Billy Bishop's first combat sortie?

[Errol Martyn]

As some may be aware, there is a long discussion going on over on The Aerodrome forum about Peter Kilduff’s recently published book about Billy Bishop.

One of the posts includes the following:

“From Peter's book, page 31, Quote:

By the end of October, Billy completed machine-gun and artillery-ranging practice and began flying over the frontlines in France. He wrote to Margaret about a flight from Dover across the Channel to St. Omer, where he and his pilot were directed to a battle zone.

Also from the same page, a letter to Margaret, dated 29 October, 1915.Quote:

We had a two-hour reconnaissance over the lines and, believe me ... I am not ashamed to say it, I was glad when it was over. Then we came back here [Netheravon], landing first at Dover [to refuel]. The whole trip ... took about four hours. The RFC [personnel] who are stationed in France seemed to like it there, but they dread the bad weather coming. During the winter ... [there]will be a continual series of machines ... going over for the day, as that way has proved [to be] so successful. {It is] so crowded in France that it is hard to find suitable places for a large number of machines.”

----------------------------------------------------

Putting aside the authenticity or otherwise of BB’s claimed recce over the lines, the idea that the RFC was flying combat sorties from England to France and back again in the same day is something I do not recall having come across before. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me on operations in late 1915 would care to comment as to the likelihood of such an event taking place?

Errol

[mickdavis]

My problem with that book is that an American author is writing about British matters. As I tried to convey in a CCI book review, the mis-identification of aeroplane types in photo captions says a lot - Sopwith Gunbus as a MF Se.11, BE12b as a BE12!! I've trawled through hundreds of logbooks over the years and never seen a member of a squadron working up for operational service flying the Channel for operational experience. From what I've seen, observers at that time were, largely, NCOs drafted into the job and new pilots were eased in with a few familiarisation flights. My own opinion is that it's another example of Bishop ' shooting a line' and I suspect that Willy Fry's posthumous testimony holds many truths.

[Errol Martyn]

Hello Mick,

Many thanks for your rapid response. It confirms my own suspicions.

The debate on The Aerodrome is getting very long winded, so you probably have no intention of wading through it yourself. However, the most significant observation I have noted so far is a question raised by Russ Gannon, an Aussie who has spent a decade or two compiling a day-by-day who-got-who over the Western Front.

His question is - where are the bodies? BB's 'lone wolf' combat reports include instances of E/A he claims to have shot down having had their wings break off or falling flames. What Russ could not find is any matching deaths of German airmen for the dates of these claims (and deaths there surely must have been if what BB reported was true!).

Errol

[alex revell]

. .

I agree with Errol and Mick. I have never seen a report that a pilot and observer in a training squadron flew a combat mission in France then returned to England the same day, in presumably the same aeroplane.

According to TWITA, St. Omer ( 'a gigantic factory and emporium' ) by July 1915 was becoming 'too unwieldy to cope with the increasing demands being made upon it.' A second aircraft park was then set up at Candas, plus another for aircraft spares at Rouen

The reasons Bishop gave in his letter to Margaret, that there are so many machines going over to France that it was hard to find suitable place for them is, therefore, surely nonsense. Additionally, how would such a pilot and observer operate, not being officially attached to any squadron in France. Lacking experience in frontline operations, they would not even be familiar with the country, or the current position of the front line. The whole thing smacks of an effort to establish the right to be awarded the 1914-1915 Star. Such a flight would be in Bishops' logbook, which I believe is held in Canada, and should would give more details of this alleged combat mission.

I'm afraid that the whole book is shot through with suppositions and inaccuracies (many originating in The Courage of the Early Morning by Bishop's son) which can be proved to be incorrect. It would take a full size book to annotate them all. I agree with Mick, that Peter was on unfamiliar ground when writing the book and was ill advised to tackle a subject with which he was unfamiliar and lacked the necessary knowledge of how the admin section of the RFC in France worked, or indeed the RFC itself.

My initial disappointment with the book was Peter's assertion that he had been the first to consult the German casualty records in any depth. Ed Ferko, to name only one, had been working on these for many years. Ed failed to find even a possible candidate for any Bishop victory. I know Russ Gannon is working on this and I look forward to hearing his conclusions.

