"Billy Bishop - Unconfirmed Victories" Topic

I saw the top header for the Miniatures Page today and did some brief reading on Billy Bishop's raid and his W.W. I service in general.

One part I read on Bishop's VC granted from this raid was quoted from Shores stated that:

"For this feat, he was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), although it has been suggested that he may have embellished his success. His VC was one of two awarded in violation of the warrant requiring witnesses (the other being the Unknown Soldier),and since the German records have been lost and the archived papers relating to the VC were lost as well, there is no way of confirming whether there were any witnesses. It seemed to be common practice at this time to allow Bishop to claim victories without requiring confirmation or verification from other witnesses."

Also, he on the day Bishop was ordered to leave France he took off on a solo patrol in the morning and claimed five German planes shot down in 15 minutes (no witnesses again) to give him top ace honors for British / Commonwealth pilots.

Does anyone have any more info on how many of Bishop's 72 victories were not confirmed by other Allied sources?

That is a HUGE can of worms in WWI aviation circles. A search on theaerodrome.com will doubtless find a good few heated discussions, with plenty of citations and unit record quoting to accompany….

Googling:

Billy Bishop claims site:theaerodrome.com

…should get you plenty of food for thought on the subject, and probably a few pints of vitriol too….

Not looking for a "shooting" war with anyone over the internet, just read that what I posted above and was very surprised by it.

Veracity of the event aside, it does make for a good solo-play scenario!

FWIW, here's the direct link to the aerodrome's page on Bishop, which includes links to the "claims v. losses"…

link

I'm truly not looking to stir up trouble – just noticed that (for me) Dom's link didn't work, so…

Main point: it really does make for a helluva solo game!
(esp. using the "Watch Your Six" rules)

Philip Markham had a very thoroughly researched article in Over The Front, Vol.10, No.3, 1995 The author had set out with an admitted bias in favour of Bishop and wanted to find info to back up his claims.

Short summary of the research:
* German fields at Esnes and Awoigt were vacant that day.
* No German airield within Bishop's flight radius had Albatros D.I's or D.II's at that date, 2 Armee and 6 Armee fighters were all D.III's
* No German reports of any airfield attacks anywhere on the Western Front that day.

A couple of years ago I have been at the theaerodrome-forum. Quite indepth there.

Not to slighten anything Bishop said, but if you sum up all the Allied aces scores you have killed the whole German air force once flat, without anybody left to die in accidents, shot down by non-aces, two seaters, balloon defense or other antiair, and without any casualties in other theatres (Russia, Balkan, etc) or even – god forbid – survivors after the war.

A not uncommon response is that the Germans faked their accounts. Well…

But the Bishop stuff seems to have been so blatant that other pilots were talking about it DURING the war.

You will find Mannock's score far below the 73 he ended up with after his death, as friends far and near found "unclaimed" kills to add to his record. While it was established that he frequently gave away "shared" kills to new guys to help their confidence, the later push for scoring seems to have been entirely focused on making sure Bishop was not credited with the 'greatest' score for the RFC/RAF.

As a kid I loved reading Bishop's stuff, but as I got older and started detecting an odor… I found myself not even wanting the WoW Se5 in his paint scheme (and don't have it.)

Boo, hiss, boo! There "you" go "again", spoiling my boyhood daydreams. Bishop a faker? Heresy! There must be a good explanation, somewhere….

Some 59 of Bishop's victories were from solo missions, so may or may not be real.
His true score may be as few as 13 !!

Yes their claims were an overkill but they were exetremely brave chaps. Just to get into a Be2 and fly it over enemy lines deserves a medal.

To be honest, it's not like over-counting by the air force doesn't still happen…

What about Hermann Goering's kill claims? I don't doubt that Bishop had his full quota of kills. Some of those planes were easy to knock out of the sky. Only a gun camera would confirm for certain.

However, I feel Wiliam Barker, VC. was the greater ace. Not as attractive a personality though.