Just Call Me Will is a work of historic fiction. This book gives a glimpse into the thoughts and feelings of Canada’s most decorated pilot of WW1.
The purpose of this book is to help the reader understand what life may have been like for a Canadian pilot in World War one.
All chapter quotationsquotation
Copyright © 2021 by Dumond Holdings, Inc.
Canada, during the first few years of the war had no air force.
At the precise time Britain made its open declaration of war on Germany it was decidedly handcuffed to its destiny. For the next four years there was to be no escaping that horrific, blood-soaked announcement.
Britain desperately required reconnaissance aircraft whose pilots would secretly photograph enemy defensive trenches in the fields below.
No such men or machines were around.
The troops in the mud-filled trenches needed above-ground support. Blimps were ineffective. The British Admiralty desperately wanted swift aerial photographs showing troop movements, new battle lines drawn by trenches of the enemy, and the heavy guns that defended those trenches.
No such swift air support was around.
It also desperately required a replacement for hundreds of observation airships, dirigibles, and blimps, No such replacement was around. Yet.
The powerful Handley Page twin-engine biplane patrol bombers, needed to be invented to eventually replace the airships, these old airborne mechanisms employed in wars for more than a century.
Britain declared not just a war: it declared multiple huge, unpredicted problems which kept growing.
This is a story, based on fact, of a Canadian who answered the World War one British Empire call-to-arms.
My mother told me she had great difficulty with my birth, but she said I was well worth all her pain. In her lifetime she was to give birth at least eight more times. She also told me I was born, early on a bitter, Manitoba-cold day in November, in a home made of logs on our small farm near the tiny hamlet of Dauphin, Manitoba in 1894. Two neighbours were there with a midwife to help. As we grew up, she told us lots of stories about how she came to Manitoba and helped build her first home: a sod hut.
I was four years old when my hamlet became a village, and my dad was voted the first mayor. Most of the rural settlers were farmers with ancestors in England.
My father taught me to use the Ross straight-pull bolt-action rifle before I could learn to read. I remember it as a rifle that hurt my shoulder as I shattered the old bottles on the farm stumps. Dad said nothing when I got my target, but he blasted me the few times I missed. So, I learned not to miss, longing for that word of praise.
It seemed easy for me to add shells, lift and pull the bolt to get ready for the next shot. I felt proud of myself, just like I felt proud that Dad would tell me to stay home from school to help him with the farm or to ‘harvest’ some rabbits or deer for the men he hired to help him run the only mill for miles around. Getting game was fun because I longed for praise from my dad, even the word “Good” would last me for weeks. My respect for him ran deep. He was my role model as my dad and as a respected leader in the area.
As I learned to saddle and ride a horse, I found it easy to shoot pheasant on-the-fly or most other birds for that matter. As I rode, the pounding of the horse’s hooves would scare up the birds nesting on the open fields. They would take flight. I would see where they were going, estimate where they would be when my bullet hit them and I was right, most of the time. I was sure the rifle sight was not good enough because I missed.
After giving the matter some thought and feeling I could hit a bird on the fly every time, the thought dawned on me that I needed a second sight, so I made my own peep-sight and fascine it to the rifle barrel. After a few practice shots, I knew my shot was dead-on. There were very few birds that got away that I aimed at them and fired from then on. My peep-sight helped me line up a more accurate aim for my rifle. I was really pleased with myself. Dad was proud of me too and so were his friends when they saw how deadly my shot was.
As more and more of us were born, the bigger our house had to be. Growing up in my family meant you had to speak up to be heard and if you spoke up your opinion was always shot down. With more than a half dozen sitting around the dinner table there were always more than half a dozen opinions on any one topic.
The years went by quickly and I was about to graduate from my Collegiate when I heard talking, shouting, arguing and information about what the British had done in early August. I wanted to join the military, but my dad encouraged me to finish my high school. Out of my deep respect for him, I went back to finish grade eleven but without enthusiasm. I didn’t have a heart for anything going on in the school.
My first love was the air machines doing loop the loop. They were a dream for me. I wanted to do that too. I wanted to fly ,and I was going to do anything to get up there and learn to fly.
I remember it was well before Christmas of 1914, when I enlisted in the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles. It was a decision I would never regret since I got to meet so many others my own age who were also from rural farm life in different parts of Canada.
Training with the CMR was easy and I loved it when I was chosen to serve served as a machine gunner at Ypres. France, a place I didn’t know existed.
After more than a full year of machine-gun work in France, I wanted something different. Those flying machines above me sparked my interest. Walking and shooting at a target I had done for many years. Horseback riding and shooting I had done for years. Flying and shooting sparked my imagination, so in the spring of 1916, I volunteered to serve in the RFC. When I learned about being a pilot in a B.E.2 seater reconnaissance by watching, listening and asking very few questions, I felt I could do this thing of being a pilot with ease. When my bosses saw how good I was as a first a gunner I was called in one day to the quiet, spotless office. I thought I was in trouble but something inside me felt good about this request. Perhaps the Major would say, “good” and give me some praise for the shots I fired with dead-on accuracy. I could not believe me ears when he offered me a commission as a second lieutenant. Not only was this a little praise of ‘good’ but it was a pat on the back, or a psychological hug, which I desperately needed.
He received his first MC doing aerial photography.
In July of that year, he recorded his first victory, driving down a German scout airplane using his observer's gun.
At the beginning of 1917, he was sent to flying school for four weeks' instruction to become a pilot. Promoted to flying officer in February 1917, Barker returned to the Western Front again in two-seater reconnaissance airplanes (the B.E.2 and the R.E.8), but this time seated in the front pilot's seat. Three months later, he was promoted to captain and given command of a flight of airplanes (four to six aircraft).
