Article by Rich Thistle ©
LONE WOLF AT DAWN at Dawn by Rich Thistle© As always, flying filled Bishop's senses. The powerful Wolseley Viper engine roared in his ears. The damp wind buffeted his head and face over the short windscreen of his dark green S.E.5A Even in the rush of high, clean air, the odor of castor oil was ever present. He was alive and fully aware. Unencumbered by flying goggles which he never wore, his keen, penetrating, blue eyes searched all quadrants for what he almost desperately hoped would be there. Even though the heavy drizzle, which had greeted him earlier that morning, had abated somewhat, he hardly dared expect to meet the Hun today.
Major William Avery 'Billy' Bishop, Commanding 85 Squadron RAF, was in his element for what he knew would probably be the last time in this war. He was to leave the aerodrome at Petit Synthe today June 19, 1918 at noon, less than a month after having brought his new 85 Squadron, known as the Flying Foxes, to north west France and fourteen months following his first successful combat sortie in 60 Squadron. Having promised to lend his support to the formation of a proposed Canadian Air Force, he could hardly argue the point when his recall to England had arrived. But that didn't stop him from being mad as hell. He wrote to his wife Margaret in London: "I've never been so furious in my life. It makes me livid with rage to be pulled away just as things are getting started." He was still upset as he flew his S.E.5A C1904 for the last time in combat.
In less than six months of actual flying time, Bishop had accumulated a phenomenal sixty-seven confirmed victories. He was proud of them. He had relished the 'game' of collecting them. He was enjoying the notoriety which his victories brought him in Britain as well as at home in Canada. He was the top-scoring ace of the British Empire. But in his heart, he knew this was it. What he couldn't know was that history was about to be made. It was 09:58.
LONE WOLF AT DAWN at Dawn by Rich Thistle© As always, flying filled Bishop's senses. The powerful Wolseley Viper engine roared in his ears. The damp wind buffeted his head and face over the short windscreen of his dark green S.E.5A Even in the rush of high, clean air, the odor of castor oil was ever present. He was alive and fully aware. Unencumbered by flying goggles which he never wore, his keen, penetrating, blue eyes searched all quadrants for what he almost desperately hoped would be there. Even though the heavy drizzle, which had greeted him earlier that morning, had abated somewhat, he hardly dared expect to meet the Hun today. Major William Avery 'Billy' Bishop, Commanding 85 Squadron RAF, was in his element for what he knew would probably be the last time in this war. He was to leave the aerodrome at Petit Synthe today June 19, 1918 at noon, less than a month after having brought his new 85 Squadron, known as the Flying Foxes, to north west France and fourteen months following his first successful combat sortie in 60 Squadron. Having promised to lend his support to the formation of a proposed Canadian Air Force, he could hardly argue the point when his recall to England had arrived. But that didn't stop him from being mad as hell. He wrote to his wife Margaret in London: "I've never been so furious in my life. It makes me livid with rage to be pulled away just as things are getting started." He was still upset as he flew his S.E.5A C1904 for the last time in combat.
In less than six months of actual flying time, Bishop had accumulated a phenomenal sixty-seven confirmed victories. He was proud of them. He had relished the 'game' of collecting them. He was enjoying the notoriety which his victories brought him in Britain as well as at home in Canada. He was the top-scoring ace of the British Empire. But in his heart, he knew this was it. What he couldn't know was that history was about to be made. It was 09:58.
A few miles over the line in enemy territory, he dropped out of the clouds to check his position. Recognizing the landmark of the Ploegsteert Wood, south of Ypres, he also immediately recognized the three aircraft flying away from him to his left at about three hundred yards. They were Pfaltz scouts. This strongly-constructed single-seater carried two Spandau guns internally in the front fuselage and had proved to be a steady platform capable of absorbing a great deal of battle damage. It could be dived harder and faster than the Albatros and had played more than a small part in the revival of German air superiority in the early spring of 1918. And three together were certainly not to be taken lightly.
HUNTER by Rich Thistle©Having spotted him, the German scouts began to turn and Bishop followed. By the time he had drawn a bead on one of the three, they had come half way around the circle. Suddenly they dived on him, guns blazing. Bishop heard the tracers tear through his lower left wingtip as he got in a short burst himself. The three fighters slipped beneath him. Banking to the left to bring his machine to bear again, he took a quick, instinctual look behind him. Two more Pfaltz scouts were diving down on him at high speed. His unfailing instinct had probably saved his life again.
Now time was of the essence. Deciding to make a quick attack on the original three before the other two could enter the fray, he opened fire quickly from what was for him an unusually long range. One of the three aircraft was instantly struck killing the pilot. It fell away, out of control. The other two began to climb while the two newcomers, still diving and finally in range, opened fired on him. Bishop pulled up into a steep turn. Now, these two German scouts passed beneath him. However, the first two, climbing away toward the cloud layer, flying dangerously close, came together in a spar-crunching collision. Both aircraft disintegrated in a bizarre shower of wood, metal and fabric.
Turning his attention to the remaining two Pfaltz fighters, now ascending toward the safety of the clouds, he sent tracers into one of them at two hundred yards, starting the enemy aircraft spiraling toward the ground, now no further than a thousand feet down. The fifth Pfaltz escaped into the safety of the clouds.
With the ceiling down to nine hundred feet, Bishop continued his patrol somewhere between Neuve Eglise and Ploegsteert. Thoughts about turning for home were crossing his mind when out of the misty drizzle appeared an outline with which he had become very familiar over the last months. It was a German two-seater. Without being spotted, he slipped into the blind spot beneath and behind the reconnaissance aircraft and, raising his nose, sent a short bust from both guns into its belly. It shuddered, seemed to hesitate in the air and then fell towards the ground beneath. With the pilot struggling desperately for control, the observer slumped lifeless in the rear, the two-seater smashed into the ground in flames.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. He was alone in the sky again. He hardly realized it, but this had indeed been his finest achievement in the air. A world-famous airman, his final sortie and five aircraft in the space of fifteen minutes. It was a fitting way to end a combat flying career. It was a career which had rather more prosaic beginnings back in small-town Owen Sound, Ontario.
