The incident which brought him his Victoria Cross occurred one June day in 1917, when he was working, as usual, independently. He zoomed across No Man's Land, over the German front and support trenches, driving on to where he thought was game worth seeking. The game in this instance was an aerodrome. But as he circled above the enemy hangars at fifteen thousand feet the place seemed to have a strangely deserted appearance. Down he came to within three hundred feet of the hangars to investigate; and the only occupant of the aerodrome proved to be a very nervous gunner who feebly turned a machine-gun on him. The nervous gunner was sent scuttering to cover by a few bursts of fire. Then the disappointed captain turned the nose of his machine upwards, wondering whether he would find any hostile craft waiting for him above the clouds. Through the thin clouds he mounted into the clear spaces above. No enemy was to be seen, nothing but the blue void; and the warm, soft atmosphere was very pleasant that day. The captain was out for adventure. He flew on deeper into the German lines.
Twelve miles from the German front line he looked over the side of his 'plane and saw, basking in the pleasant sunshine, the very thing he had come to smash. It was another German aerodrome, with a number of machines lined up in front of the sheds, ready for a journey.
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.
The solitary German was soon left behind; but from another aerodrome came four German scouts who had been sent to the rescue of their friends of the now untidy aerodrome. They had seen the latter part of the battle. Though they were about a thousand feet above him they did not attack, but fell behind after following for about a mile.