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CHAPTER 1
The Lone Wolf Strikes
'Ambition was born in my breast, and ... along with this new ambition there was born in me as well a distinct dislike for all two-seated German flying machines ... Many people think of the two-seater as a superior fighting machine because of its greater gun-power. But to me [it] always seemed [to be] fair prey and an easy target ...'
– William A. Bishop
Tuesday, 28 May 1918 was a mostly sunny day, heralding the arrival of summer. In the sky over Ypres, Belgium, a dark mottled German two-seat biplane circled the warravaged old city, occasionally swooping low over buildings and roads pummelled into the Flemish soil during nearly four years of artillery and troop assaults. With fierce Allied resistance to another German assault now underway, it was too dangerous for the aeroplane continually to orbit overhead, where it could be seen against the sky.
Every time the two-seater rose up, it headed north west, so the aerial observer could view British artillery units firing at German positions. Through high-powered binoculars, he looked for big red muzzle flashes. Like a high-altitude sniper armed with a wireless telegraph, once he spotted his quarry, he tapped out its location to a ground station, which directed artillery units against the British gun emplacement. The observer sent messages confirming target hits or to adjust their fire.
Eyes in the Sky
The experienced observer, twenty-three-year-old Leutnant der Reserve [Second-Lieutenant, Reserves] Hanns-Gerd Rabe, knew that Allied single-seat fighters would be looking for his aeroplane. He and his pilot, Unteroffizier [Corporal] Peter Johannes, scanned the skies for tell-tale distant specks – Allied aircraft bent on shooting them down in order to save lives among their own ground forces.
Johannes drew Rabe's attention to a small, growing spot in the distance. It turned out to be a lone British single- seat aeroplane. Rabe later recalled:
'It was quite far off, so I was not worried about one Tommy fighterplane. Then he seemed to have disappeared, perhaps to find a more opportune target.
'I returned to looking at the target area with my binoculars, watching for the next shell to hit. Suddenly an S.E.5a fighter aeroplane came between me and the target and filled my view. It was gaining fast and through the binoculars I could see the aeroplane as if I were next to it. The first thing I noticed was the white octagon insignia on the fuselage side and a big white letter next to it. I recognised the symbols from a report I had read recently. Mein Gott! It was Bishop, the British Richthofen!
'We had to make a fast dive for our lines. The engine was not yet at full power, so I leaned over to my pilot and yelled: "Dive for home! Right now or we are done for!"
'He gave full power and pushed the machine over into a streaking dive eastwards. I looked through the binoculars at Mr. Bishop, who became smaller and smaller, and I was overjoyed that we had managed to elude this master fighter pilot. If given a choice, I would always avoid combat and the possible loss of the exposed photographic plates and notes I had made earlier in the flight.'
Wary of tricks, Rabe tightly gripped the stock of his machine gun. He was ready to fend off any aeroplane that attacked from behind or – even worse – from above, with the sun at its back, making it difficult to see. Likewise, Johannes readied his forward-firing machine gun in case any adversary impeded their retreat.
Rabe's decision was vindicated that evening, when he and Johannes were back at Flieger-Abteilung (A) 253's airfield at Pont à Marcq, France, some seventeen miles south east of Ypres. Their comrades agreed that the lone British attacker must have been the (then) forty-eight-victory fighter ace Major William A. Bishop, VC, DSO and Bar, MC, and that there was no shame in declining to fight such a formidable opponent.
At age twenty-four, Billy Bishop enjoyed a formidable reputation among German airmen, who whispered his name with fear. But later that morning, Billy – as he was called by most people – was still angry with himself for failing to shoot down the two-seater.
After lunch Bishop flew another solo hunting mission, heading eastward toward Courtemarck, where he attacked two Albatros biplane fighters. At day's end, his usual high spirits were restored by his latest successes and he easily dismissed the opponent that got away. He wrote about it to his wife:
'I went up to the lines this morning and only succeeded in frightening a fat two-seater to death. He ran for all he was worth, so I didn't follow. This afternoon, however, was my lucky moment. I spied nine Albatros [fighters] under me ... The two back ones were higher than the rest, so I went after them. They saw me when I was 150 yards away. I opened fire on one, twenty rounds, and passed on to the second one, who was doing a climbing turn. I [put] thirty rounds into him and then zoomed and saw the second one burst into flames. Then looking over, the first one, 600 feet lower, [was] also in flames. I then left well enough alone and cleared off, easily getting away from the remainder.'
