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To come now to those points in the posts which I can remember. That Willie always regretted not having accompanied B on the raid and therefore made up his story to excuse his not going, and out of pique in not sharing in the glory, is so ludicrous that I hardly know where to start. Firstly it was his duty not to go. Unlike his Flt Com he had a Flight to run and was down to lead it in the first patrol of the morning. Leading a Flight was no little responsibility. Why did B ask Willie to go with him? He must have known that Willie couldn’t, being down to lead the Flight in the morning. The Flight was cancelled by Scott and not by Willie. Anyone with a basic knowledge of the way an RFC squadron was run would know this. Willie did not behave ‘badly’ and did not consider himself wronged. Willie never had a mean bone in his body.
It was not Willie but Bishop himself who said he had landed behind the lines before returning to base. Therefore the feasibility of being able to do so in a Nieuport is a question for other people to answer, not Willie.
No pilot would jettison his gun for the reason given by B. He would be in extremely hot water when asked to account for his losing the property of the King. Throwing away their weapon in the face of the enemy – whether he was there or not – got quite a few PBI court-martialled and shot. The question of whether it was possible to detach the Lewis gun in the air has been gone into at length and, based on the evidence of the replica Nieuport, the consensus of opinion is that it was possible. I accept this. Willie may well have been wrong about this. But remember: he was there, with the real thing, not a replica, which may have been incorrect about the gun mounting.**
Why was B lost on the morning of the raid? He had flown over the area for three months and should have known it well. He should have been able to work out later, perhaps with Scott or the Recording Officer, the most likely route he had flown. I suggest forumites should read Phil Markham’s analysis of this flight in the issue of OTF.**
The exhibits. In the main these were reports obtained by me from the PRO and extracts from Willie’s logbooks. These could not be produced in the statement because they were amongst Willie’s papers on his death. I have no idea where they are now. Possibly in the RAF Museum.
Finally I would ask forumites that when they indulge themselves in personally denigrating a man they never had the privilege of knowing, to kindly remember that Willie and his wife Kitty were friends of my family for many years. We loved them both dearly.
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