Born to William and Margaret Bishop on February 8, 1894, blonde, blue-eyed William Avery Bishop was the third son in a family of four children. His father, the Grey County registrar, held conservative views typical of middle-class fathers in the late nineteenth century and his son Billy became the target of teasing when he was sent to school dressed as a miniature bureaucrat in gray suit and tie. A spirited boy, he quickly learned to stand up for himself - and often for his younger companions - his fists usually doing the talking.
Billy Bishop was a boy of action. Although he didn't like team sports such as football and lacrosse, he did enjoy individual pursuits like shooting, riding and swimming. Handsome, intelligent and charming, Billy was always an indifferent student. In fact, he hated school, cutting classes in high school to play pool downtown. His teachers rarely succeeded in hiding their low expectations for him. Realizing he would never excel academically, he refused to apply himself to his studies.
However, he did show great determination to perfect the skills he enjoyed. One of these was shooting. When his father gave him a .22 caliber rifle for Christmas, and offered him twenty-five cents for every marauding squirrel he bagged, Billy with his great eye and steady hand, turned it into an entrepreneurial success at home and throughout his neighborhood. He had become a crack shot.
With similar determination and more than a little spirit of boyish enterprise, a fifteen year-old Billy turned his reading of newspaper accounts of the first heavier-than-air flight in Canada (and the British Empire) by Canadian John McCurdy in the Silver Dart, into a reckless adventure of his own. His version of the now famous aircraft, crudely constructed from wood, cardboard, wire and a lot of strong string, carried him -mostly vertically- from the roof of the family's Victorian home, to an inescapable crunching conclusion as it crashed in a heap on the lawn below. Out of the consequent carnage crawled the irrepressible Billy, only slightly injured but not in any way cowed. As it turned out, he would also live through many violent landings as a real pilot too. In fact his landing skills remained relatively underdeveloped during his whole flying career.
Billy easily related to girls. He and his younger sister Louie were very close. Bribed by Louie to entertain her visiting girlfriend, Bishop secretly checked out the girl he was later to marry through the parlor curtains before agreeing. Margaret Burden, granddaughter of the great Toronto retailer Timothy Eaton, would marry Billy while he was home on leave from the front several years later in 1917. But, for now, although he was secretly impressed with Margaret, he charged his sister Louie five dollars for his entertainment services.
At the age of seventeen, Billy followed his elder brother Worth into the Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario, Canada's equivalent to England's Sand Hurst or America's West Point. Entering more for academic than military reasons, he was following a brother who had achieved record results there. However, having been more or less his own master up to this point in his life, the younger Bishop chafed under the strict military discipline of RMC. He also found it difficult to deal with the usual treatment received by recruits at the hands of upper class men. So, not surprisingly, his first year at RMC was entirely unsuccessful.
Turning over a new leaf, his second year went better, but, in his third, his resolve dissolved. Things fell apart. Caught cheating on an exam, when he absent-mindedly handed in his crib sheet with his exam paper, he was awaiting the announcement of his punishment, which almost certainly would have been dismissal, when the outbreak of war saved him the embarrassment. Now, able to ride a horse and having undergone even so incomplete a military training, he was accepted as an officer in a Toronto militia regiment, the Mississauga Horse. So, like Richthofen, he entered the war as a cavalryman, and exited as a world-famous airman. Before he embarked for England, he proposed to Margaret. She accepted.
As many a military horseman was soon to discover, modern warfare had dramatically reduced the role of the cavalry. The romantic day of the cavalry charge was gone. Even reconnaissance on horseback was impossible in the world of trench warfare. The reality, as Bishop soon discovered arriving in England with his unit, now the Canadian Mounted Rifles, was dust and mud, and more dust and mud. He couldn't decide which was worse. One leaden, rainy day, Bishop was up to his ankles checking a line of horses. His mood matched the weather. Suddenly, he heard the unmistakable sound of an aircraft engine. Out of the soggy gray, a nimble scout biplane appeared and set down lightly in a nearby field. The pilot sought direction and was shortly winging his way skyward again. Bishop decided on the spot. "When I turned to slog my way back through the mud, my mind was made up…I was going to meet the enemy in the air."
As good as his word, Bishop completed observer training and, on September 1, 1915, joined 21 Squadron Royal Flying Corps (RFC) as a gunner-observer. Since pilot trainees were not needed at this time, he had taken the advice of a friend who admonished him, "Knowing what sort of pilot you're likely to be…" to let someone else do the flying.
It was a mere seven years since the first controlled power flight by Orville Wright. In those early days of the war, the role of the aircraft was generally limited to supporting ground troops through aerial observation. Bishop learned the skills of wireless transmission in Morse code, dropping hand-held bombs, spotting for artillery, aerial photography and formal observation. He wrote, "…they teach you what to observe and what not to observe. This is not a joke. If an observer lets his gaze wander to too many non-essentials he cannot do the real observation that is expected of him."
However, flying as an observer in what might have been the worst combat aircraft of the war, the underpowered and ungainly Reconnaissance Experimental No .7 (R.E. 7) had not been uppermost in his mind when he transferred from the cavalry. He didn't like not being in control. He hated to be caught in anti-aircraft fire. In fact he once took a slight wound in the forehead by a piece of AA shrapnel. Little more than a bruise, an inch or two could have finished him. Over time, Bishop found his duty with 21 Squadron was beginning to grind him down. This sort of flying was dangerous and boring at the same time. In his four months duty as an observer he never fired his gun on an enemy plane. He chafed at the restrictions of reconnaissance flying.
To top it all, Billy was proving himself to be increasingly accident prone. Involved in a truck accident, he was severely shaken up. Then he was struck in the head by a snapped cable while inspecting his aircraft on the ground, and remained unconscious for two days. However, the most serious incident involved an engine failure on takeoff. Their R.E. 7 crashed, and Bishop's knee was badly damaged. As it turned out, however, this was fortune in disguise. Bishop was sent to England to recuperate, and his 21 Squadron was almost completely decimated shortly thereafter in the Battle of the Somme. The next time he came to the front it would be as a pilot.
Bishop took his three-week scheduled leave and returned to London. Falling as he disembarked from the channel boat, he re-injured his knee. But none-the-less, even though he was suffering from considerable pain in his knee as well as severe physical and emotional exhaustion, the pleasures of London beckoned. He resisted getting medical attention until the very last day of his leave. The diagnosis included a cracked knee and a heart murmur. He was confined to bed and rest for an indefinite period.
