Bishop. New evidence

[alex_revell]

Vin,
Do a little maths. It is quite possible for sons and daughters of WW1 pilots to be still alive. The people in question are as close to the author as anyone possibly can be.
Regards
Alex

[Darryl]

Vin,

Smugness is usually associated with a notion of class. I have no pretensions in that respect. So you may rest easy, I am not wallowing in smugness or anything of the kind. Thank you, however, for your concern and I do see how you might have come to that erroneous conclusion.

As to musing - v – boozing. They are, in my estimation, very much the same thing but I would never encourage idleness in pursuit of the latter.

Now, on the off chance that you are not merely being provocative, I will address the subject of the Autobiographer’s identity. You “legal eagles” have a term - Proximate Cause. Were I to be a family member, who had asked for the name to be kept secret, I would hold Alex somewhat responsible if something he wrote gave details which led to some smug-esque, drunken antipodean guessing the name and then blurting it all over the Aerodrome like some peripatetic minstrel or deranged Town Crier. Likewise, the giving of even such obscure hints as you suggested, might be considered “bad form”.

I have no wish to put Alex (who has from time to time been very generous to me with his time and research) in an awkward position, even by proxy.

In any event, it is enough for we poor creatures of the West to know that someone’s business is their own and that they wish to keep it that way.

As you have said, the extract is hearsay and, however enlightening or interesting, does not provide any shattering evidence that demands “who said that?” be asked before finally committing BB to whichever fate it is that one believes he deserves.

I remain, for the greater part, respectfully yours

Darryl

[Darryl]

Alex,

Thankyou for sharing the writings. Were you ever fortunate enough to meet the gentleman concerned?


very best regards

Darryl

[Vin]

Originally posted by alex_revell@Jul 1 2004, 09:55 AM
[b] Vin,
Do a little maths. It is quite possible for sons and daughters of WW1 pilots to be still alive. The people in question are as close to the author as anyone possibly can be.
Regards
Alex

If I had been any good at maths, I would have been an engineer. Consider meself slapped down.

[Jonathan Saunders]

Originally posted by Barrett@Jun 29 2004, 07:39 PM
[b] Long ago Al Lowe had a list of about 24 of BB's claims which were witnessed. (We know, however, that merely having witnesses does not ensure the claimed result.)

Regarding Bishop’s corroborated “kills”, purely by coincidence when surfing for RFC data this morning and prior to seeing this thread (or Forum for that matter), I came across a newspaper article from a few years back.

Michael Hanlon, in the Toronto Star of 30 October 1988, wrote a piece on a new study that had recently been published in a British military magazine. This study redressed the ACE ranking on corroborated kills and it gave Bishop’s corroborated kills as just 13. This placed him as low as 110th among the revised rating of Allied Aces.

[Kirk]

I'm no expert, but the excerpt that leads off this thread isn't proof one way or another. All it says to me is that he had a bunch of squadron mates that were non-believers. Nothing more. The amount of information they had to work with at the time is obviously far less than what we have now. The only way to verify the claims would be to check each and every one against German losses for the days in question. I believe in the "innocent until proven guilty" approach, and as far is this case is concerned, there is 0 concrete proof he was lying. Is there speculation? Sure. Am I ready to condemn him? Not yet.

[Barrett]

Originally posted by Signals+Jul 1 2004, 02:42 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Signals @ Jul 1 2004, 02:42 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Barrett@Jun 29 2004, 07:39 PM
[b] Long ago Al Lowe had a list of about 24 of BB's claims which were witnessed. (We know, however, that merely having witnesses does not ensure the claimed result.)

Regarding Bishop’s corroborated “kills”, purely by coincidence when surfing for RFC data this morning and prior to seeing this thread (or Forum for that matter), I came across a newspaper article from a few years back.

Michael Hanlon, in the Toronto Star of 30 October 1988, wrote a piece on a new study that had recently been published in a British military magazine. This study redressed the ACE ranking on corroborated kills and it gave Bishop’s corroborated kills as just 13. This placed him as low as 110th among the revised rating of Allied Aces.[/quote]
It'd be interesting to know the method of corroboration; 13 is a small percentage of 72 (ek-chually 55 since that's the number credited "destroyed") but far more than the One that Chris Shores cited years ago.

[Jonathan Saunders]

Originally posted by Barrett+Jul 1 2004, 08:35 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Barrett @ Jul 1 2004, 08:35 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Regarding Bishop’s corroborated “kills”, purely by coincidence when surfing for RFC data this morning and prior to seeing this thread (or Forum for that matter), I came across a newspaper article from a few years back.

Michael Hanlon, in the Toronto Star of 30 October 1988, wrote a piece on a new study that had recently been published in a British military magazine. This study redressed the ACE ranking on corroborated kills and it gave Bishop’s corroborated kills as just 13. This placed him as low as 110th among the revised rating of Allied Aces.

It'd be interesting to know the method of corroboration; 13 is a small percentage of 72 (ek-chually 55 since that's the number credited "destroyed") but far more than the One that Chris Shores cited years ago.[/quote]
Barrett,

The author of the review, his paper and the date is all I know. I agree 13 is a very small number from a total of 72 and less than I would have expected.

Because this was a study made in the mid-late 80's my guess was that these were either corroborated kills at the time by third parties, or substantiated by reference to German records/publications some time after the events. This is my assumption only.

[GuyCanuck]

In the late 1980's, Timothy Graves, a British researcher, set hilmself the somewhat dauting task of going through the combat reports of the five leading British aces, one by one, and assessing the validity of their claims against a common standard. He then argued that of the 47 victories attributed to Bishop while he was with 60 Squadron, only 5 were independently witnessed - the lowest number of the 5 aces!

In his book "The Making of Billy Bishop" author Brereton Greenhous, using a somewhat different statitical method finds that 3, perhaps 4, that were independedly witnessed.

[Barrett]

Thanks Guy & Signals. Obviously we'll never have full access to German records, but certainly the 1917 files are much more complete than 1918, especially from fall onward. The matter of independent witnesses is another means of relative assessment, but it can be skewed. I used to know a squadronmate of a Very Famous Pilot (still living) who said the VFP would browbeat his wingmen into confirming his claims, regardless of what the combat film showed. It isn't widely known that the USAF reassessed its Korean War claims in the 1970s and reduced the overall numbers to about 1/3 the original.