[Loader]

have wondered about the 1914-15 Star in BB's group. All I ever read said he got to France in 1916 & I was never able to figure how the star was earned. I'd love ot know how it was named? I'd think RFC but could be Can. Mtd. Rifles but not seen anything to support service with them overseas to earn it. If anyone can give further details on this I'd be grateful. Thanks

[Errol Martyn]

Alex,

I asked earlier on TA forum as to whether or not BB's log book(s) survived (vis vis the claimed 29 Oct 1915 sortie). PK’s rather oddly worded reply was:

“Some of Bishop's pilot log books survive (general 1916-17 and No. 60 Squadron, RFC logs). The documents section (pp. 167-168) of my bibliography lists archival resources I consulted. Further information about my research sources also appears in my book.”

Errol

[Errol Martyn]

Alex/loader,

According to Wikipedia the 1914–15 Star was not approved until 1918. So Bishop's account of his unlikely October 1915 sortie was presumably aimed at impressing the folks back home in Canada rather than anything to do with the medal.

Errol

[alex revell]

Errol,

Yes, but he probably used it to justify awarding himself the Star!

[David Filsell]

It's no small thing to criticise a war hero, or a Victoria Cross winner, but having read much on Bishop, and his contemporaries, including the 'new' havering biography, with very great sadness I now it very difficult to trust any of the man's claims about anything.

[mickdavis]

Has anyone considered this? Netheravon to Dover = c.100ml: Channel = c.22ml: Calais-St Omer = c.15ml. A round trip of c.270ml, not bad for a BE2 (or whatever) in 2 hours!!

Also 1 Aircraft Park kept daily returns of departures & arrivals. These were kept on pink record cards. I've a number of these that Frank Cheesman gave me. Sods Law says that I've got the arrival card for 28 October and the departure one for 27 October, but none for the 29th. The maximum number of daily movements at that stage of the war was less than 10 machines. However, my serial lists, based on the material available at Kew, give only 3 arrivals - BE2cs 4098 and 2685 plus the first Martinsyde Elephant 4735. The only departures I've got BE 1674 to England and 2458 to 12 Sqn.

[alex revell]

Mick,

Just another piece of hard evidence which I'm afraid will be ignored by the believers, as usual.

[mickdavis]

The thing that keeps niggling me, and I don't know the answer, is Scott's role in building up the Bishop legend.

[alex revell]

Mick,

I used to think that, with all due respect to Willie Fry, his theory that there was some kind of high level

conspiracy to manufacture a much needed Canadian war hero, was a bit fanciful, but when one considers all the evidence of how things were smoothed for Bishop in so many ways, it begins to take on credence.

All the people connected with Lady St.Helier where certainly in a position to do so. It could be argued, of course, that Bishop could very well have been killed anyway, before the objective was achieved, but perhaps

that was a risk they were willing to take. Who knows.

[alex revell]

Looking through Peter Kilduff's book on Bishop, I was struck by the following.

Page 93. Chart purporting to show Bishop was the hardest working pilot in 60 Sqdn.

This chart, requested by Wing, and compiled by Scott or the sqdn’s recording officer, is misleading to say the least. To take a closer look at it.

In the col. Headed: Date Posted to Sqdn, it shows Caldwell as only having been in the sqdn for 4 days; whereas, to give only a couple of examples, he and Fry had originally been in the squadron well before Bishop - Caldwell from November 1916, Fry from October 1916 - , and had both rejoined on the dates shown. However, to be fair, Scott had not taken command of 60 Sqdn until 10 March 1917, so may have been ignorant of Caldwell’s and Fry’s previous service with the squadron. Having said that, Scott had requested Wing that Fry's posting to 56 Sqdn should be changed to that of a return to 60.