In the hospital he met Lady St. Hellier, a fashionably-rich and politically-influential widow who set out to fulfill her patriotic duty visiting convalescing service men. She looked Bishop up after recognizing the family name. It seems on a trip to Ottawa she had met his father Will at a social gathering. It was a chance meeting which was to have a lasting effect on Bishop's flying career.
When Billy was allowed to leave the hospital, she invited him to continue his recuperation at her mansion in London. Their relationship blossomed. To him she became "Granny". She in turn began to introduce him in her influential circles as "my grandson". His newfound "family" member spared no effort to help.
First, possibly through her influence, he was granted an indefinite home leave for health reasons. Home in Owen Sound he was soon rejuvenated. He gave Margaret an engagement ring but decided to put off the wedding until he was more certain of his future prospects in the RFC. He was determined to become a fighter pilot.
By early September he was back in England. However, his hopes of becoming a pilot seemed much more remote as he found himself repeatedly rejected as medically unfit. To add insult to injury, all his service records had somehow vanished. So, it was Lady St. Hellier to the rescue. He was soon headed for the first course of his pilot training, and by November 1, 1916 he was ready for his first flying lesson. At this time, so early in the war, and so few years after the actual beginnings of powered flight, pilot training was anything but a well-defined, formal science. Instruction was at the hands of older pilots resting from the battle in France and Flanders, or younger pilots with barely more experience than the trainees. The instructors were often reticent to give their charges hands-on experience in the flimsy and marginally-airworthy training aircraft. Unfortunately, more casualties occurred in training than on operations.
But, somehow Bishop survived to make his first solo flight. Finally alone in the cockpit of the Maurice Farman he flew that day, he remembered he felt lonelier than at any other time in his life. "Once in the air, I felt better," he wrote to Margaret that night. "I flew as straight ahead as I could…Suddenly an awful thought came to me: sooner or later I would have to get that plane down to earth again."
Finally, screwing up all his courage, he pan caked the old girl in from eight feet up. Bishop was just happy the ambulance which had sat, engine running at his takeoff, was not needed this day. Remarkably, for someone who was to successfully fly two hundred times into danger and return safely, his landings were never to really improve very much. The 'Bishop landing' would become a little legend all its own.
Joining a Home Defense squadron for advanced flight training, he made good progress, gaining his wings and soon the freedom he wanted to pursue a lone war against the enemy. He was posted to No. 37 (Home Defense) Squadron east of London where he was to build a good deal of night-flying time, patrolling for bombers and airships which had already attacked the city causing considerable damage, dread and death among Londoners. In the two months he served in 37 Squadron, he was never sent up against the enemy, but came away from this experience a better and more confident flyer.
Anxious to get into the real war, he applied several times for transfer to the Western Front. After taking an advanced course on Britain's smallest single seat fighters, he received a posting to 60 Squadron then based at Filescamp Farm on the eastern part of le Hameau aerodrome twelve miles west of Arras. He was happy. 60 Squadron was the top British fighter group on the Western Front. They were the first squadron to be fully equipped with French-made Nieuport Scouts. Bishop was impressed. He had never seen the beautiful little fighter close up. But, at the time he couldn't foresee this would become the hottest theater of war and that his arrival preceded by only a few days the greatest aerial offensive in history. Nor could he predict he was destined to achieve half of his eventual official seventy-two victories on the diminutive French machine.
Bishop flew his first patrol in a Nieuport 17 on March 17, 1917. Powered by a 120 hp Le Rhone rotary engine the Nieuport was armed with a single .303 in. Lewis machine gun on the upper wing which fired forward over the propeller arc. More maneuverable, but slower and more lightly armed than its chief opponent, the Albatros, the little sesquiplane was a potent weapon in the hands of several outstanding allied aces. Its chief exponents included Albert Ball, whom Billy idolized, the Irishman Edward "Mick" Mannock and Bishop himself. His first sortie lasted two hours, and although the enemy had been sighted, the 60 Squadron pilots were unable to engage.
Three consequent, uneventful patrols followed in the days ahead. Then on the afternoon of March 25, Bishop was involved in his first dogfight. He was flying fourth in a four-ship of Nieuports led by 60 Squadron Commander Jack Scott. Their patrol climbed through low clouds and mist toward St. Leger. In clear air at 9000 feet they came upon three Albatros scouts. It all happened very quickly. Attaching himself to the tail of an Albatros, Bishop dived on it firing, seeing his bullets strike the enemy for the first time. Turning over, the Albatros seemed to fall out of control. With surprising savvy for a rookie flyer, Bishop followed him down through the clouds. He knew that this could be a ruse. Sure enough, the German pilot leveled out but Bishop was right on his tail. Opening up again with his Lewis gun from almost point-blank range, he observed hits on the fuselage in the vicinity of the pilot.
The Albatross fell away again with Bishop in hot pursuit. This time, following in a two-hundred-mile-an hour dive, Bishop was elated to see his first victory completed as the Albatros crashed, nose first into the field below. But his exaltation soon turned to desperation as, pulling up abruptly from his dive, his engine coughed and died. The Le Rhone had oiled up and, try as he might, he could not get it restarted. Having lost his bearings in the air battle, he saw a village in ruins beneath him and heard the ominous rattle of machine gun fire. He was easily convinced that he was over enemy territory.
"Was my real flying career, just begun, to be ended so soon?" he thought to himself as he pointed the nose of the now silent Nieuport in the direction of friendly territory. The ground came up quickly to meet him. He picked the only clear line he could see among the shell holes and set her down. Rolling roughly to a stop he took brief note of the fact that at least he was alive. Grabbing the only thing which in the least resembled a weapon of personal defense, his 'Very' pistol flare gun, he leaped down, sprinted to the first available shell hole and dived in, head first. Thoughts rushed through his head over the next tense moments as he saw four figures approaching his position. To his intense relief they were British soldiers. "In an instant my whole life outlook changed…" he later related in his book WINGED WARFARE. He found out that his landing spot had been in German hands only a few hours ago. So what might have stopped him in his tracks became the first step up to the pinnacle of his imminent fame as an airman.
