Billy Bishop Again

[Shooter]

Richard:

Not to stir up this pot with a big stick, but (and you can check with Barrett about this, since IIRC I heard it from him), there was a certain level of over-claiming in Korea also. As for the propaganda coming from north of the Yalu, yeah the People's Liberation Air Force was fond of claiming every fallen pigeon feather as a downed UN a/c but we as a group usually get wrapped around the axle about F-86 vs. MiG-15 losses. What must be remembered is that UN air-to-air losses came in all flavors, with multi-engined bombers being high on the Communist priority chart, while the vast majority of Communist a/c losses were MiG's. When one factors in all types of UN a/c losses, the Communist victory claim numbers become a bit more reasonable, with an overclaim factor of only two or three hundred percent.

I find it sad that some in the Great White North seem to delight in taking pot shots at BB (and now it seems Barker?). While Bishop was a man reputed to be capable of tall tales, in some respects, I would not myself ever call him a liar or suggest that he would submit a falsified combat report. While combat vets are not always the most admirable of men, to suggest that they are pure frauds is simply not acceptable to me. I usually stay out of the Bishop arguments, since Al hardly requires my assistance most of the time, but he seems to be temporarily assigned elsewhere.


Shooter sends

[PeterL]

Albatroid : "Oh for Pete's Sake... Who bloody well cares? "


Can I join your gang?

[Vin]

PeterL

re: application to join Albatroid’s gang

Albatroid says

“It seems to me that many of the people who come along 60 or 80 years later and give Ace's recognized scores the "Flat Earth Society" revisionist treatment are simply motivated by jealousy.”

These pilots were brave people and I refuse to believe that they were all a bunch of liars concerning their exploits.”

Is enquiry and skepticism jealousy ? Is allocating the same level of honesty to all pilots justified ? Is a brave man necessarily honest ?

Why does Billy Bishop get up everyone’s nose so much more than the other Entente overclaimers ? I have my theories. Why does he get up mine ? Self promotion. I congratulate Bishop on having survived but object to his holding himself out as having achieved what he apparently did not. The surviving WW1 combatants among my antecedents did not talk about their experiences and never boasted about their accomplishments. I disagree with Shooter here

“While combat vets are not always the most admirable of men, to suggest that they are pure frauds is simply not acceptable to me.”

I cannot see why a combat vet could not be a pure fraud. Out of combat, the vet is no different from John Citizen. In other spheres of their lives it may be different but in terms of honesty, those who fought are no different from those who did not.

Once you get beyond the pre pubescent pop star approach, Bishop threads are never boring.


Cheers


Vin

[Kory_Clark]

Vin, Bishop was most certainly not a "Pure" fraud. Now if you really think that, you've done no research at all in the matter.

Straight off his first CO(Flight leader) SAW him shoot down his first EA. This is because said enemy EA had taken some shots at the CO.

Many of his exploits are completely unconfirmable. A few are and or were confirmed by others.

[Vin]

Kory,

It is an issue of enquiry and opinion. Whether or not Bishop was "Pure fraud” is up for debate. His career is not exempt from scrutiny merely because he was a combatant. The conclusions of someone who looks at the facts and draws a conclusion cannot be dismissed on the ground that he/she is motivated by jealousy, especially those doing so 80 + years later. Bravery and honesty are not mutually exclusive.


Cheers


Vin

[Shooter]

PeterL

*The surviving WW1 combatants among my antecedents did not talk about their experiences and never boasted about their accomplishments. *I disagree with Shooter here

“While combat vets are not always the most admirable of men, to suggest that they are pure frauds is simply not acceptable to me.”

I cannot see why a combat vet could not be a pure fraud. *Out of combat, the vet is no different from John Citizen. *In other spheres of their lives it may be different but in terms of honesty, those who fought are no different from those who did not.

Vin:

Feel free to disagree as you will, sir

Perhaps what I said was not fully amplified. Because their events speak more for them than they can say themselves, we should not assume that they are frauds without due cause. The charges against Billy Bishop therefore should be dismissed without due cause, and I am not certain such charges can be sustained today.

The charge against Bishop is solely that his statements due not match the personnel and equipment loss records of Central Powers air forces. While I freely stipulate that the German war records were kept with fastidious care, as any first sergeant can tell you there are any number of reasons to gundeck the logs (been there...done that...got the tee-shirt). Ergo, to accept German military records as being holy icons is an error.

Again, Bishop seems like a guy who could tell a tall tale while hoisting a pint, but if his after-actions were accepted by the convening authority of the time, I will not assume to challenge them now.

'Tis now your turn to pontificate, Vin.



Shooter sends

[Hugh_A._Halliday]

"The charge against Bishop is solely that his statements do not match the personnel and equipment loss records of Central Powers Air Forces".

If only it were so.

Phil Markham, in "A Flight of Fancy" (JOURNAL OF THE CANADIAN AVIATION HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Volume 34, No.2, Summer 1996) demonstrated chapter and verse how Bishop had embellished an account of one action from Combat Report to letter home to his own book. In "The Early Morning Hours of 2 June 1917" (OVER THE FRONT, Volume 10 No.3, Fall 1995) Markham showed how shaky is the evidence on which rests his VC award. Ben Greenhous (THE MAKING OF BILLY BISHOP) drew statistical comparisons showing how Bishop's victories were more likely to be claimed on lone patrols than when there were witnesses about - and also pointed out that Bishop wore a campaign medal to which he was not entitled.

