The Courage of the Early Morning

by William Arthur Bishop

  “But two guns . . .”

  “I’m going to take one of mine off to reduce weight for our show,” Ball said. “And fit a smaller windshield to cut down wind resistance. By the way, if you have the time I wish you’d go up to the Austin people. I’ve designed a plane that I think is what we need to catch up with the Hun’s fighters, and they’re building it for me, but taking their own time about it. I’d like you to have a look at it and see what you can do to make them get a move on.”

  “God,” thought Bishop, “a pilot who designs his own plane!”

  Bishop was to start for London next day after lunch. That gave him a morning’s flying to add to his score of seventeen. He had set twenty as his goal and obviously could not reach it. He took off alone after a late and leisurely breakfast and climbed to ten thousand feet north of Vitry. Above him a green-and-red Albatros was circling lazily, apparently unaware of Bishop’s approach. The latter climbed until he was one thousand feet above the Albatros then started to stalk his prey, keeping the sun at his back. As the German continued circling Bishop fell in behind him. He nudged his Nieuport under the Albatros until the range was ten yards, then aimed at the spot directly under the cockpit and fired twenty rounds. The burst blew a gaping hole in the plane’s bottom. The riddled pilot never knew what hit him. The Albatros skidded past Bishop’s machine with no more than five yards to spare, then hurtled earthward in flames.

  Bishop returned to Filescamp with no intention of going up again. He turned his plane over to Bourne. “She’s all yours for a couple of weeks, Walter,” he said. “Treat her gently and for God’s sake don’t let any of those ham-handed pilots touch her.” Bourne grinned at Bishop—the champion wheel-smasher of 60 Squadron calling other pilots ham-handed!

  Bishop walked to Filescamp’s “office” for his travelling papers. The clerk-sergeant told him that a neighbouring squadron of photo-reconnaissance planes had telephoned asking for a fighter escort, but 60 Squadron had no pilots at the ready.

  “Tell them I’ll take them over,” said Bishop, and yelled at a puzzled Corporal Bourne to bring his Nieuport out.

  The formation was attacked by two red Albatros fighters as soon as it crossed the Switch. Bishop, flying high above the two-seaters, dived at the tails of the German planes. One of them spotted the blue-nosed Nieuport and fled. The other was not as lucky. Bishop closed to fifteen yards and opened fire. His bullets were right on target. The enemy machine seemed to stop in mid-air, then fell like stone.

  Over the Switch, heavy anti-aircraft fire enveloped the British planes. The gunners had the range, and the leader of the two-seaters decided that it was impossible to do a satisfactory job of photo-reconnaissance while dodging heavy fire. He signalled his flight and Bishop to start back toward the British lines. On the way back the group ran into wave after wave of anti-aircraft shells. It was the heaviest—and most accurate—that Bishop had ever experienced. He felt his plane lurch and, looking back, saw fabric fluttering from a gaping hole in his tailplane. Then a shell burst right under him and pieces of shrapnel thudded into his engine. The Le Rhône immediately sputtered and lost power. Bishop desperately coaxed it during what seemed an interminably long limping flight back to Filescamp.

  Two of the reconnaissance planes were so badly shot up that they could not be flown again. Bishop’s Nieuport, with most of its tail missing and its engine damaged by two direct hits, would need major repairs. Bourne could only look at the wreckage and shake his head. “I was,” Bishop admitted in a letter home, “thoroughly frightened. Nothing could have made me take a plane up again that day. My leave came not a minute too soon.”

  He had finished his first tour of duty as a fighter pilot with nineteen victories.

  ELEVEN

  A PRICE

  ON HIS HEAD

  BISHOP REACHED LONDON at dusk and went immediately to Lady St. Helier’s house in Portland Place.

  Granny St. Helier’s warm welcome raised his spirits immediately. He was anxious not to waste a moment of his leave, and proposed to go out in search of excitement and entertainment. But Granny fed him and packed him off to bed. He was awakened late next morning by a pretty maid, who brought tea, a telegram and the morning paper.

  The telegram was from Jack Scott and brought good news: Bishop had been awarded his second decoration, the Distinguished Service Order. (The citation, which came later, read: “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. While in a single-seater he attacked three hostile machines, two of which he brought down, although in the meantime he was attacked by four other hostile machines. His courage and determination have set a fine example to others.”)