April 1917 was Bishop's month. Bloody April, as it was to be known henceforth, saw the air war intensify to new levels. Bishop's 60 Squadron and von Richthofen's Jagdstaffel II faced off across a narrow no-man's land. By April 7, in the days before the establishment of the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bishop won his first decoration - the Military Cross - for two victories on that day. On April 8, Easter Sunday, Bishop was to score five times in forty minutes. When he got back to Filescamp Farm his mechanic called for a tin of blue paint. Although personal identification on British aircraft was officially frowned upon, it was allowed in very few instances. Bishop's idol, Albert Ball, had painted the cowling of his Nieuport red. Now, in his new position of squadron ace, Billy's Nieuport B1566 would sport a blue cowling. By the end of the month, even though the overall victory in the air in April had been decisively in the Germans' favor, Bishop had claimed twenty victories.
He flew with such joyful disregard that an awed comrade described him as "incapable of fear". He had quickly become the Squadron's ace and was made a flight leader, although his early experience in this role was not all positive. And, within a month of his first operational flight, he was given the freedom to fly his own individual roving missions on his days off in addition to his normal load of patrols.
Bishop had found himself as a combat pilot. He was driven to achieve, and counted his victories with pride. He had extraordinary skill in deflection shooting which probably had everything to do with the hours he spent shooting squirrels and leaning over a pool table as a youth. Although a self-admitted heavy-handed pilot, this very characteristic seemed to give him the advantage in a dogfight, flying his little Nieuport and later the S.E.5 with a certain sense of abandon. A natural tactician, he maintained that surprise was the most important factor for success in an air battle but did not hesitate to disengage when the element of surprise had been lost.
His victories mounted steadily, and by May 31 he had claimed 29, including two balloons. Always the tactician searching for any advantage, he determined that the best time to attack a German aerodrome would be just at dawn, when, catching the aircraft on the ground, he could attack them singly as they rose to challenge him. Allied pilots who lurked around the perimeter of German air bases to catch the enemy at a comparable disadvantage found similar success in World War II. Bishop had agreed to accompany Albert Ball on such an early morning raid, but Ball - at that point the British Empire's leading ace - had been killed just days before. So, early in the morning on June 2, his day off flying, Bishop set out on what was to become his most famous sortie. Taking off in his blue-nosed Nieuport just before 4:00 am, Captain William Avery Bishop would go it alone.
Flying in the misty faint glow of pre-dawn Bishop found himself slightly disoriented. He had already dived on a German aerodrome - now known to be Estourmel - only to find there was no activity there. Disappointed, he continued flying low in search of some other target of opportunity. Then, circling at about 300 feet over the cross-road hamlet of Esnes, he stumbled upon a group of canvas tent hangars with six Albatros DIII's on the ground, some with their engines running, and one two-seater. Making a strafing pass at 50 feet he scattered the men on the ground and withdrew to the perimeter as German machine gun defenses opened up, holing his aircraft in several places. Doing his best to evade the machine gun fire, he waited until an Albatros began its take off run. Diving from behind, he opened fire just as it lifted off the ground. Immediately it side-slipped, crashing to earth.
Turning sharply, he caught sight of a second machine just off the ground. "I opened fire and fired 30 rounds at 150 yards range. He smashed into a tree." Two more were taking off in opposite directions. Climbing to 1000 feet, he engaged one and it fell, crashing to the ground a few hundred feet from the aerodrome. Changing drums on his Lewis gun, Bishop expended the whole contents toward the fourth Albatros. "Luckily, at the moment I finished my ammunition, he also seemed to have had enough of it, as he turned and flew away. I seized my opportunity, climbed again and started for home."
Bishop's early morning raid won him even greater recognition and notoriety. It was a tactic which was repeated by others as the war progressed. For this sortie he was awarded the Victoria Cross, the tenth to be awarded to airmen, the first to a Canadian airman. But fame has its cost. Removed by General Trenchard from operational flying as too valuable to lose, he was sent home to Canada to aid in recruitment. He was not to return to active flying until 1918 when he came back as the leader of newly formed 85 Squadron RAF.
The 'Flying Foxes' were equipped with the new S.E.5A, the first British twin-gunned fighter, and some say the best and most sophisticated of all British World War I single-seaters. Almost half of his aerial victories were to be achieved in the S.E.5A in less than a month. He was to raise his score to 72, 12 of which were achieved on his last four days of active flying. With his final sortie on June 19, 1918, Bishop leapt from the pages of history into the realm of legend. For succeeding generations, names like Bishop and Richthofen would inspire awe, admiration and imitation. The century of the ace had begun.
HUNTER by Rich Thistle©Having spotted him, the German scouts began to turn and Bishop followed. By the time he had drawn a bead on one of the three, they had come half way around the circle. Suddenly they dived on him, guns blazing. Bishop heard the tracers tear through his lower left wingtip as he got in a short burst himself. The three fighters slipped beneath him. Banking to the left to bring his machine to bear again, he took a quick, instinctual look behind him. Two more Pfaltz scouts were diving down on him at high speed. His unfailing instinct had probably saved his life again. Now time was of the essence. Deciding to make a quick attack on the original three before the other two could enter the fray, he opened fire quickly from what was for him an unusually long range. One of the three aircraft was instantly struck killing the pilot. It fell away, out of control. The other two began to climb while the two newcomers, still diving and finally in range, opened fired on him. Bishop pulled up into a steep turn. Now, these two German scouts passed beneath him. However, the first two, climbing away toward the cloud layer, flying dangerously close, came together in a spar-crunching collision. Both aircraft disintegrated in a bizarre shower of wood, metal and fabric.
Turning his attention to the remaining two Pfaltz fighters, now ascending toward the safety of the clouds, he sent tracers into one of them at two hundred yards, starting the enemy aircraft spiraling toward the ground, now no further than a thousand feet down. The fifth Pfaltz escaped into the safety of the clouds.
With the ceiling down to nine hundred feet, Bishop continued his patrol somewhere between Neuve Eglise and Ploegsteert. Thoughts about turning for home were crossing his mind when out of the misty drizzle appeared an outline with which he had become very familiar over the last months. It was a German two-seater. Without being spotted, he slipped into the blind spot beneath and behind the reconnaissance aircraft and, raising his nose, sent a short bust from both guns into its belly. It shuddered, seemed to hesitate in the air and then fell towards the ground beneath. With the pilot struggling desperately for control, the observer slumped lifeless in the rear, the two-seater smashed into the ground in flames.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. He was alone in the sky again. He hardly realized it, but this had indeed been his finest achievement in the air. A world-famous airman, his final sortie and five aircraft in the space of fifteen minutes. It was a fitting way to end a combat flying career. It was a career which had rather more prosaic beginnings back in small-town Owen Sound, Ontario.
