BB's Balloons

I am almost afraid to write anything positive about Billy Bishop for fear of being ripped to shreds by the anti-BB forces, but can we at least agree that he shot down two balloons?

[Billy_Bishop]

I'd say at LEAST 2 balloons.

VBR,

Al Lowe

[MilesC]

I thought he was credited with three, two in flames and one driven down (does a balloon driven down count?).

Miles

[Billy_Bishop]

It depends on who's record keeping you go by. According to Above the Trenches I believe they list him with 2 balloons destroyed and the rest of his 72 are aircraft.

According to Dan McCaffery's book, he shot down 3 balloons, 2 destroyed and one DD, AND 72 aircraft for a total of 75 victories.

According to the list in his autobiography, he shot down 72 airplanes and there are NO balloons listed.

Take your choice!!

VBR,

Al Lowe

[MilesC]

BB mentions at least two smoking on the ground that he claimed as "in flames" destroyed. This is from his autobiography "Winged Warfare".

I assume that if a balloon full of hydrogen is smoking, that it will shortly be in flames, even if it is only the fabric, once there is sufficient air mixed with H it will go up in flames. It isn't likely too many men would bother to try and put it out before it erupted in flames.

Miles

Al,
Besides the three sources you listed, there is a good list in David Baker's nicely done little book " Billy Bishop" in the Famous Flyers series.
It lists the following;
- 7 April - balloon not officially confirmed.Balloon seen going down in smoke
- 8 April - balloon attacked at 5000 feet but did not smoke on descent
- 27 April - balloon was totally destroyed in the attack
None of the three are in the list of 72 victories.
Curiouser and curiouser.

[Billy_Bishop]

It was noted somewhere, exactly where, I forget, but when he went back to England to receive his medals, it was noted that he had something like 23 unconfirmed victories, and that supposedly, a number of those were balloons.

Makes you wonder, don't it.

VBR,

Al Lowe

As I recall, the British did not recognize balloons as part of a pilot's victory tally.

For the purposes of this website, balloons are counted, as they are in most sources. (eg. Beauchamp-Proctor's 54 victories have I think always included 16 balloons, and MacLaren's 54 include six).
This makes the question of BB's two or three balloons even more interesting. Why does his autobiography list 72 victories, all of them aircraft?

Terry,

Thank you. I stand corrected. To quote from Shores et al, Above the Trenches, page 9:

Balloons
All the warring nations during World War One included the destruction of observation kite-balloons in pilots' scores, the British being no exception. research has proven this statement beyond doubt, and many pilots had more than half a dozen of these highly-defended targets in their personal tallies....Both Bishop and Fullard, for example, claimed balloons in this category; Bishop's were generally left out of his score, while Fullard's were included by the squadron but not by higher authority....

Interestingly, Shores et al lists two ballons in Bishop's tally of 72.