After being wounded in August 1917, he was transferred back to England to become a flight instructor.
Hating his new job, he quickly got himself reassigned to active duty in France, though not before getting into trouble doing acrobatics over London.
I began flying the Sopwith Camel, a single seater fighter, armed with twin synchronized machine guns. It proved to be a lethal combination of man and machine. Flying the highly manoeuvrable though temperamental Camel, I could fully exploit my skills as a marksman.
Shortly after his return to France in late October he officially became an ace, downing his fifth German airplane, a German Albatros D.III fighter. Other "kills" quickly followed.
Barker's Sopwith Camel, serial number B6313, was to become the most successful fighter airplane in British history.
In early December of 1917 my squadron was transferred to the Italian Front. I took aim at Austrian air force. By April 1918, he had twenty-two victories. He also earned a reputation for taking down observation balloons, a deadly enterprise since the balloons were heavily protected by anti-aircraft guns.
In July, he was promoted to major and given command of the No. 139 Squadron.
Although the squadron flew the two-seater Bristol F.2b fighter and reconnaissance aircraft (also known as the "Brisfit"), Barker continued to prefer flying his cherished Sopwith Camel. When the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) visited the squadron in the summer of 1918, Barker took him aloft in a Brisfit, with the prince occupying the rear observer's seat. Barker flew the prince deep into enemy territory before returning to the Allied lines. Fortunately, although they encountered anti-aircraft fire from the ground, no Austrian airplane went up to challenge them.
By September 1918, he was a highly-decorated ace with at least forty-six victories to his credit.
Even more to his credit was the incredible achievement of not losing a single pilot or airplane under his escort during the previous year of active duty.
Ordered back to England to take command the flight school at Hounslow, Barker's greatest exploit, for which he was to earn the Victory Cross, was yet to come.
Arguing that he needed to reacquaint himself with the Western Front to do his job properly, he obtained a 10-day roving commission in France. On 27 October 1918, on the last day of his commission and only two weeks prior to the end of the war, he encountered a German reconnaissance airplane over the Forêt de Mormal while flying the new Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe.
Although Barker managed to down the two-seater craft, he made a rookie mistake and was caught unaware by a German fighter that had sneaked up behind him. He only found out that he was being pursued when his right leg was shattered by a bullet. Despite the pain, Barker managed to circle around the Fokker DVII, and bring it down too.
From there, things only got worse. Somehow during the dog fight with the Fokker, Barker had managed to stumble into an entire "circus" of German fighters. While accounts regarding the number of enemy aircraft vary from 15 to an incredible 60, Barker was vastly outnumbered. In front of thousands of Allied soldiers Barker managed to bring down two more German fighters but not before receiving crippling wounds to his left thigh and left elbow.
His Snipe, hit repeatedly, with its fuel tank shot away, crashed behind British lines. Barker, amazingly still alive, was pulled from the wreckage by Scottish troops. On 20 November 1918, he was awarded the Victory Cross for this epic, single-handed battle, and the congratulations of his grateful Sovereign, the Prince of Wales, and Sir Robert Borden, the Canadian Premier.
In early 1919, still recovering from his wounds, Barker flew again with the Prince of Wales, taking him on a tour of London by air. Barker needed canes to walk to the aircraft, and flew with his left arm strapped to his breast. Speaking of his flight, the Prince commented, "I have enjoyed it immensely but what a sensation it is when you go over backwards."
The RAF promoted Barker to Lieutenant Colonel.
On his return to Canada later that year, Barker entered civilian aviation in partnership with Billy Bishop. Together they operated an air-charter and aircraft maintenance firm located at Armour Heights Air Field in Toronto. In 1921, Barker married Jean Smith, the cousin of Billy Bishop. Their daughter Antoinette was born in 1923.
As was the case with many early civil aviation operations, Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes failed in 1922.
Barker then joined the Canadian Airforce (CAF) and was made commanding officer of Camp Borden. Subsequently, he was made acting director of
William George Barker married Jean Kilbourn Smith. Three years younger and from Owen Sound, Ontario.
So who was William George (Billy) Barker? He was a World War I fighter pilot who would go on to win the Victoria Cross and become Canada’s most decorated serviceman.
Born in Dauphin, Manitoba, at his family’s farm on 3 November 1894, Barker developed a passion for flying in his teens after watching pioneer aviators flying Curtiss and Wright Flyer aircraft at farm exhibitions.
In December 1914, Barker enlisted in the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles and went to England in June 1915 with the regiment. From there he went to France the following September. Barker served as a Colt machine gunner with the regiment’s machine gun section until late February or early March 1916.
Barker then transferred to No. 9 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps as a probationary observer, flying in the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 aircraft.
He was commissioned as a Second-Lieutenant in April 1916 and assigned to No. 4 Squadron, but by 7 July was transferred to No 15 Squadron.
On 21 July, Barker claimed a Roland scout “driven down” with his observer’s gun, and in August claimed a second Roland, this time in flames. He was Mentioned in Despatches around this time.
He officially qualified as an Observer on 27 August 1916 and on 15 September he worked for the first time with Canadian troops, including his old regiment.
On 15 November Barker and his pilot, flying very low over the Ancre River, during the Battle of the Somme, spotted a large concentration of 4000 German infantry massing for a counter-attack on Beaumont Hamel. They sent out a signal to nearby artillery regiments to fire on the troops. Barker was awarded the Military Cross for this action.
In January 1917, Barker commenced pilot training and on 24 February 1917, returned to serve a second tour on Corps Co-operation machines as a pilot flying B.E.2s and R.E.8 aeropanes.