Born to William and Margaret Bishop on February 8, 1894, blonde, blue-eyed William Avery Bishop was the third son in a family of four children. His father, the Grey County registrar, held conservative views typical of middle-class fathers in the late nineteenth century and his son Billy became the target of teasing when he was sent to school dressed as a miniature bureaucrat in gray suit and tie. A spirited boy, he quickly learned to stand up for himself - and often for his younger companions - his fists usually doing the talking.
Billy Bishop was a boy of action. Although he didn't like team sports such as football and lacrosse, he did enjoy individual pursuits like shooting, riding and swimming. Handsome, intelligent and charming, Billy was always an indifferent student. In fact, he hated school, cutting classes in high school to play pool downtown. His teachers rarely succeeded in hiding their low expectations for him. Realizing he would never excel academically, he refused to apply himself to his studies.
However, he did show great determination to perfect the skills he enjoyed. One of these was shooting. When his father gave him a .22 caliber rifle for Christmas, and offered him twenty-five cents for every marauding squirrel he bagged, Billy with his great eye and steady hand, turned it into an entrepreneurial success at home and throughout his neighborhood. He had become a crack shot.
With similar determination and more than a little spirit of boyish enterprise, a fifteen year-old Billy turned his reading of newspaper accounts of the first heavier-than-air flight in Canada (and the British Empire) by Canadian John McCurdy in the Silver Dart, into a reckless adventure of his own. His version of the now famous aircraft, crudely constructed from wood, cardboard, wire and a lot of strong string, carried him -mostly vertically- from the roof of the family's Victorian home, to an inescapable crunching conclusion as it crashed in a heap on the lawn below. Out of the consequent carnage crawled the irrepressible Billy, only slightly injured but not in any way cowed. As it turned out, he would also live through many violent landings as a real pilot too. In fact his landing skills remained relatively underdeveloped during his whole flying career.
Billy easily related to girls. He and his younger sister Louie were very close. Bribed by Louie to entertain her visiting girlfriend, Bishop secretly checked out the girl he was later to marry through the parlor curtains before agreeing. Margaret Burden, granddaughter of the great Toronto retailer Timothy Eaton, would marry Billy while he was home on leave from the front several years later in 1917. But, for now, although he was secretly impressed with Margaret, he charged his sister Louie five dollars for his entertainment services.
At the age of seventeen, Billy followed his elder brother Worth into the Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario, Canada's equivalent to England's Sand Hurst or America's West Point. Entering more for academic than military reasons, he was following a brother who had achieved record results there. However, having been more or less his own master up to this point in his life, the younger Bishop chafed under the strict military discipline of RMC. He also found it difficult to deal with the usual treatment received by recruits at the hands of upper class men. So, not surprisingly, his first year at RMC was entirely unsuccessful.
Turning over a new leaf, his second year went better, but, in his third, his resolve dissolved. Things fell apart. Caught cheating on an exam, when he absent-mindedly handed in his crib sheet with his exam paper, he was awaiting the announcement of his punishment, which almost certainly would have been dismissal, when the outbreak of war saved him the embarrassment. Now, able to ride a horse and having undergone even so incomplete a military training, he was accepted as an officer in a Toronto militia regiment, the Mississauga Horse. So, like Richthofen, he entered the war as a cavalryman, and exited as a world-famous airman. Before he embarked for England, he proposed to Margaret. She accepted.
As many a military horseman was soon to discover, modern warfare had dramatically reduced the role of the cavalry. The romantic day of the cavalry charge was gone. Even reconnaissance on horseback was impossible in the world of trench warfare. The reality, as Bishop soon discovered arriving in England with his unit, now the Canadian Mounted Rifles, was dust and mud, and more dust and mud. He couldn't decide which was worse. One leaden, rainy day, Bishop was up to his ankles checking a line of horses. His mood matched the weather. Suddenly, he heard the unmistakable sound of an aircraft engine. Out of the soggy gray, a nimble scout biplane appeared and set down lightly in a nearby field. The pilot sought direction and was shortly winging his way skyward again. Bishop decided on the spot. "When I turned to slog my way back through the mud, my mind was made up…I was going to meet the enemy in the air."
As good as his word, Bishop completed observer training and, on September 1, 1915, joined 21 Squadron Royal Flying Corps (RFC) as a gunner-observer. Since pilot trainees were not needed at this time, he had taken the advice of a friend who admonished him, "Knowing what sort of pilot you're likely to be…" to let someone else do the flying.
It was a mere seven years since the first controlled power flight by Orville Wright. In those early days of the war, the role of the aircraft was generally limited to supporting ground troops through aerial observation. Bishop learned the skills of wireless transmission in Morse code, dropping hand-held bombs, spotting for artillery, aerial photography and formal observation. He wrote, "…they teach you what to observe and what not to observe. This is not a joke. If an observer lets his gaze wander to too many non-essentials he cannot do the real observation that is expected of him."
However, flying as an observer in what might have been the worst combat aircraft of the war, the underpowered and ungainly Reconnaissance Experimental No .7 (R.E. 7) had not been uppermost in his mind when he transferred from the cavalry. He didn't like not being in control. He hated to be caught in anti-aircraft fire. In fact he once took a slight wound in the forehead by a piece of AA shrapnel. Little more than a bruise, an inch or two could have finished him. Over time, Bishop found his duty with 21 Squadron was beginning to grind him down. This sort of flying was dangerous and boring at the same time. In his four months duty as an observer he never fired his gun on an enemy plane. He chafed at the restrictions of reconnaissance flying.
To top it all, Billy was proving himself to be increasingly accident prone. Involved in a truck accident, he was severely shaken up. Then he was struck in the head by a snapped cable while inspecting his aircraft on the ground, and remained unconscious for two days. However, the most serious incident involved an engine failure on takeoff. Their R.E. 7 crashed, and Bishop's knee was badly damaged. As it turned out, however, this was fortune in disguise. Bishop was sent to England to recuperate, and his 21 Squadron was almost completely decimated shortly thereafter in the Battle of the Somme. The next time he came to the front it would be as a pilot.