Conflicting Reports
That letter is the most detailed surviving account of Billy's combat activities on 28 May 1918. Copies of combat reports about his morning and afternoon patrols have not been found in the UK National Archives or in any other such known resource in Britain or Canada. He was credited with scoring his forty-ninth and fiftieth aerial victories in that day's entry in the Royal Air Force War Diary. They were among twenty-eight EA [enemy aeroplanes] credited as having been shot down by RAF airmen that day. Yet, the German weekly Nachrichtenblatt [air intelligence summary] for the period listed only eight losses – three aircraft reported missing and five shot down across the entire Western Front. A post-war German aviation necrology, however, lists twenty-three air-related deaths on 28 May 1918; of that number nineteen occurred over the Western Front.
Determining which of those casualties Billy Bishop caused is complicated by reports from the German 4th Army air staff, over whose sector the Canadian pilot's combats occurred. Hauptmann [Captain] Helmuth Wilberg, who was the 4th Army's officer in charge of aviation, reported five casualties within his area that day. His listing included Gefreiter [Lance-Corporal] Peisker, a pilot with the Pfalz D.IIIa-equipped fighter unit Jagdstaffel 7, who was reported as being 'lightly injured while making an emergency landing'. But Jasta 7's commanding officer, Ltn.d.Res Josef Jacobs, had not mentioned Gefr Peisker's incident in his war diary; rather, he recorded that another pilot, Uffz Sicho, 'had been shot up by an S.E.5a and was wounded in the arm and upper leg'. Jacobs stated that Sicho's wounds resulted from an early morning encounter with 'five S.E.5s who were [fighting] with a formation of Albatros D.V' aircraft.
The preceding assemblage of casualty information does not help identify which German aircraft or unit Billy encountered, but it demonstrates the confusing array of facts to be considered in arriving at a hypothesis. Further, in his letter that evening, Billy Bishop said he saw both Albatros fighters on fire. Possibly, one or both German pilots managed to extinguish the flames or make a 'controlled crash' that wrecked the aircraft but did not kill the pilots.
One remarkable aspect about aerial combat during World War I is that, often, opponents were able to recognise each other. Easily the best-known example is the series of red (or mostly red) fighter aircraft flown by Germany's top-scoring fighter ace, Rittmeister [Cavalry Captain] Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, the pilot to whom Ltn.d.Res Rabe alluded when he recognised Bishop pursuing him on 28 May. In addition to being easily identified in the air, Richthofen's distinctive aircraft helped create a bogey-man image, which at least put his opponents on edge. Similarly, Billy's rapid rise to high-scoring ace status made him of high interest to his German counterparts. Shared word-ofmouth descriptions of Allied squadron markings (often revealed in prisoner of war interrogations) and the sight of a fighter aircraft, whose pilot was so bold as to operate like a lone wolf, convinced Rabe that a single S.E.5a bearing a white octagon and large white number on the fuselage must have been Billy Bishop's. Rabe's letter home, describing the date, time of day and location of his encounter matched the incident that Bishop described to his wife. That historical evidence led this author to conclude that Rabe and Bishop most likely had an aerial encounter over Ypres.
There are many facets to Billy Bishop's story. Before delving into the air combat role for which he is best known, the man and events that shaped him should be considered.
Family History
Billy Bishop was descended from people with strong convictions and the courage to act on them. An example of those qualities is his Puritan ancestor John Seaman, who left England in 1630, during the tumultuous reign of King Charles I, for a more stable life in North America. Seaman sailed aboard one of eleven ships led by John Winthrop to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. From there, Seaman set out for neighbouring Connecticut and then to Long Island, where he found success.
Well over a century later, when increasing numbers of American colonists sought independence from England, Bishop's maternal great-great-grandfather, Caleb Seaman II, remained loyal to the British crown. Following the American Revolution and the subsequent British troop withdrawal in 1783, Seaman was continually harassed about his sentiments. Consequently, six years later, he and his wife and their two children moved to Canada, where Caleb became a blacksmith near the village of Rockville.
Caleb's son Nehemiah married the daughter of another loyalist-émigré family, Margaret McCready. Their daughter, Eliza Ann Seaman, married Hiram Kilbourn in 1838 and, as a result of that union, the Bishop name entered the family history. After the Kilbourns moved to 'the boom town of Owen Sound ... [a] port on Georgian Bay, the world's largest fresh-water bay', they established a tannery. As the business grew, in 1853 they hired nineteen-year-old leatherworker Eleazar Wilson Bishop. He fell in love with the Kilbourns' sixteen-year-old daughter and only child, Sarah Sophia; the following year the couple ran away to be married.
