Thirty Canadian V.Cs., 23d April 1915 to 30th March 1918Roberts, Theodore Goodridge
History
Thirty Canadian V.Cs., 23d April 1915 to 30th March 1918
Roberts, Theodore Goodridge
Victoria Cross; World War, 1914-1918 -- Canada
Bishop counted the machines--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Seven new, beautiful bombers all in a row, brass burnished, oiled, a few
of the engines running, all ready for a trip into Allied territory--or
perhaps to England! It was a very tidy aerodrome and the seven machines
on the lawn looked very trim. The captain descended to have a closer
look--and the Germans spotted him and raised the alarm; guns began to
splash white puffs of shrapnel around him.
Down dived this youngster through the barrage till he was within fifty
feet of the ground and then his machine-gun began to spray the German
machines and the lawn with bullets. A mechanic, who was trying to start
one of the aeroplanes, fell beside the propeller, riddled with shot. Up
raced the Canadian then, rising in sharp spirals as fast as his machine
could travel. Up after him went a German, throbbing with a desire for
revenge. But Bishop was expecting this very thing; and as the German
reached sixty feet from the ground he swooped down and around suddenly
and fired into the chasing machine at close range. The German 'plane
crashed to earth, carrying a dead pilot with it.
Turning swiftly, the captain saw a second Albatross rising. He closed
with this one till about 150 yards separated them; then, getting the
German full on his sights, he sent a blast of thirty rounds into him.
Away went the Albatross, side-slipping into a tree, where it hung a
wretched, broken thing.
A third Albatross came up to the combat, while the invader swung over
the aerodrome sheds in the midst of a storm of shrapnel from the enemy
guns. Bishop cleared the sheds and swept upward a thousand feet, met his
third enemy as he mounted and emptied the remainder of his drum of
ammunition at him. The Albatross swerved, slid, fluttered and fell to
earth within three hundred yards of the spot from which it had mounted
but a few moments before.
The invader quickly inserted a new drum and swung round again to where a
fourth machine was humming towards him. He took no chances with this
antagonist, but opened fire at a fair range as it headed at him.
Already a fifth German was coming out of the blue, trying to sandwich
him between it and its fellow. He had no time to waste on the fifth. He
kept hammering at the fourth till it also left the fight and planed
down to the green sward below, out of control and little better than a
wreck.
He faced the fifth--had him, indeed, in a favourable position for ending
his career also--when he realized that he had finished his ammunition.
That fact saved the life of the German airman. Captain Bishop
regretfully raised his empty drum and waved a farewell to this, his
latest adversary, and started on his hundred-mile race for home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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