On 25 March Barker claimed another scout ‘driven down’ and on 25 April 1917, during the Arras Offensve, Barker and his observer Lieutenant Goodfellow, spotted over 1,000 German troops sheltering in support trenches. Barker and Goodfellow directed artillery fire into the positions, thereby nullifying a German counter-attack.
A month after being awarded a bar to his Military Cross in July 1917, Barker was wounded in the head by anti-aircraft fire.
Barker spend a short time as an instructor in the United Kingdom as an instructor before being transferred to “C” Flight of No. 28 Squadron as a scout pilot, flying the Sopwith Camel. Although Barker was reportedly not a highly skilled pilot, suffering several flying accidents during his career, he was an aggressive pilot and a highly accurate marksman.
No. 28 Squadron moved to France on 8 October 1917, and then onto Italy.
One of Barker's most successful but controversial raids was on 25 December 1917, an event which was fictionalized by Ernest Hemmingway in the short story, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, saw Barker and his observer Lieutenant Harold Hudson, shooting up the airfield of Fliegerabteilung, setting fire to one hangar and damaging four German aircraft before dropping a placard wishing their opponents a “Happy Christmas.”
Barker was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in March 1918.
Barker was passed over as Commanding Officer of No. 28 Squadron, owing primarily to his tendency to ignore orders by flying many unofficial patrols. Barker requested a transfer to No. 66 Squadron in April 1918, where he claimed a further 16 kills by mid-July and then moved on to become Commanding Officer of No. 139 Squadron.
By this time, Barker’s personal Sopwith Camel (serial no. B6313) had become the most successful fighter aircraft in the history of the RAF, having used it to shoot down 46 aircraft and balloons from September 1917 to September 1918, for a total of 404 operational flying hours. It was dismantled in October 1918, with Barker keeping the clock as a memento, although he was asked to return it the following day.
Having flown more than 900 combat hours in two and one half years, Barker was transferred back to the UK in September 1918 to command the fighter training school at Hounslow Heath Aerodrome. During his service in the Italian theatre, Barker claimed some 33 airplanes were destroyed and nine observation balloons downed individually or with other pilots.
Barker was awarded the Victoria Cross, highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth militaries in time of war, for his actions on 27 October 1918. While serving as a temporary member of No. 221 Squadron, Barker attacked a German Rumpler, destroying it, but was wounded three times in the legs and one in his left elbow. Despite being badly wounded, he managed to control his Snipe aeroplane and shoot down three more enemy aircraft. The dogfight took place immediately above the lines of the Canadian Corps. Severely wounded and bleeding profusely, Barker force-landed his aeroplane inside Allied lines and was quickly rushed to a field dressing station.
The fuselage of his Snipe aircraft was recovered from the battlefield and is preserved at the Canadian War Museum, Ottawa, Ontario.
After being hospitalized, he was in grave condition and was not able to be transported back to England until January 1919. He was awarded his Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace on 1 March 1919, although he was still having trouble walking at the time.
The Overseas Military Forces of Canada recognized Barker as “holding the record for fighting decorations” awarded in the First World War and the most decorated Canadian of the war, with the Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the Military Cross and two Bars, the French Croix de guerre and was mentioned in dispatches three times.
After the war, Barker went into the aviation business, founding Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes Limited with fellow Victoria Cross recipient and Canadian fighter ace Billy Bishop, although the venture lasted for only about three years. In 1922 he re-joined the fledgling Canadian Air Force at the rank of Wing Commander and served as the Station Commander of Camp Borden from 1922 to 1924.
In early 1924, Barker was appointed Acting Director of the RCAF and one of his achievements in the RCAF was the introduction of parachutes for pilots.
After leaving the RCAF he became the first president of the Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Club.
For the remainder of his life, Barker continued to suffer from the physical effects of the gunshot wounds he received in 1918. His legs were permanently damaged and he suffered severely limited movement in his left arm. He also struggled with alcoholism in the last few years of his life, likely due to what we would now consider as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
Barker died on 12 March 1930 while doing a demonstration flight at RCAF Station Rockcliffe, near Ottawa, when he lost control of his Fairchild KR-21 bi-plane and it crashed. He was 35 years old and was the President and General Manager of Fairchild Aircraft of Montreal at the time.
Barker’s funeral in Toronto was the largest state funeral the city had ever seen, with an honour guard of 2,000 soldiers. The procession stretched for more than a mile and a half and included the Chief of the General Staff and his senior officers, Lieutenant-Governor William Ross, Toronto Mayor Bert Wemp, three federal cabinet ministers, six other Victoria Cross winners and an honour guard from the United States Army. Over 50,000 spectators lined the streets of Toronto along the procession route to Mount Pleasant Cemetery, where Barker was interred in his wife’s family crypt in the mausoleum.
A plaque on his tomb in the mausoleum, officially unveiled on 22 September 2011, describes him as “The most decorated war hero in the history of Canada, the British Empire, and the Commonwealth of Nations.”
In the years after his death, numerous honours have been bestowed upon Barker. In his hometown of Dauphin, Manitoba, an elementary school is named in his honour as is local Royal Canadian Air Cadets squadron. The Dauphin Airport (a former WWII British Commonwealth Air Training Plan training school location), was re-named the Dauphin – LCol W.G. (Billy) Barker, VC Airport in 1998.
The Southport Aerospace Centre, formerly RCAF Station Portage La Prairie and current home of No 3 Canadian Forces Flying Training School, named their new flight student barracks after Barker in 2012.
The First World War had seen a quantum leap forward in aviation.
Before the war, airplanes were still in their infancy — slow, underpowered, ungainly and expensive.
During the war, airplane design evolved rapidly so that by the end of the fighting in 1918 the technology had matured and people began to see commercial applications.
Billy Bishop and fellow ace pilot, Billy Barker, were two such individuals.