  The newspaper news shocked Bishop: Ball had been killed in action, only a few hours after he and Bishop had plotted a surprise attack on enemy aerodromes. The notice of Ball’s death mentioned that the surviving British airman with the highest score was the Canadian, Captain William Avery Bishop. Bishop was genuinely surprised to find he had become something of a celebrity. It was his first taste of fame and it embarrassed him. Particularly a clipping from the Owen Sound paper his father had sent him. With more pride than accuracy it announced:

  “This Owen Sound boy, a son of Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Bishop, has made a record for himself as an airman. On Easter Sunday he bagged seven enemy planes.”

  He tore it up. Heaven help me, he thought, if the chaps in 60 Squadron ever saw that.

  He was even more apprehensive when Granny St. Helier proudly exposed him to London society. “At this moment,” he wrote to Margaret, “I am trying to screw up courage to go into the next room. Princess Marie Louise is there and about four other Lord and Lady somebody. I am much happier right here telling you I love you.”

  It was a much more confident and composed Billy Bishop who finished the letter late that night: “I spent the evening talking to Princess Marie Louise. I made a great hit. Under the influence of champagne I told her one of the most brilliant lies of my career. I told her Louie was named after her, which so pleased her that Lady St. Helier has today received an order to bring me to see her father, old Prince Christian. Tomorrow I am asked to lunch with Sir F. E. Smith, the Attorney General, and the night after to dine with Lord Beaverbrook, so it helps having more Huns to your credit than any other Britisher.”

  But Bishop was shrewd enough to learn quickly how to exploit his sudden celebrity. Granny arranged for him to dine with Bonar Law, Chancellor of the Exchequer—the Canadian who later became Britain’s “unknown” Prime Minister. On the afternoon of the dinner, Bishop was introduced to a beautiful, young—and impressionable—actress at tea in the Savoy. He decided that an evening in her company would be far more enjoyable than dinner with a senior member of Britain’s war cabinet. He telephoned Bonar Law’s office, identified himself as Captain Bishop’s secretary, and regretted that the captain would be unable to keep his engagement—he had been recalled unexpectedly to the front.

  Lady St. Helier found out about it and lectured him severely. Bishop was boyishly defiant. “If you’re going to become somebody that people look up to—and it seems that you might be—then you must learn to act the part. For instance, to keep appointments with your betters. And to keep your hairbrushes clean. I found yours in the bathroom in disgraceful condition.”

  This completely deflated Bishop’s pride. He promised to behave, and was on his best conduct at dinner with Lord Beaver-brook. The elfin Canadian-born publisher who was one of Britain’s top strategists of World War I talked to Bishop of a plan then being discussed by the War Cabinet to form a separate Canadian air force. Bishop, as the leading Canadian airman, would be in line for an important post. “I feel,” said Beaverbrook, “that Canadians would be happier if they were running their own show instead of being under the discipline of British military tradition.”

  Bishop listened politely and tried to appear enthusiastic. But in truth he had not found British discipline in the RFC in the least disagreeable. If and when the Canadian flying corps was formed he would, of cours
e, be quite willing to become a C.O., provided it did not keep him out of the air. At any rate, he would save up the conversation to spring at some appropriate moment on Jack Scott, who himself had friends in the highest places . . . “Oh, by the way, Jack, Beaverbrook told me when I had dinner at his place . . .”

  On May 22, 1917, Bishop returned to France. His leave at Portland Place, his exposure to the hierarchy and his role as a bit of a celebrity had instilled in him for the first time a sense of identity and responsibility. There was something else on his mind. Since Ball’s death, through all the feverish activities of his two weeks in London, Ball’s plan kept nagging at his thoughts. Perhaps it was still possible; perhaps he could do it alone. On the boat back to France he decided to talk it over with Jack Scott.

  He did not have to wait long. As he walked down the gangplank the familiar face of the squadron commander beamed from the pier. “Welcome back, Bish. You’re famous. The Germans have put a price on your head!”