Bishop took his three-week scheduled leave and returned to London. Falling as he disembarked from the channel boat, he re-injured his knee. But none-the-less, even though he was suffering from considerable pain in his knee as well as severe physical and emotional exhaustion, the pleasures of London beckoned. He resisted getting medical attention until the very last day of his leave. The diagnosis included a cracked knee and a heart murmur. He was confined to bed and rest for an indefinite period.
In the hospital he met Lady St. Hellier, a fashionably-rich and politically-influential widow who set out to fulfill her patriotic duty visiting convalescing service men. She looked Bishop up after recognizing the family name. It seems on a trip to Ottawa she had met his father Will at a social gathering. It was a chance meeting which was to have a lasting effect on Bishop's flying career.
When Billy was allowed to leave the hospital, she invited him to continue his recuperation at her mansion in London. Their relationship blossomed. To him she became "Granny". She in turn began to introduce him in her influential circles as "my grandson". His newfound "family" member spared no effort to help.
First, possibly through her influence, he was granted an indefinite home leave for health reasons. Home in Owen Sound he was soon rejuvenated. He gave Margaret an engagement ring but decided to put off the wedding until he was more certain of his future prospects in the RFC. He was determined to become a fighter pilot.
By early September he was back in England. However, his hopes of becoming a pilot seemed much more remote as he found himself repeatedly rejected as medically unfit. To add insult to injury, all his service records had somehow vanished. So, it was Lady St. Hellier to the rescue. He was soon headed for the first course of his pilot training, and by November 1, 1916 he was ready for his first flying lesson. At this time, so early in the war, and so few years after the actual beginnings of powered flight, pilot training was anything but a well-defined, formal science. Instruction was at the hands of older pilots resting from the battle in France and Flanders, or younger pilots with barely more experience than the trainees. The instructors were often reticent to give their charges hands-on experience in the flimsy and marginally-airworthy training aircraft. Unfortunately, more casualties occurred in training than on operations.
But, somehow Bishop survived to make his first solo flight. Finally alone in the cockpit of the Maurice Farman he flew that day, he remembered he felt lonelier than at any other time in his life. "Once in the air, I felt better," he wrote to Margaret that night. "I flew as straight ahead as I could…Suddenly an awful thought came to me: sooner or later I would have to get that plane down to earth again."
Finally, screwing up all his courage, he pan caked the old girl in from eight feet up. Bishop was just happy the ambulance which had sat, engine running at his takeoff, was not needed this day. Remarkably, for someone who was to successfully fly two hundred times into danger and return safely, his landings were never to really improve very much. The 'Bishop landing' would become a little legend all its own.
Joining a Home Defense squadron for advanced flight training, he made good progress, gaining his wings and soon the freedom he wanted to pursue a lone war against the enemy. He was posted to No. 37 (Home Defense) Squadron east of London where he was to build a good deal of night-flying time, patrolling for bombers and airships which had already attacked the city causing considerable damage, dread and death among Londoners. In the two months he served in 37 Squadron, he was never sent up against the enemy, but came away from this experience a better and more confident flyer.
Anxious to get into the real war, he applied several times for transfer to the Western Front. After taking an advanced course on Britain's smallest single seat fighters, he received a posting to 60 Squadron then based at Filescamp Farm on the eastern part of le Hameau aerodrome twelve miles west of Arras. He was happy. 60 Squadron was the top British fighter group on the Western Front. They were the first squadron to be fully equipped with French-made Nieuport Scouts. Bishop was impressed. He had never seen the beautiful little fighter close up. But, at the time he couldn't foresee this would become the hottest theater of war and that his arrival preceded by only a few days the greatest aerial offensive in history. Nor could he predict he was destined to achieve half of his eventual official seventy-two victories on the diminutive French machine.
Bishop flew his first patrol in a Nieuport 17 on March 17, 1917. Powered by a 120 hp Le Rhone rotary engine the Nieuport was armed with a single .303 in. Lewis machine gun on the upper wing which fired forward over the propeller arc. More maneuverable, but slower and more lightly armed than its chief opponent, the Albatros, the little sesquiplane was a potent weapon in the hands of several outstanding allied aces. Its chief exponents included Albert Ball, whom Billy idolized, the Irishman Edward "Mick" Mannock and Bishop himself. His first sortie lasted two hours, and although the enemy had been sighted, the 60 Squadron pilots were unable to engage.
Three consequent, uneventful patrols followed in the days ahead. Then on the afternoon of March 25, Bishop was involved in his first dogfight. He was flying fourth in a four-ship of Nieuports led by 60 Squadron Commander Jack Scott. Their patrol climbed through low clouds and mist toward St. Leger. In clear air at 9000 feet they came upon three Albatros scouts. It all happened very quickly. Attaching himself to the tail of an Albatros, Bishop dived on it firing, seeing his bullets strike the enemy for the first time. Turning over, the Albatros seemed to fall out of control. With surprising savvy for a rookie flyer, Bishop followed him down through the clouds. He knew that this could be a ruse. Sure enough, the German pilot leveled out but Bishop was right on his tail. Opening up again with his Lewis gun from almost point-blank range, he observed hits on the fuselage in the vicinity of the pilot.
The Albatross fell away again with Bishop in hot pursuit. This time, following in a two-hundred-mile-an hour dive, Bishop was elated to see his first victory completed as the Albatros crashed, nose first into the field below. But his exaltation soon turned to desperation as, pulling up abruptly from his dive, his engine coughed and died. The Le Rhone had oiled up and, try as he might, he could not get it restarted. Having lost his bearings in the air battle, he saw a village in ruins beneath him and heard the ominous rattle of machine gun fire. He was easily convinced that he was over enemy territory.
"Was my real flying career, just begun, to be ended so soon?" he thought to himself as he pointed the nose of the now silent Nieuport in the direction of friendly territory. The ground came up quickly to meet him. He picked the only clear line he could see among the shell holes and set her down. Rolling roughly to a stop he took brief note of the fact that at least he was alive. Grabbing the only thing which in the least resembled a weapon of personal defense, his 'Very' pistol flare gun, he leaped down, sprinted to the first available shell hole and dived in, head first. Thoughts rushed through his head over the next tense moments as he saw four figures approaching his position. To his intense relief they were British soldiers. "In an instant my whole life outlook changed…" he later related in his book WINGED WARFARE. He found out that his landing spot had been in German hands only a few hours ago. So what might have stopped him in his tracks became the first step up to the pinnacle of his imminent fame as an airman.