When the war ended, both highly-decorated men returned to Canada uncertain what to do with their future. Eventually, they hit on the idea of establishing a company that would fly between Toronto and Muskoka, offering wealthy patrons a faster alternative to trains or, slower still, automobiles.
Certain that their business would be a success, Barker and Bishop purchased a surplus United States Navy HS-2L float plane.
Bishop was related by marriage to Timothy Eaton, the founder of the Eaton’s department store chain, who summered on Lake Rosseau, opening the door to the rich-and-famous clientele he and Barker hoped to serve.
When it made its inaugural flight in 1920, Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes Ltd. became the first commercial air service anywhere in Canada.
Though passengers would have to sit in an open cockpit, exposed to the elements and with the drone of the engines echoing in their ears, the flight was a (then) lightning-fast two hours.
Among the first passengers to take advantage of this novel service — perhaps the first — was Florence Eaton, the wife of Timothy Eaton’s son, Sir John.
By early September, Barker-Bishop had made as many as a dozen flights between Toronto and Muskoka, each one without incident. That changed on Sept. 10, with Russell McRae, a former Royal Australian Air Corps pilot, at the controls of the aircraft.
The aircraft was an hour into the flight when the engine began to wheeze like an old man, and then stalled.
McRae fought the controls of an airplane that was now bucking wildly, threatening to drop out of the sky.
The air engineer climbed behind McRae and began to feverishly work on the engine in an effort to coax it back to life. In a desperate effort to keep the aircraft aloft, McRae ordered the ashen-faced passengers out onto the wings to help keep the hydroplane in balance.
Finally, when all hope at restarting the engines had passed, McRae ordered everyone back into the plane and to brace themselves for a crash landing.
Branches broke and wings snapped as the plane crashed into dense forest. Finally, it came to a sudden jarring halt as a mangled wreck hung up in the trees. Miraculously, everyone survived without serious injury.
Bishop and Barker were disappointed but not deterred.
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Both men were still convinced the future of commercial aviation was exciting and profitable, so they went about purchasing a replacement aircraft.
They transferred operations to Florida and lasted three more years before financial problems and a second crash forced the pilots to give up on their dreams.
Today, travellers have the opportunity to bypass highway traffic by flying to the Muskoka airport from Toronto. The Bishop-Barker idea was merely a century premature.
William George Barker was born on November 3rd 1894 in Dauphin, Manitoba Canada. In 1914 at the age of 20, Barker joined the Mounted Rifles when war broke out in Europe but Trench warfare proved to be to harsh an experience for him so he transferred to the Royal Flying Corpes in April 1916 to get off the ground and into the air. Barker became an air observer then a qualified pilot and served in Italy in 1917. By July 1918 Will Barker had won the DSO (Distinguished Service Order), the MC (Military Cross), the French Croix De Guerre and a total of 50 kills, then finally in October 1918 he had won the Victoria Cross after surviving the most brutal dogfight in the western front.
During peacetime Barker rejoined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1922 and became a flying instructor, in which he hated the most. After resigning from the RCAF he struggled with alcoholism and was still torn by the effects of war. in 1930 Barker took a test flight of a Fairchild RK-21 but the aircraft stalled and crashed then Barker was killed.
His funeral became the largest national event in Toronto's history, was attended by an Honor guard of 2,000 soldiers. The cortège stretched for more than a mile and a half, and included the Chief of the General Staff and his senior officers, the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, the Mayor of Toronto, three federal government cabinet ministers, and six other Victoria Cross recipients. An Honor guard was also provided by the United States Army. Some 50,000 spectators lined the streets to pay homage to the fallen airman.
A First War Trench Art Tray to Lieutenant-Colonel William George Barker VC, DSO & Bar, MC & Two Bars
To the "the most decorated war hero in the history of Canada, the British Empire, and the Commonwealth of Nations": Silvered copper, with a silvered copper 1918 British One Penny coin embedded in the base, engraved "October 27, 1918 - France - R.F.C. No. 201 Squadron - W.G. Barker" below the rim on the exterior, 82.5 mm in diameter x 22.5 mm in height, contact marks and service wear, very fine. Accompanied by four Photographs of the Ashtray (black and white, gloss finish, 202 mm x 253 mm each), a Toronto Star Newspaper Article (dated Tuesday, September 20, 2011) and assorted research papers. Footnote: William George "Billy" Barker VC, DSO & Bar, MC & Two Bars, was born on the family farm in Dauphin, Manitoba, on November 3, 1894. "Will" Barker grew up on the frontier of the Great Plains, riding horses, shooting, and working as a youngster on his father's farm and sawmill. He was an exceptional shot, using a lever-action Winchester that he had modified with his own peep sight. He was particularly adept at shooting on the move, even while on horseback. One biographer has suggested that he could have been a trick shooter in a circus. He was physically poised, emotionally intense, with wide-ranging interests, and had an innate flair for the dramatic act. He was a very good student in school, but had frequent absences due to farm and sawmill life. He was the hunter providing food for the workers in the sawmill while still a young teenager, and missed classes because of this obligation.
Barker fell in love with aviation after watching pioneer aviators flying Curtiss and Wright Flyer aircraft at farm exhibitions between 1910 and 1914.
He was a Boy Scout at Russell, Manitoba, and a member of the 32nd Light Horse, a Non-Permanent Active Militia unit based at Roblin, Manitoba. He was in Grade 11 at Dauphin Collegiate Institute in the fall of 1914, just before his enlistment. On December 23, 1914, soon after the outbreak of the First World War and the subsequent call to arms in the Dominion of Canada, Barker enlisted with the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles, signing his Attestation Paper as a Trooper (106074) in Brandon, Manitoba, at the age of 20, naming his next-of-kin as his father, G.W.J. Barker of Dauphin, stating that he had served at Camp Sewell with the 32nd Light Horse, that he was not married and that his trade was that of Student at Collegiate.
