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Decorations: |
| Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, Chinese
Order of the Cloud Banner, Prisoner of War Medal, WWII Victory
Medal, American Defense Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic
Pacific Campaign, Presidential Unit Citation. |
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Pre AVG: |
| 10th of 12 children born to Mr. &
Mrs. George Bishop, dairy farmers of DeKalb Junction, NY.
Dean High School, Gouverneur, NY 1934; Oklahoma Military Academy,
Claremore, OK 1935-1937; Flight School, Pensacola Naval Air
Station 1937-1938; USS West Virginia 1938-1940; Flight
Instructor, Pensacola NAS 1940-1941. |
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AVG Service: |
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Volunteered 8/30//41 and arrived in Rangoon, Burma 11/13/41
aboard the Dutch ship Boschfontein with Charles Bond, Dick Rossi,
et al. His first daughter was born 11 days after he reached
Rangoon. first action was 12/25/41 with 3rd Squadron over
Rangoon. Began as Flight Leader and was promoted to Vice
Squadron Leader for bravery in raid on Japanese military airfield
at Hanoi on 5/10/41. Also participated in many other actions
including Loiwing and the Salween River Gorge. Spent most of
March 1941 leading trip to Cairo to ferry new P-40E equipment to
Kunming. Credited with 5.2 confirmed victories. While
leading a mission over Lao Kai, French Indochina on May 17, 1942,
his plane was damaged, either by enemy ground fire or a bomb
exploding prematurely. He was forced to bail out and was
picked up by the Vichy French. Claire Chennault offered a
large ransom for the return of Bishop, with the approval of Chiang
kai-Shek, but he Japanese took custody. Their Kempetai
military police held him as a political prisoner in Hanoi, Saigon,
Haiphong, Canton and Shanghai for nearly a year.
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Post AVG, WWII: |
| Lew Bishop was a prisoner of the Japanese from
1942-45. After almost dying by mistreatment, starvation and
disease while a Kempetai military prisoner at the notorious
Bridgehouse jail in Shanghai, he was transferred to the Kiangwan
POW camp and spent two more years recovering. With four
Marines from Kiangwan camp, he escaped from a moving POW train on
May 10, 1945 while the camp was being transported north to
Manchuria. The group of 5 made their way nearly 2,000 miles
back to Kunming on June 30, 1945, requiring over 40 days of
overland travel with the assistance of Chinese Communists and
Nationalists and then two days flying from an OSS airfield behind
enemy lines. He gave debriefing to General Chennault and
Army intelligence before reaching the US on July 9, 1945 |
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Post War Career: |
In the fall of 1945 he returned to the Naval
Reserve per the CAMCO contract agreement. He requested and
was granted inactive duty status on March 1, 1946. After a
divorce, he returned to China to fly cargo missions with China
National Aviation Corp. (CNAC). He found that stresses from
POW confinement precluded his assignment of "flying the
hump" over the Himalaya mountain range and he returned to the
US. In 1946 he applied for a Regular Navy commission and
returned to active duty at the rank of Commander. After a
flight refresher course at Jacksonville NAS, he was subsequently
named commander of Squadron VF-7, Quonset Point, RI. In
November, 1947 he participated in extended sea maneuvers on the
USS Leyte in early 1948 where he earned outstanding Squadron
recognition.
Due to the stresses and conditions of his Japanese imprisonment as
well as other pressures he was hospitalized and eventually
received a total disability retirement from the Navy in
1948. He lived in retirement until his death on November 1,
1987.
Lew Bishop left a daughter from his first marriage, Shiela Bishop
Irwin and three grandsons, and a daughter, Dianne Bishop Taylor
and a grandson from a second marriage.
- Contributed by Shiela Bishop Irwin |
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