April 1917 was Bishop's month. Bloody April, as it was to be known henceforth, saw the air war intensify to new levels. Bishop's 60 Squadron and von Richthofen's Jagdstaffel II faced off across a narrow no-man's land. By April 7, in the days before the establishment of the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bishop won his first decoration - the Military Cross - for two victories on that day. On April 8, Easter Sunday, Bishop was to score five times in forty minutes. When he got back to Filescamp Farm his mechanic called for a tin of blue paint. Although personal identification on British aircraft was officially frowned upon, it was allowed in very few instances. Bishop's idol, Albert Ball, had painted the cowling of his Nieuport red. Now, in his new position of squadron ace, Billy's Nieuport B1566 would sport a blue cowling. By the end of the month, even though the overall victory in the air in April had been decisively in the Germans' favor, Bishop had claimed twenty victories.
He flew with such joyful disregard that an awed comrade described him as "incapable of fear". He had quickly become the Squadron's ace and was made a flight leader, although his early experience in this role was not all positive. And, within a month of his first operational flight, he was given the freedom to fly his own individual roving missions on his days off in addition to his normal load of patrols.
Bishop had found himself as a combat pilot. He was driven to achieve, and counted his victories with pride. He had extraordinary skill in deflection shooting which probably had everything to do with the hours he spent shooting squirrels and leaning over a pool table as a youth. Although a self-admitted heavy-handed pilot, this very characteristic seemed to give him the advantage in a dogfight, flying his little Nieuport and later the S.E.5 with a certain sense of abandon. A natural tactician, he maintained that surprise was the most important factor for success in an air battle but did not hesitate to disengage when the element of surprise had been lost.
His victories mounted steadily, and by May 31 he had claimed 29, including two balloons. Always the tactician searching for any advantage, he determined that the best time to attack a German aerodrome would be just at dawn, when, catching the aircraft on the ground, he could attack them singly as they rose to challenge him. Allied pilots who lurked around the perimeter of German air bases to catch the enemy at a comparable disadvantage found similar success in World War II. Bishop had agreed to accompany Albert Ball on such an early morning raid, but Ball - at that point the British Empire's leading ace - had been killed just days before. So, early in the morning on June 2, his day off flying, Bishop set out on what was to become his most famous sortie. Taking off in his blue-nosed Nieuport just before 4:00 am, Captain William Avery Bishop would go it alone.
Flying in the misty faint glow of pre-dawn Bishop found himself slightly disoriented. He had already dived on a German aerodrome - now known to be Estourmel - only to find there was no activity there. Disappointed, he continued flying low in search of some other target of opportunity. Then, circling at about 300 feet over the cross-road hamlet of Esnes, he stumbled upon a group of canvas tent hangars with six Albatros DIII's on the ground, some with their engines running, and one two-seater. Making a strafing pass at 50 feet he scattered the men on the ground and withdrew to the perimeter as German machine gun defenses opened up, holing his aircraft in several places. Doing his best to evade the machine gun fire, he waited until an Albatros began its take off run. Diving from behind, he opened fire just as it lifted off the ground. Immediately it side-slipped, crashing to earth.
Turning sharply, he caught sight of a second machine just off the ground. "I opened fire and fired 30 rounds at 150 yards range. He smashed into a tree." Two more were taking off in opposite directions. Climbing to 1000 feet, he engaged one and it fell, crashing to the ground a few hundred feet from the aerodrome. Changing drums on his Lewis gun, Bishop expended the whole contents toward the fourth Albatros. "Luckily, at the moment I finished my ammunition, he also seemed to have had enough of it, as he turned and flew away. I seized my opportunity, climbed again and started for home."
Bishop's early morning raid won him even greater recognition and notoriety. It was a tactic which was repeated by others as the war progressed. For this sortie he was awarded the Victoria Cross, the tenth to be awarded to airmen, the first to a Canadian airman. But fame has its cost. Removed by General Trenchard from operational flying as too valuable to lose, he was sent home to Canada to aid in recruitment. He was not to return to active flying until 1918 when he came back as the leader of newly formed 85 Squadron RAF.
The 'Flying Foxes' were equipped with the new S.E.5A, the first British twin-gunned fighter, and some say the best and most sophisticated of all British World War I single-seaters. Almost half of his aerial victories were to be achieved in the S.E.5A in less than a month. He was to raise his score to 72, 12 of which were achieved on his last four days of active flying. With his final sortie on June 19, 1918, Bishop leapt from the pages of history into the realm of legend. For succeeding generations, names like Bishop and Richthofen would inspire awe, admiration and imitation. The century of the ace had begun.
SIDE BAR: The Bishop Legacy & Controversy
Although probably easier than most, Billy Bishop's transition to peacetime was a bit rough in places. Enticed by an entrepreneur to undertake an extensive lecture tour to take full advantage of his worldwide fame as a military aviator, Bishop agreed. He spoke and promoted his newly-written book WINGED WARFARE in the eastern United States. However, exhausted and ill, he finally collapsed on stage while speaking at Roanoke, Virginia on March 19, 1919. Attempting to resume his tour a month later he found the attention of the world had moved on. Only ten people showed up for his lecture. Somehow, the exploits of one of the world's greatest fighter aces were no longer of interest.
Returning to Toronto, he bought a house in a fashionable part of town and lived for a while on his wife's considerable income, supplementing his own from his ongoing speech making. When approached by William George Barker - also a highly decorated Canadian, winner of the Victoria Cross for his exploits in the air - to form a company in the new and promising field of civil aviation, Bishop jumped at the chance. The Bishop-Barker Company would establish a flying boat connection from the harbor of Toronto to the vacation land of the Muskoka Lakes one hundred miles to the north.