The regiment went to England in June 1915 and then to France on September 22nd of that year. Barker was a Colt machine gunner with the regiment's machine gun section until late February or early March 1916, and after eight months in the trenches, he was transferred as a probationary Observer to 9 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps on April 2, 1916, flying in Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 aircraft. He was commissioned as a Second-Lieutenant in April and was given five days leave in London, to acquire an officer's uniform and equipment. On his return, he was assigned to 4 Squadron on April 7th and on July 18th was transferred to 15 Squadron, still flying in the B.E.2. On July 21st, Barker claimed a Roland scout 'driven down' with his observer's gun, and in August claimed a second Roland, this time in flames. He was Mentioned in Despatches around this time. He officially qualified as an Observer on August 27th and by September 15th, worked for the first time with Canadian troops, including his old regiment. On November 15th, Barker and his pilot, flying very low over the Ancre River, spotted a large concentration of German troops massing for a counter-attack on Beaumont Hamel. The crew sent an emergency Zone Call brought to bear all available artillery fire in the area onto the specified target. The force of some 4,000 German infantry was effectively broken up. He was awarded the Military Cross for this action in the concluding stages of the Battle of the Somme. The citation for Captain Barker's Military Cross appeared in the Second Supplement to the London Gazette 29898 of Tuesday, January 9, 1917, on Wednesday, January 10, 1917, page 455: "For conspicuous gallantry in action. He flew at a height of 500 feet over the enemy's lines, and brought back most valuable information. On another occasion, after driving off two hostile machines, he carried out an excellent photographic reconnaissance." In January 1917, after spending Christmas on leave in London, he commenced pilot training at Netheravon, flying solo after fifty-five minutes of dual instruction. On February 24, 1917, he returned to serve a second tour on Corps Co-operation machines as a pilot, flying B.E.2s and R.E.8s with 15 Squadron. On March 25th, Barker claimed another scout 'driven down'. On April 25, 1917 during the Arras Offensive, Barker, flying an R.E.8 with observer Lt. Goodfellow, spotted over 1,000 German troops sheltering in support trenches. The duo directed artillery fire into the positions, thereby avoiding a counter-attack. He was awarded the 1st Bar to his Military Cross as a Captain, the citation appearing in the Second Supplement to the London Gazette 30188 of Tuesday, July 17, 1917, on Wednesday, July 18, 1917, page 7216: "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He has done continuous good work in co-operation with the artillery, and has carried out successful reconnaissances under most difficult and dangerous conditions." He was later awarded a 2nd Bar to the Military Cross, the citation appearing in the Third Supplement to the London Gazette 30901 of Friday, September 13, 1918, on Monday, September 16, 1918, page 10877: "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. When leading patrols he on one occasion attacked eight hostile machines, himself shooting down two, and on another occasion seven, one of which he shot down.
In two months he himself destroyed four enemy machines and drove down one and burned two balloons." He was graded as a Pilot in July 1917, then joined No. 47 Squadron on July 12th. Barker was wounded in the head by anti-aircraft fire on August 7, 1917, then briefly with No. 15 Squadron as on August 17th. After a short spell in the United Kingdom as an instructor, Barker's continual requests for front line service resulted in him being transferred to become a scout pilot, being offered a post with either 56 Squadron or 28 Squadron. He chose command of C Flight in the newly formed 28 Squadron, flying the Sopwith Camel that he preferred over the S.E.5s of 56 Squadron. Although Barker was reportedly not a highly skilled pilot, suffering several flying accidents during his career, he compensated for this deficiency with an aggressiveness in action and highly accurate marksmanship. The unit moved to France on October 8, 1917, with Barker downing an Albatros DV on his first patrol, though he did not claim it, as the patrol was unofficial. He claimed an Albatros of Jasta 2 (Lt. Lange, killed) on October 20th, and two more, of Jasta 18, on October 27th (Lt. Schober killed, Offstv. Klein, force landed). On November 7, 1917, 28 Squadron was transferred to Italy with Barker temporarily in command, and most of the unit, including aircraft, travelled by train to Milan. On November 29th, he downed an Austrian Albatros D.III flown by Lt. Haertl of Jasta 1 near Pieve di Soligo. A Jasta 39 pilot was shot down and killed and a balloon of BK 10 destroyed on December 3rd. One of his most successful, and also most controversial raids, fictionalized by Ernest Hemingway in the short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro, was on December 25, 1917. Catching the Germans off guard, he and Lt. Harold Hudson, his wingman, shot up the airfield of Fliegerabteilung (A) 204, setting fire to one hangar and damaging four German aircraft before dropping a placard wishing their opponents a "Happy Christmas." Lt. Lang of Jasta 1 was killed by Barker on January 1, 1918, and two balloons, two Albatros fighters (one flown by Feldwebel Karl Semmelrock of Flik 51J) and a pair of two-seaters fell to Barker during February. He later also claimed three more Albatros and an observation balloon. Temporary Captain Barker was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, his citation appearing in the Third Supplement to the London Gazette 30530 of Friday, February 15, 1918, on Monday, February 18, 1918, page 2156: "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. When on scouting and patrol work he has on five different occasions brought down and destroyed five enemy aeroplanes and two balloons, though on two of these occasions he was attacked by superior numbers. On each occasion the hostile machines were observed to crash to earth, the wreckage bursting into flames. His splendid example of fearlessness and magnificent leadership have been of inestimable value to his squadron." As a Captain (Temporary Major), he was awarded the Bar to the Distinguished Service Order, his citation appearing in the Second Supplement to the London Gazette 30989 of Friday, November 1, 1918, on Saturday, November 2, 1918, page 12959: "A