired boy. You need only recall the time when Barker asked to keep the cockpit watch from the plane that he had used to dispatch so many HA, and was turned down--but throwing away a Lewis gun?!?
Hard to believe that it represented so much weight, or drag, up or down, that it was worth the effort to toss it away, especially since it represented his only armament--even a jammed gun allows you to scare off an enemy by diving at them; once they see you are unarmed you can feint *away to no effect.
(And if it was jammed in the back position, I'd think the armorer would get a bollocking instead of thanks.)
It's no wonder that some people think he did so only to get rid of the evidence of a weapon that jammed after firing a few rounds. . . .