Publication of THE MAKING OF BILLY BISHOP last spring provoked a debate on this Forum which has now fallen off and is presumably in the Aerodrome Archives. Some contributions were long on passion and short on reason. Others were more weighty. Wayne Ralph found the case against Bishop (as per the events of 2 June 1917) was unconvincing - yet he concluded that Greenhous was right on the money when it came to Bishop subsequently padding his score.

[Hugh_A._Halliday]

It was Alex Revell, however, who posed a most interesting observation on 19 April (just before release of the Greenhous book). He wrote, "No one has ever explained or even attempted to explain why Bishop is the only person to be awarded the VC for an act which was not witnessed".

This led to a lengthy contribution by myself. I shall be shameless in quoting myself (though edited for this posting). I wrote:

"To be fully accurate, a VC did not necessarily have to be ‘witnessed' but, in the absence of witnesses, there had to be corroborative evidence. Even if the events of 2 June 1917 HAD transpired as described by Bishop, how could a VC be justified ? I maintain it could NOT be justified. Yet it went through. Why ?

"Markham and Greenhous both suggest the answer but do not expand upon it Allow me to take this further.

"There is one thing that I find interesting - a comparison of Bishop's Combat Report of 2 June 1917 and the citation for his VC. The latter is based almost solely on the former, the only significant difference is that the citation mentions an enemy mechanic, the CR does not. It is almost as if Bishop wrote his own citation...

"Why that VC when neither witnesses nor corroborative evidence was available ? The most often cited ‘reason' is that the RFC had been taking heavy losses, trench warfare had degenerated into stalemate, civilian morale needed a boost and the way to do it was to manufacture a hero (a la The Blue Max). It had been done before (Warneford and Leefe-Robinson were very timely heros) - but the ‘reason' cannot be proven because, simply put, we are never going to find a memo suggesting, urging or authorizing such a ‘production'.

"But I think there the reason. suggested by Markham and Greenhous bears further expansion. I admit my own views are conjecture - but my theory is as good as any other theory

"You may recall, during the Forum discussions, the statement being made that Bishop had been ‘secretly' recommended for a VC even before 2 June and that I had stated it was more likely confusion with his DSO (and of course, all recommendations were to be ‘secret' until approved). But then, in THE MAKING OF BILLY BISHOP (page 93), I find reference to a letter Bishop wrote on 1 June 1917 saying that ‘I have just learnt that when I got my DSO, I was recommended for the VC'.

"Aside from evidence that Bishop has ‘VC on the brain', what do we make of this ?

"Is Billy telling the truth - or another whopper ? The documents I have seen show it as a DSO being put forth on 7 May 1917 (‘whopper ! whopper !'). But let us give him the benefit of the doubt and say that Scott recommended a VC (in a document now lost) and that Wing or Brigade turned it into a DSO. What does this indicate ?

"It indicates that, in matters pertaining to Scott, Bishop and/or No.60 Squadron, the rules about confidentiality and discretion were ignored - and later letters by Bishop to Margaret also indicate that the public learned more - and faster - than anyone expected or deemed prudent.

"So, here is my scenario.

"Scott recommends a VC on 2-3 June 1917, trotting Bishop before senior officers to tell his story, and they buy it. BUT...

"In the absence of witnesses or corroboration, those involved in final approval are concerned. They ask Caldwell (the acting CO on 30 June) for more information - and he confirms their worst fears - there IS NO MORE INFORMATION - the account is based on ‘personal evidence' and no more.

"It is nearly a month since the VC nomination (it took only a month from air action to gazetting when awarding it to McLeod and Barker, admittedly 10 and 17 months later) and the more they delay a decision the greater the leaks already appearing. The process has acquired a momentum of its own. Lacking the normal corroboration, the authorities can either stop the train (fearing that newspapers will trumpet the story as ‘VC DENIED - COLONIAL OFFICER'S WORD NOT ENOUGH') or flag it through the station.
"They blinked.

"They waved it through the station.

"They allowed - just once - the award of a VC based solely on the recipient's report, without witnesses or corroborative evidence."

[Hugh_A._Halliday]

As a supplement to the previous, I must point out that Al Lowe provided a copy of a report by Scott on 3 June 1917 which added the one detail appearing in the VC citation which did not appear in the original Combat Report (that of the mechanic being shot).

To those who find it implausible that authorities might fear a "colonial" press backlash if Bishop's VC had been turned down, I would point out that Australians and Canadians were not the forelock-tugging hicks that many Americans imagine them to have been. In both world wars there were love-hate reationships all around, and grumbling among the ANZACS and Canadians about many grievances, real and imagined. The Irish vote in Australia may not have been so formidable as in New England - but it was enough to twice defeat conscription referendums. Even the British knew that Canada was divided in its support of the war, and one of the most powerful press barons in Britain was a Canadian - Max Aitken, a.k.a Lord Beaverbrook.

I have seen enough Canadian paranoia - and heard a fair amount from Australians - to believe that, had Bishop been denied a VC, it would most certainly have made it into the papers and produced a savage uproar from Ottawa to the House of Lords - as fierce, impassioned and unreasonable as what has appeared on this Forum.

The fact that he did not deserve one (because there was no corroborating evidence) would have been irrelevant.

[EdStevens]

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.