highly distinguished patrol leader whose courage, resource and determination has set a fine example to those around him. Up to the 20th July, 1918, he had destroyed thirty-three enemy aircraft - twenty-one of these since the date of the last award (second Bar to the Military Cross) was conferred on him. Major Barker has frequently led the formation against greatly superior numbers of the enemy with conspicuous success." Owing to his tendency to ignore orders by flying many unofficial patrols, Barker was passed over when the post of Commanding Officer of 28 Squadron became vacant. Dissatisfied, he applied for a posting and joined 66 Squadron on April 10, 1918, where he claimed a further 16 kills by mid-July. On April 17th, he shot down Oblt. Gassner-Norden of Flik 41J, flying an Albatros D.III (Oef), over Vittorio. He then became Squadron Commander of 139 Squadron on July 14, 1918, flying the Bristol Fighter. Barker however took his Sopwith Camel with him and continued to fly fighter operations. He carried out an unusual sortie on the night of August 9th, when he flew a Savoia-Pomilio SP.4 bomber to land a spy behind enemy lines. By this time, Barker's personal Sopwith Camel (serial no. B6313) had become the most successful fighter aircraft in the history of the RAF, having used it to shoot down 46 aircraft and balloons from September 1917 to September 1918, for a total of 404 operational flying hours. It was dismantled in October 1918, Barker keeping the clock as a memento, although he was asked to return it the following day. During this time Barker trialed a series of modifications to B6313, in order to improve its combat performance. The Clerget rotary engine's cooling efficiency was poorer in the hotter Italian climate, so several supplementary cooling slots were cut into the cowling. The poor upward visibility of the Camel resulted in Barker cutting away progressively larger portions of the centre-section fabric. He also had a rifle-type, notch and bead gun-sight arrangement replace the standard gun sight fitting. Having flown more than 900 combat hours in two and one half years, Barker was transferred back to the United Kingdom on September 30, 1918, to command the fighter training school at Hounslow Heath Aerodrome. Barkerended his Italian service with some 33 airplanes calmed destroyed and nine observation balloons downed individually or with other pilots. At Royal Air Force Headquarters in London, he persuaded his superiors he needed to get up to date on the latest combat techniques in France and he was granted a ten-day roving commission in France, wherein he selected the Sopwith Snipe as his personal machine and attached himself to No. 201 Squadron RAF on October 17, 1918, whose Squadron commander, Major Cyril Leman, was a friend from his days as a Corps Co-operation airman. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions on day ten, Sunday, October 27, 1918. While returning his Snipe to an aircraft depot, he crossed enemy lines at 21,000 feet above the Forêt de Mormal. He attacked an enemy Rumpler two-seater which broke up, its crew escaping by parachute (the aircraft was of FAA 227, Observer Lt. Oskar Wattenburg killed). By his own admission, he was careless and was bounced by a formation of Fokker D.VIIs of Jagdgruppe 12, consisting of Jasta 24 and Jasta 44. In a descending battle against 15 or more enemy machines, Barker was wounded three times in the legs, then his left elbow was blown away, yet he managed to control his Snipe and shoot down or drive down three more enemy aircraft (two German pilot casualties were Lt. Hinky of Jasta 44, wounded; and Vfw. Alfons Schymik of Jasta 24, killed). The dogfight took place immediately above the lines of the Canadian Corps. Severely wounded and bleeding profusely, Barker force landed inside Allied lines, his life being saved by the men of an RAF Kite Balloon Section who transported him to a field dressing station (The fuselage of his Snipe aircraft was recovered from the battlefield and is preserved at the Canadian War Museum, Ottawa, Ontario). Acting Major Barker was awarded the Victoria Cross, his citation appearing in the Second Supplement to the London Gazette 31042 of Friday, November 29, 1918, on Saturday, November 30, 1918, page 14203: "On the morning of the October 27, 1918, this officer observed an enemy two-seater over the Foret de Mormal. He attacked this machine and after a short burst it broke up in the air. At the same time a Fokker biplane attacked him, and he was wounded in the right thigh, but managed, despite this, to shoot down the enemy aeroplane in flames. He then found himself in the middle of a large formation of Fokkers who attacked him from all directions, and was again severely wounded in the left thigh, but succeeded in driving down two of the enemy in a spin. He lost consciousness after that, and his machine fell out of control. On recovery, he found himself being again attacked heavily by a large formation, and singling out one machine he deliberately charged and drove it down in flames. During this fight his left elbow was shattered and he again fainted, and on regaining consciousness he found himself still being attacked, but notwithstanding that he was now severely wounded in both legs and his left arm shattered, he dived on the nearest machine and shot it down in flames. Being greatly exhausted, he dived out of the fight to regain our lines, but was met by another formation, which attacked and endeavored to cut him off, but after a hard fight he succeeded in breaking up this formation and reached our lines, where he crashed on landing. This combat, in which Major Barker destroyed four enemy machines (three of them in flames), brought his total successes to fifty enemy machines destroyed, and is a notable example of the exceptional bravery and disregard of danger which this very gallant officer has always displayed throughout his distinguished career." At a hospital in Rouen, France, Barker clung to life until mid-January 1919, and then was transported back to England. He was not fit enough to walk the necessary few paces for the Victoria Cross investiture at Buckingham Palace until March 1, 1919. Barker is officially credited with one captured, two (and seven shared) balloons destroyed, 33 (and two shared) aircraft destroyed, and five aircraft "out of control", the highest "destroyed" ratio for any RAF, RFC or RNAS pilot during the conflict. The Overseas Military Forces of Canada recognized Barker as "holding the record for fighting decorations" awarded in the First World War. In addition he was Mentioned in Despatches and 'A' Listed three times; as a