  Spring was late coming to northern France in 1917, but it was suddenly in full bloom when Bishop returned after his leave and Filescamp Farm was more like a summer resort than a battle station. In the orchard birds trilled in the blossom-laden fruit trees. Beside the officers’ mess young men in smart white flannels played on a new tennis court.

  “Always before I had known France in winter or dreary spring,” he wrote to Margaret. “Now it is the most beautiful spot you can imagine. I went up and flew around for an hour just for the pure enjoyment of it.”

  Even having a price on his head did not disturb him. He could not take the threat very seriously; nor, in truth, did Jack Scott. The report came from a captured enemy pilot that two oberleutnants had each bet the other that he could end the career of the pilot of the blue-nosed plane. They did not seem to be trying very hard to win the bet, however. The afternoon he rejoined 60 Squadron Bishop twice crossed into enemy territory (in his old Nieuport which Walter Bourne assured him had been “fixed up better than new.”) On both occasions no enemy planes appeared.

  There were new faces at Filescamp—and missing friends. In the two weeks Bishop had been absent, five pilots had been lost, but none were from Bishop’s C Flight, which was in fact at full strength of six pilots for the first time since Bishop had been its leader. The newcomer was a wiry dark-haired youth, D. R. C. “Black” Lloyd.

  “Good man in a scrap,” Fry assured Bishop. And Lloyd proved it the first time Bishop led his flight on patrol, by bringing down an enemy plane. Bishop was much less happy with his own marksmanship. Over Drocourt, a circus of Albatros fighters flew right into their midst. Bishop and Lloyd singled out one of the enemy fighters and Bishop opened fire first, but even from as close as forty yards he could see no effect from his first burst.

  Lloyd’s single burst hit the enemy machine’s engine and it burst into flames. Bishop devoted the afternoon to firing at the white target on the edge of the aerodrome and after three hours of work he felt more confident.

  Not all the additions to the aerodrome were newcomers. Grid Caldwell was back from hospital and had taken over command of B Flight. The burly, aggressive New Zealander, who only a month and a half before had introduced Bishop to air fighting, could hardly believe that his protégé had caught on so quickly and successfully.

  The commander of A Flight was E. W. “Moley” Molesworth, a nerveless, balding Irishman who had transferred from the Royal Munster Regiment and was the squadron’s most experienced member, with the exception of Scott. The three flight commanders were quartered together in a Nissen hut surmounted by a sign proclaiming it to be the Hotel de Commerce. Another sign on the door announced: “Welcome all comers,” but the only guest it attracted was an unwelcome one—Bishop’s dog, a large, black, part-Airedale who was, as Bishop admitted, quite the smelliest dog he ever knew. Grid tried sprinkling him with face powder, but this only produced an even more offensive odour, and the dog was ordered to find sleeping quarters elsewhere.

  The three flight commanders rotated the duty of taking the O.P.’s and like the rest of the pilots in the squadron, enjoyed one day off in every three—a policy instituted by Jack Scott at the end of the spring offensive. But Bishop, intent on adding to his score, spent his days off hunting alone. He also explored the possibilities of making his lone raid on the German aerodromes, though Jack Scott’s first reaction had been unfavourable.

  Four days after he came back from leave Bishop shot down a single-seater Albatros scout near Vimy Ridge. It was his twentieth victory, and it was won against odds of six to one. This success restored his confidence and he spent more than four hours over the lines that day by himself. But it was not until the following afternoon that he had his next encounter in the air. Crossing the lines east of Monchy, at eight thousand feet, he saw British antiaircraft shells bursting beneath him. At first he thought the gunners had mistaken the Nieuport for an enemy plane. Then he saw that they were signalling the position of a German two-seater, a yellow-and-red Aviatik. Bishop attacked from the flank and opened fire. At once two Albatros fighters came to the Aviatik’s rescue. Before he could turn toward them, another Nieuport dived on them, firing wildly, and forced them to break off.

  Bishop renewed his attack on the two-seaters, took careful aim at the gunner in the rear, intending to put him out of action first. But that proved unnecessary—the observer’s gun had jammed. Unopposed, Bishop raked the two-seater from engine to tail. The machine fell on its side, went into a spin with the engine full on, and crashed into the Scarpe River.