From his logbook, Grid Caldwell first went to France on 19 July 1916, joining 8 Sqdn. He flew with 8 Sqdn until 12 Nov 1916, when he want to 1 AD. ‘To learn to fly scouts’ He was then posted to 60 Sqdn on 18 November 1916 and flew with the sqdn until sent home on sick leave for ten weeks on 6 March 1917. He rejoined 60 Sqdn on 22 May 1917. On 23 May he made his first flight since returning to the Sqdn, noting in his logbook: ‘1st flight for three months.’ His logbook then shows that by 26 May he had made eight flights, not the four as stated in Scott’s report. All but two of these flights by Caldwell were combat operations, as distinct from practise flights. The discrepancy in the chart is no doubt due to Scott not considering the two practice flights in his calculations Did he do the same in calculating the number of flights made by B, recording only the operational flights.

Let’s look a little further into Scott’s report.

Bishop is shown as having made 53 flights since joining the Sqdn on 7 March 1917. An approximation of 109 days. According to the RFC daily communiques, the weather prevented any flying for six days during the period in question. Therefore, given the approximate time that Bishop could have flown an operation as having been 103 days, this is an average of a flight of two hours a day. This is not an unreasonably large amount of flying time, given that the average operational flight was somewhere in the order of one to two hours. In other words, Bishop was flying no more operational flights, one a day, than any other fully operational pilot in the squadron. The chart is therefore inaccurate and misleading – whether deliberately or not – in purporting to show that Bishop was by far the hardest working member of the squadron.

[Jasta72s]

This problem with Bishops first combat sortie is only a little one and would be negligible if one could not find many, many other, more important mistakes and misleading claims in his book. He tried to make himself a name as saviour of Bishop's honour and failed miserably already in his „core business“. The very most of his „matched“ and „possible“ German victims of Bishop burst like bubbles of soap if researched in depth with the help of available German documents. Furthermore, Peter Kilduff developed a habit of ignoring all other British victory claims in the environment of Bishop's claims, therefore he can not see that other British pilots victory claims fit way better than Bishop's claims in some cases.

As well he was repeating age-old mistakes of other researchers without any check. He is even mixing British and German data in some places in the Aerial Victory List of William A. Bishop. He starts his „matches“ and „possibles“ with a wrong claim (Berkling, Jasta 22) and finished his list with another wrong claim (Heins and Koehler, Jasta 56), and the most other „matches“ and „possible“claims between are not any better. To turn Bishop's opponents from one-seaters into two-seaters and all his related claims concerning Bishop's „morning raid“ are ill-adviced at best. It is also pretty obvious that W. Bishop tried to impress his girl-friend with his letters and I wonder that PK took these letters so serious but his complete approach to the topic „William Bishop“ is uncritical and excludes any hard critical question. The whole book is a wasted effort.

[alex revell]

Jasta 72s, Well said.

I was recently sent this by another researcher, which ties in with your doubts over B's victories.

Quote:

'RFC Headquarters investigated B's claims in the six weeks following the 2 Jun airfield attack and that only two had external witness - 10 & 12 July - and that the Adjutant of 13 Wing contacted 60 Sqn & 8 Naval

(clearly for Little) wanting written statements from these witnesses and sent a dispatch rider to get them. This was just after B's guardian angel - Maj Scott - was wia. Clearly there were doubters in RFC HQ.

Personally, I believe that when Peter K got into the research for the book he found that the evidence against Bishop was such that he realised that he was defending a hopeless case, but was already committed to writing the book.

[Jonathan Saunders]

Personally, I believe that when Peter K got into the research for the book he found that the evidence against Bishop was such that he realised that he was defending a hopeless case, but was already committed to writing the book.

You are probably right Alex but he should of pulled it then. In fact he should have known better in the first place. Reputation and his previous work now shot to bits.

[alex revell]

Jonathan, Yes, that's the sad part of it all.

[Jasta72s]

Already 2 months ago Peter Kilduff got a detailed critical evaluation of all of his claimed matches and possible victories of W. Bishop from Germany. So, he knows his mistakes in this field already. However, he refused to discuss the problems on a more individual level because he was "too busy" with the preparation of the Summer Issue of OTF. He even asked what he should do with the "material". This is a heavy human disappointment and probably worse than his professional failures in this book.