Eleazar Bishop tried several business ventures and went broke. Then, his wife took charge of supporting the family, eventually six children. Sarah worked all day long at cooking, cleaning, sewing and other domestic work. Eleazar and Sarah's oldest son, William Avery Bishop, showed such promise that his mother saved money to send him to Osgoode Hall (now part of York University), one of Canada's leading law schools. But before Will Bishop, as he was known, left to pursue his studies he became engaged to Margaret Louise Greene.
The couple set out on a much more successful life path than Will's parents had. Arthur Bishop noted:
'Margaret Louise ... and Will Bishop ... grew up together. They were married soon after Will returned to practice [law] in Owen Sound and Will staked his future by building an elegant Victorian home for his bride. They moved into it just before their first son ... was born in 1884.'
Thursday's Child
That child was named Reginald Worth Bishop, and went by Worth; a good student who set a good example for other siblings to come. A 1903 graduate of Canada's Royal Military College, Worth was successful in his military and civilian endeavours. A second son, Kilbourne, was born in 1886, but died at age seven. On Thursday, 8 February 1894, 'their third son was born, an eleven-pound baby with a full head of blond hair and bright blue eyes. True to the line in an old fortune telling children's rhyme – 'Thursday's child has far to go' – the younger Bishop boy had quite a future ahead of him. He was named after his father, William Avery, but he was not listed as 'Junior'; rather, he was called Billy. The following year, the Bishops' last child was born; baptised as Mary Louise, she became known as Louie.
Will Bishop became involved in Liberal Party politics in the 1896 national election and, two years later, he was appointed as clerk of the High Court and registrar of the Surrogate Court for Grey County. Will Bishop had an office in the local court house and, following the custom of the time, he wore formal attire. His younger son looked and acted very much like Will and so Margaret Louise dressed Billy in similar finery.
The youngster's well-dressed look was noticed by male schoolmates who singled out boys who were 'different' from them. The more aggressive lads criticised Billy's fine clothes and his disdain for competitive team sports; rather, he enjoyed 'shooting, riding and swimming'. He 'was undoubtedly the only pre-teenaged boy in Owen Sound who enjoyed attending [dancing] classes ...'
Consequently, Billy 'developed formidable fighting skills and won the respect of his peers with his fists in numerous schoolyard scraps'. Indeed, he augmented his physical toughening with hand-eye coordination skills that would serve him well as a fighter pilot. His father bought Billy a membership in the local YMCA, where executing good shots in the billiard room challenged his manual dexterity.
Next, the teenager received a .22-calibre rifle and practiced marksmanship, a skill that would help him when he became an air fighter. Spurred by the incentive of twenty-five cents for every squirrel he shot, Billy learned the art of deflection shooting – aiming his gun beyond a moving target to anticipate its movement – and earned quite a few dollars for his talent.
A Budding Aviator
In 1910, sixteen-year-old Billy Bishop built and tested his own 'flying machine', actually an unpowered glider. Based on newspaper photos of contemporary aircraft, he constructed a craft out of a crate and other wood, cardboard and bed sheets, all held together with heavy string. After his 'flight', the local newspaper charitably called Billy's craft 'a real credit to the inventive mind of this lad'.
Arthur Bishop's book offered a more critical view:
'[Billy] hauled it off to the roof of the family home, took his place in the orange-crate cockpit, and skidded down the steep roof into space. His descent was more a nosedive than a flight. The twenty-eight-foot fall demolished the machine, but Billy scrambled out of the wreckage with no more than a bruised knee and a scratched ear ... [The] incident ... [became] the first of many violent contacts between the earth's surface and aircraft piloted by William Avery Bishop, near disasters which became known simply as "Bishop landings".'
Immediately after the incident, his sister Louie helped clean him up and dispose of the wreckage. But she sought compensation. One of her friends was hosting a girl from Toronto and asked whether Billy, who was popular with the local young ladies, would take the guest to a local dance. Billy agreed to consider the out-of-town girl. Louie invited her friend and the other girl, Margaret Burden, over for refreshments on the veranda, where Billy viewed the new girl from behind dining room curtains.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Billy Bishop VC"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Grub Street.
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