Captain, he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre as mentioned in the Second Supplement to the London Gazette 30913 of Friday, September 20, 1918, on Saturday September 21, 1918, page 11259; and as a Temporary Captain, he was awarded the Italian Silver Medal for Military Valour by the King of Italy, for Distinguished Services rendered in the course of the campaign, as mentioned in the Third Supplement to the London Gazette 30895 of Tuesday, September 10, 1918, on Thursday, September 12, 1918, page 10742 and in Flight Magazine on September 26, 1918. Barker returned to Canada in May 1919 as the most decorated Canadian of the war, with the Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the Military Cross and two Bars, the Italian Silver Medal for Military Valour, and the French Croix de Guerre, as well as Mentioned in Despatches and 'A' Listed three times. The Canadian Daily Record, a publication of the Overseas Military Forces of Canada, wrote in December 1918 that William Barker of Dauphin, Manitoba was the Canadian holding the record for "most fighting decorations" in the war. No other Canadian soldier, sailor or airman has surpassed this record, and the Canadian War Museum exhibit, located in Ottawa, Ontario, states: "Lieutenant Colonel William G. Barker, one of the legendary aces of the war, remains the most decorated Canadian in military service." Air Marshal William Avery "Billy" Bishop, VC, CB, DSO & Bar, MC, DFC, ED, LL.D. described Barker as "The Deadliest Air Fighter that Ever Lived". A plaque on his tomb in the mausoleum of Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery, officially unveiled on September 22, 2011, describes him as "The most decorated war hero in the history of Canada, the British Empire, and the Commonwealth of Nations." Barker formed a business partnership, Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes Limited, with fellow Victoria Cross recipient and Canadian ace Billy Bishop which lasted for about three years. In 1922, he rejoined the fledgling Canadian Air Force in the rank of Wing Commander, serving as the Station Commander of Camp Borden from 1922 to 1924. Barker was appointed acting director of the Royal Canadian Air Force in early 1924 and he graduated from Royal Air Force Staff College, Andover, in 1926. While waiting to start RAF Staff College Course No. 4, Barker spent two weeks in Iraq with the RAF to learn more about the uses of air power. He formally reported on his findings to the Minister of National Defence, and informally to Brigadier General Billy Mitchell, of the United States Air Service. One of his achievements in the RCAF was the introduction of parachutes. After leaving the RCAF, he became the first president of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club, and was involved in tobacco growing farms in southwestern Ontario. Barker continued to suffer from the physical effects of his 1918 gunshot wounds, his legs were permanently damaged and he suffered severely limited movement in his left arm. He also struggled with alcoholism in the last few years of his life. He died on March 12, 1930, when he lost control of his Fairchild KR-21 biplane trainer during a demonstration flight for the RCAF, at Air Station Rockcliffe, near Ottawa, Ontario. Barker, aged 35, was at the time the President and General Manager of Fairchild Aircraft in Montreal. His funeral, the largest national state event in Toronto's history, was attended by an honour guard of 2,000 soldiers. The cortege stretched for more than a mile and a half, and included the Chief of the General Staff and his senior officers, the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, the Mayor of Toronto, three federal government cabinet ministers, and six other Victoria Cross recipients. An honour guard was also provided by the United States Army. Some 50,000 spectators lined the streets of Toronto en route to Mount Pleasant Cemetery, where Barker was interred in his wife's family crypt in the Mausoleum. In his hometown, Dauphin, Manitoba, an elementary school and the Barker Airport (dedicated in 1998) are named in his honour. The Dauphin squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets is named for Barker. An elementary school at CFB Borden in Ontario was also named after Barker before its closure in the mid-1990s. In 2012, Southport Aerospace Centre named their new flight student accommodation building after him. During the week of January 8,1999, the Canadian Federal Government designated Barker a person of national historic significance. The Discovery Channel's Flightpath series, a television documentary, included an episode entitled "First of the Few", a biography of William Barker, broadcast in Canada on April 27, 1999. In 2003 History TV broadcast "The Hero's Hero - The Forgotten Life of William Barker." Barker's only daughter, Jean Antoinette Mackenzie (nee Barker), died in July, 2007. On September 22, 2011, a memorial at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto was unveiled to mark William Barker as the “most decorated war hero in the history of Canada, the British Empire, and the Commonwealth of Nations.”
William George “Billy” Barker is the most decorated serviceman in the history of
Canada and the British Empire. Barker is one of our country’s most renowned First
World War flying aces and interestingly, has roots in Norfolk County – in the
village of Lynedoch. A fascinating fact my Executive Assistant Bobbi Ann Brady
stumbled upon.
To learn more about this hero, I visited Mount Pleasant Cemetery while working at
Queen’s Park. A plaque on his tomb was officially unveiled September 2011, and
describes Barker as “The most decorated war hero in the history of Canada, the
British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations.”
Much the same is stated in Ottawa’s Canadian War Museum: “Lieutenant Colonel William
G. Barker, one of the legendary aces of the war, remains the most decorated Canadian
in military service.”
After enlisting at age 20 in 1914, Barker returned to Canada in May 1919 with the
Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the Military Cross and two
Bars, two Italian Silver Medals for Military Velour, and the French Croix de guerre.
Barker’s feats are legendary. He could hit anything that moved and had an easy-going
but reckless spirit. Historians note the deadlier the war got the better Barker
became. During his service, Barker downed 50 enemy aircraft, and in his last 12
months of combat, not one pilot under his command was lost. On October 27, 1918,
Barker was wounded three times but managed to shoot down three enemy aircraft before
crash landing.