[alex revell]

Errol,

Re. your last post on that other site in respect of Willie's remarks concerning the damage to B's Nieuport. I spent many hours in conversation with Willie and I never found one instance where his memory was not correct and checked out to be so. Not only that, but Willie would have been only too aware of the structural damage that shots through the centre section could have done to the Nieuport, and that to say they were there would damage his case.

I'm only too aware of the fallacy of memory over the years, but I found that the memory of the WW1 pilots I met was pretty accurate when checked against known facts. Don't forget it

was a very intense, traumatic period of their lives and the events of that time were very

strongly implanted in their memories, more so than recent, more mundane events. Let me give one example. I was talking one morning with Cyril Parry, who had flown in 56 before he was

posted to 60 as a Flt Comm. I had taken up a C&C journal for him to see, which had an

article on 60 Sqdn. The article recounted the infamous accident when Crowe was driving back from a party, ran off the road, and killed and injured pilots in the car. The article named the pilots concerned,as quoted by Scott in his history of 60 Sqdn which was written very

soon after the war, if memory serves, within a couple of years. Parry looked at the names

and immediately said 'that's wrong' and named the people concerned - with their initials.

Although I didn't say so to him at the time, I discounted his memory. He had been asked by

Crowe to come to the party, but had declined because he was working on the engine of

his SE5a. When later that evening, testing the SE, he crashed, was seriously injured, and

was in hospital,unconscious for two days, and was then in hospital for sometime before

invalided home. Taking that in view, I considered that he was hardly in the position to even know, let alone remember, who was involved in the accident, especially as Scott's account

was written so soon after the event. But later, working at the PRO I came across the

official account and inquiry into the accident and found that Parry was right.

This was also confirmed a few years later when the diary of Soden, one of the pilots injured in the accident, came to light.

Of course, there are exceptions. Such as the German pilot telling Alex Imrie about being

attacked by Spitfires in 1917. When Alex gently pointed out that the Spitfire was a second

war aeroplane, he was severely reprimanded and told that he wasn't there, wasn't even born, and therefore should listen to his elders and betters!

Sorry about the strange formatting in the post. all correct until downloaded.

[alex revell]

In reading the Kilduff book on Bishop I came upon this and thought it deserved to be looked at.

Page 93. Chart purporting to show Bishop was the hardest working pilot in 60 Sqdn.

This chart, requested by Wing, and compiled by Scott or the sqdn’s recording officer, is misleading to say the least. To take a closer look at it.

In the Col. Headed: Date Posted to Sqdn, it shows Caldwell as only having been in the sqdn for 4 days. This is misleading. To give only a couple of examples given in the list: Caldwell and Fry had originally been in the squadron well before Bishop - Caldwell from November 1916, Fry from October 1916 - both rejoined on the dates shown. However, to be fair, Scott had not taken command of 60 Sqdn until 10 March 1917, so may have been ignorant of Caldwell’s and Fry’s previous service with the squadron. Although, having said that, Scott did have Fry’s posting to 56 Sqdn on his return to France, rescinded by Wing for Fry’s posting to 60 Sqdn.

From his logbook, Grid Caldwell first went to France on 19 July 1916, joining 8 Sqdn. He flew with 8 Sqdn until 12 Nov 1916, when he want to 1 AD ‘To learn to fly scouts’ He was then posted to 60 Sqdn on 18 November 1916 and flew with the sqdn until sent home on sick leave for ten weeks on 6 March 1917. He rejoined 60 Sqdn on 22 May 1917. On 23 May he made his first flight since returning to the Sqdn, noting in his logbook: ‘1st flight for three months.’ His logbook then shows that by 26 May he had made eight flights, not the four as stated in Scott’s report. All but two of these flights by Caldwell were combat operations, as distinct from practise flights. The discrepancy in the chart is no doubt due to Scott not considering the two practice flights in his calculations. Did he do the same in calculating the number of flights made by B, recording only the operational flights?

Let’s look a little further into Scott’s report.