  That was about the last time for some weeks that 60 Squadron was to see a German two-seater flying alone. The enemy now introduced a new tactic: reconnaissance planes roamed in flights of three or four, at a height of three thousand feet, just on their own side of the lines. When British fighter planes attacked, the Germans would dive down and away, and anti-aircraft batteries would open up against the pursuing British planes. Consequently going after reconnaissance planes became as unpleasant and dangerous a task as going after observation balloons. To the disgust of 60 Squadron, it was given the assignment of dealing with the decoy two-seaters.

  “It’s not so much the danger, although that’s nothing to sneeze at,” Bishop wrote to Margaret, “but it’s hard on the nerves—and on the legs. We never know when a call from the front lines will come and that damned Klaxon horn will give out with the two blasts that are our signal to scramble out to our planes.”

  The sorties provided poor hunting for 60 Squadron. The only apparent results were extensive damage to the Nieuports. Bishop cornered Scott in the mess after a nerve-wracking day: “If I’ve got to shoot at Hun planes practically at ground level I’d rather do it at one of their aerodromes where at least the anti-aircraft wouldn’t be ready and waiting for me. What do you think?”

  “What the hell does it matter what I think? Just let me know when you’re going to do it.”

  Next afternoon, to relax after a trying day of chasing elusive two-seaters and dodging anti-aircraft shells, Bishop went for a lone flight toward Vitry and Brebières. There was not a cloud—or a plane—in the sky, and it was a relief to float up there at ten thousand feet, out of range of the murderous anti-aircraft fire he loathed. He turned for home and dinner—and immediately sighted two Albatros scouts. The enemy pilots, no doubt also with dinner in mind, were spiralling down toward their aerodrome at Epinoy.

  Bishop put the Nieuport’s nose down and opened the throttle wide to try to catch them. One was slower in getting down and Bishop had time to get into position to attack—behind and just below the Albatros. The German pilot saw him at the last moment and as Bishop opened fire he pulled up in a tight climbing turn. It took Bishop unawares and seconds later the Albatros got on his tail. Bishop veered sharply and regained the advantage. Both got in short bursts that did no serious damage. But the Nieuport’s greater manoeuvrability gave Bishop a fraction of a second’s advantage each time. When next he got on the Albatros’ tail he pulled the Lewis gun down the rail, sighted
through the ring, and from ten yards let go a volley of fifteen rounds.

  The German pilot crumpled in his seat. The plane continued on an even keel, gradually losing height. For a moment Bishop watched as it slipped to the ground. At the edge of the aerodrome it crashed and burst into flames.

  Flying back to Filescamp for a late dinner, it dawned on Bishop that although the fight had taken place near to an enemy airbase no plane had risen to help the Albatros. He attributed this to the fact that the presence of a British plane at such a place would be totally unexpected. He made up his mind to launch his planned attack on an enemy aerodrome immediately.

  The next day, Friday June 1, 60 Squadron continued its futile and hazardous chase of German two-seaters. “What a complete waste of time,” Bishop complained to Jack Scott at lunch. “My mind’s made up. I’m going after those aerodromes tomorrow morning, rain or shine.”

  “Good luck,” said Scott.

  All afternoon Bishop practised his shooting. Afterward, he checked each round that went into his two ammunition drums. He oiled his Lewis gun. He pored over maps, checked every detail again and again. Walter Bourne checked out the Nieuport’s motor and controls.

  Early that evening Bishop scrawled on the mess blackboard: “Early call—Capt. Bishop—3.00 A.M.” He left the mess just as a party was getting under way, and slept so soundly he didn’t even hear Grid Caldwell’s noisy arrival from the mess.

  Bishop could scarcely have picked a worse time for his raid than that morning of June 2. Heavy clouds hung at five hundred feet and sprinkled the aerodrome with a light drizzle. He gulped a cup of scalding tea and pulled his flying suit over his pyjamas.

  Bourne, the only other man out on the aerodrome at that hour, already had the Nieuport engine running. Bishop climbed into the cockpit, still sleepy. Bourne held out his hand under the drizzle as a silent gesture of disapproval. Bishop shrugged without speaking. Bourne pulled the wheel chocks away and waved. Bishop smiled and waved back.