They started the business with three surplus, pusher-type, H.S.2L seaplanes. Although providing entertainment for the two World War I aces, there simply weren't enough passengers. Looking more for adventure than for profit, the company then purchased a pair of Martinside two-seaters for aerobatics exhibition. Signing a contract to do a show of stunt flying at the 1920 Canadian National Exhibition, they created pandemonium in the grandstands as they stunted too close to the crowd. Their little aviation company failed. They did manage to stay out of jail.
Bishop finally settled down in every sense of the word. Moving to England, he began to frequent the upper-class world to which his wartime fame had introduced him. He made a great deal of money in scrap iron and lost it all again in the market crash of 1929. Apparently unflappable, he moved back to Canada, gaining a reputation as a good businessman in the oil industry. By 1938, he had taken an advisory role in the fledgling Royal Canadian Air Force with the honorary rank of Air Vice-Marshall. Upon the outbreak of World War II he was promoted to Air Marshall in charge of recruiting. Whether due in part to his reputation and effort or not, recruiting for Canada's youngest service was never a problem. Young men flocked to the air force blue in more than sufficient numbers. Included in this number was his son, William Arthur Bishop, whose wings were pinned on by his own father in 1942.
After the war, Bishop returned to the oil business, retiring in 1950. Canada's ace of aces died quietly in Palm Beach, Florida in 1956. His son, Arthur Bishop, flew Spitfires overseas in No. 401 Squadron RCAF. As the result of a promise he made to the elder Bishop before he died, Arthur wrote THE COURAGE OF THE EARLY MORNING, a biography of his famous father. Currently an active historical author, he often feels the necessity to refute what some call the "revisionist" view of history, both on behalf of his own - and his father's - generation. He has found himself defending his father and his record all too frequently.
For example, depending upon the writer, his bias and nationality, Billy Bishop has sometimes been listed as the second-ranked British Empire ace behind Edward 'Mick' Mannock, whose real numbers - according to Arthur Bishop's research - are probably in the 58-60 range. Billy Bishop's victories have reached an 'unofficial' high of 79 in David Baker's book BILLY BISHOP, to a low of 55, 'corrected to the World War II system' of accreditation of victories in an article by American historical writer, Barrett Tillman. However, regardless of what people say or write today, no one can ever negate the extraordinary courage and accomplishments of William Avery 'Billy' Bishop, Canada's ace of aces.
An edited version of this article was published in the American magazine AVIATION HISTORY as a feature article, May. 1999 issue. My paintings LONE WOLF AT DAWN and HUNTER, shown above, are a tribute to this great Canadian.
Rich's paintings were used in the documentary film A HERO TO ME about Billy Bishop, produced by Ballinran Productions & Cilla Productions for Global Television & TV Ontario. © 2003 A Hero to Me Productions Inc.
HUNTER
Returning to Toronto, he bought a house in a fashionable part of town and lived for a while on his wife's considerable income, supplementing his own from his ongoing speech making. When approached by William George Barker - also a highly decorated Canadian, winner of the Victoria Cross for his exploits in the air - to form a company in the new and promising field of civil aviation, Bishop jumped at the chance. The Bishop-Barker Company would establish a flying boat connection from the harbor of Toronto to the vacation land of the Muskoka Lakes one hundred miles to the north.
They started the business with three surplus, pusher-type, H.S.2L seaplanes. Although providing entertainment for the two World War I aces, there simply weren't enough passengers. Looking more for adventure than for profit, the company then purchased a pair of Martinside two-seaters for aerobatics exhibition. Signing a contract to do a show of stunt flying at the 1920 Canadian National Exhibition, they created pandemonium in the grandstands as they stunted too close to the crowd. Their little aviation company failed. They did manage to stay out of jail.
Bishop finally settled down in every sense of the word. Moving to England, he began to frequent the upper-class world to which his wartime fame had introduced him. He made a great deal of money in scrap iron and lost it all again in the market crash of 1929. Apparently unflappable, he moved back to Canada, gaining a reputation as a good businessman in the oil industry. By 1938, he had taken an advisory role in the fledgling Royal Canadian Air Force with the honorary rank of Air Vice-Marshall. Upon the outbreak of World War II he was promoted to Air Marshall in charge of recruiting. Whether due in part to his reputation and effort or not, recruiting for Canada's youngest service was never a problem. Young men flocked to the air force blue in more than sufficient numbers. Included in this number was his son, William Arthur Bishop, whose wings were pinned on by his own father in 1942.
After the war, Bishop returned to the oil business, retiring in 1950. Canada's ace of aces died quietly in Palm Beach, Florida in 1956. His son, Arthur Bishop, flew Spitfires overseas in No. 401 Squadron RCAF. As the result of a promise he made to the elder Bishop before he died, Arthur wrote THE COURAGE OF THE EARLY MORNING, a biography of his famous father. Currently an active historical author, he often feels the necessity to refute what some call the "revisionist" view of history, both on behalf of his own - and his father's - generation. He has found himself defending his father and his record all too frequently.
For example, depending upon the writer, his bias and nationality, Billy Bishop has sometimes been listed as the second-ranked British Empire ace behind Edward 'Mick' Mannock, whose real numbers - according to Arthur Bishop's research - are probably in the 58-60 range. Billy Bishop's victories have reached an 'unofficial' high of 79 in David Baker's book BILLY BISHOP, to a low of 55, 'corrected to the World War II system' of accreditation of victories in an article by American historical writer, Barrett Tillman. However, regardless of what people say or write today, no one can ever negate the extraordinary courage and accomplishments of William Avery 'Billy' Bishop, Canada's ace of aces.
An edited version of this article was published in the American magazine AVIATION HISTORY as a feature article, May. 1999 issue. My paintings LONE WOLF AT DAWN and HUNTER, shown above, are a tribute to this great Canadian.
Rich's paintings were used in the documentary film A HERO TO ME about Billy Bishop, produced by Ballinran Productions & Cilla Productions for Global Television & TV Ontario. © 2003 A Hero to Me Productions Inc.
HUNTER
SUGGESTED READING:
WINGED WARFARE by Lt.Col. William Avery Bishop
THE COURAGE OF THE EARLY MORNING by William Arthur Bishop
WILLIAM AVERY BILLY BISHOP by David Baker
WINGED WARFARE by Lt.Col. William Avery Bishop
THE COURAGE OF THE EARLY MORNING by William Arthur Bishop
WILLIAM AVERY BILLY BISHOP by David Baker