Bishop is shown as having made 53 flights since joining the Sqdn on 7 March 1917. An approximation of 109 days. According to the RFC daily communiques, the weather prevented any flying for six days during the period in question. Therefore, given the approximate time that Bishop could have flown an operation as having been 103 days, this is an average of a flight of two hours a day. This is not an unreasonably large amount of flying time, given that the average operational flight was somewhere in the order of one to two hours. In other words, Bishop was flying no more operational flights, one a day, than any other fully operational pilot in the squadron. The chart is therefore inaccurate and misleading – whether deliberately or not – in purporting to show that Bishop was by far the hardest working member of the squadron.

[mickdavis]

I notice that someone on The Aerodrome forum commented on my remarks re Bishop's first 'operational sortie'. My reading of 4 hour round trip, back to Netheravon, suggests start and finish at that station, hence my calculations. A re-fuelling stop at Dover, on the way out, would have necessitated a high speed, as would one at St Omer. Even allowing for the flight starting at Dover, from there to St Omer (another stop-over, then 2 hrs over the lines and then back to Netheravon still seems to stretch matters. According to the information in in JMB's Aeroplanes of the Royal Flying Corps, the BE2 could do 70mph at ground level and 65mph at 6500ft, both flat out, and a RE7, with Beardmore, 82mph at ground level and 73mph at 5000ft, again flat out. I'd have thought that cruising speed would have been somewhere between 60-80% of the maximum.

[alex revell]

Mick, It's important to realise that a lot of the people on the aerodrome are arguing their case from a position of pretty limited knowledge - which is self evident from their own posts, and - let's be kind - not a great grasp of logic.

To most of us, the fact that all the evidence that would support Bishop's claims, both the raid and the victory claims, is 'missing' is strange, to say the least.

When one cuts out all the minutia - frequently used to obscure the issue - the basic facts that need to be answered are these:

The VC recommendation by Scott. As a commanding officer of rank, Scott would have been fully aware of the rules for the VC being awarded. ie. at this point in the war, at least one witness. Therefore he should never even have considered making such a recommendation to Wing - or any other authority - in the first place, knowing that it did not meet the qualification. I suspect that this is why no recommendation by Scott, to Wing, has ever been found, or any other paperwork regarding the award of the VC. Surely, all the paperwork concerning Bishop's VC cannot be missing. I have recently been working on a biography of McCudden. The recommendations for all his medals, and bars, are fully documented.

Bishop's victory claims.The number of claims, not witnessed, but confirmed as victories by Wing, is unprecedented. Using the same source as Kilduff - Above The Trenches - the scores of the three leading allied leading pilots are shown as being matched to a much greater extent. In McCudden's case, something like 55 out of the officially awarded 57. But, of course, the records which would make it possible to match most, if not any, of Bishop's claims are, once again, 'missing.'

Cutting through all the side issues of missing Lewis gun, damage to the Nieuport, pilots who thought Bishop was genuine, his first flight over the lines etc etc. ad nauseam. These are the two points which need to be addressed.

[fetubi]

This is some of the paperwork I came across concerning the award of the VC to Bishop in my research for my expanded and updated book The Sky Their Battlefield II. I spent a year trawling through thousands of these Recommendations for Awards, at squadron level, as originally submitted to Brigade for consideration, and this more raw material revealed a huge amount of new material which I've added to the entries in my book.

There is documentation around the VC award, but that doesn't stop the Bishop Question rumbling on... But it is good (i.e. essential) to look at and read the original source material - here is some of it (over around probably two to three posts, owing to image size etc.)

First, a letter by Scott - not exactly mentioning the VC, but perhaps it can be seen as putting the balls in motion. It comes from AIR1/1516/204/58/58 III Brigade Recommendations for Excellent Work, April to September 1917:

[fetubi]

And here is the actual Recommendation for Bishop's Victoria Cross, evidently associated with the letter above, which was then coming in from 60 Squadron into III Brigade - this is available in AIR1/1515/204/58/50 III Brigade Recommendations for Awards. It is dated the day before Scott's letter - though this is likely just a technicality, when you read the two documents together. As such, the two documents, his letter and this recommendation, would seem to be a pair.