No other Canadian warrior has surpassed Barker’s record. While the name Billy Bishop
remains synonymous with WWI, Barker’s accomplishments are often forgotten. While
they did not serve together, Bishop described Barker as “the deadliest air fighter
who ever lived,” and the two were good friends. Bishop kept Barker’s story alive in
every speech, news article and book often referencing the frontier childhood he had
growing up in Manitoba where he spent his days riding horses and hunting birds.
Barker’s exploits earned him celebrity status upon his return home. Bishop and
Barker formed various companies and co-founded Canada’s first commercial airline.
The pair also launched the Canadian International Air Show at Canadian National
Exhibition (CNE). In 1927, Conn Smythe, also a flyer in WWI, named Barker the first
President of the newly-christened Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team.
Barker also married Bishop’s cousin Jean Kilbourn Smith. In 1924, the couple
arrived at Lynedoch, Haldimand-Norfolk, to grow tobacco. Although I don’t know the
location of the farm, if anyone reading knows, please advise. Respond to this post or contact me via email.
Sadly, Barker suffered permanent physical damage in his legs and left arm from the
war, and in the last few years before his tragic death, he struggled with
alcoholism. Barker died in 1930, at the age of 35, when he lost control of his
biplane trainer during a flight demonstration for the Royal Canadian Air Force
(RCAF), near Ottawa.
Barker’s state funeral was the largest in Toronto history with 50,000 attending,
including political and military leaders and an honour guard of 2,000.
As time marches on, it’s important we continue to share stories of our Canadian war
heroes. Their overseas service was just part of the sacrifice they made for you and
me, as when they returned home they were forever changed – a personal haunting we
will never know.
Toby Barrett MPP for Haldimand-Norfolk
Deadliest air fighter who ever lived farmed in my constituency -Norfolk
William George “Billy” Barker is the most decorated serviceman in the history of
Canada and the British Empire. Barker is one of our country’s most renowned First
World War flying aces and interestingly, has roots in Norfolk County – in the
village of Lynedoch. A fascinating fact my Executive Assistant Bobbi Ann Brady
stumbled upon.
To learn more about this hero, I visited Mount Pleasant Cemetery while working at
Queen’s Park. A plaque on his tomb was officially unveiled September 2011, and
describes Barker as “The most decorated war hero in the history of Canada, the
British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations.”
Much the same is stated in Ottawa’s Canadian War Museum: “Lieutenant Colonel William
G. Barker, one of the legendary aces of the war, remains the most decorated Canadian
in military service.”
After enlisting at age 20 in 1914, Barker returned to Canada in May 1919 with the
Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the Military Cross and two
Bars, two Italian Silver Medals for Military Velour, and the French Croix de guerre.
Barker’s feats are legendary. He could hit anything that moved and had an easy-going
but reckless spirit. Historians note the deadlier the war got the better Barker
became. During his service, Barker downed 50 enemy aircraft, and in his last 12
months of combat, not one pilot under his command was lost. On October 27, 1918,
Barker was wounded three times but managed to shoot down three enemy aircraft before
crash landing.
No other Canadian warrior has surpassed Barker’s record. While the name Billy Bishop
remains synonymous with WWI, Barker’s accomplishments are often forgotten. While
they did not serve together, Bishop described Barker as “the deadliest air fighter
who ever lived,” and the two were good friends. Bishop kept Barker’s story alive in
every speech, news article and book often referencing the frontier childhood he had
growing up in Manitoba where he spent his days riding horses and hunting birds.
Barker’s exploits earned him celebrity status upon his return home. Bishop and
Barker formed various companies and co-founded Canada’s first commercial airline.
The pair also launched the Canadian International Air Show at Canadian National
Exhibition (CNE). In 1927, Conn Smythe, also a flyer in WWI, named Barker the first
President of the newly-christened Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team.
Barker also married Bishop’s cousin Jean Kilbourn Smith. In 1924, the couple
arrived at Lynedoch, Haldimand-Norfolk, to grow tobacco. Although I don’t know the
location of the farm, if anyone reading knows, please advise.
Sadly, Barker suffered permanent physical damage in his legs and left arm from the
war, and in the last few years before his tragic death, he struggled with
alcoholism. Barker died in 1930, at the age of 35, when he lost control of his
biplane trainer during a flight demonstration for the Royal Canadian Air Force
(RCAF), near Ottawa.
Barker’s state funeral was the largest in Toronto history with 50,000 attending,
including political and military leaders and an honour guard of 2,000.
As time marches on, it’s important we continue to share stories of our Canadian war
heroes. Their overseas service was just part of the sacrifice they made for you and
me, as when they returned home they were forever changed – a personal haunting we
will never know.
Toby Barrett MPP for Haldimand-Norfolk
He received his first MC doing aerial photography.
In July of that year, he recorded his first victory, driving down a German scout airplane using his observer's gun.
At the beginning of 1917, he was sent to flying school for four weeks' instruction to become a pilot. Promoted to flying officer in February 1917, Barker returned to the Western Front again in two-seater reconnaissance airplanes (the B.E.2 and the R.E.8), but this time seated in the front pilot's seat. Three months later, he was promoted to captain and given command of a flight of airplanes (four to six aircraft).
After being wounded in August 1917, he was transferred back to England to become a flight instructor.
Hating his new job, he quickly got himself reassigned to active duty in France, though not before getting into trouble doing acrobatics over London.
Barker began flying the Sopwith Camel, a single seater fighter, armed with twin synchronized machine guns. It proved to be a lethal combination of man and machine. Flying the highly manoeuvrable though temperamental Camel, Barker could fully exploit his skills as a marksman. Shortly after his return to France in late October he officially became an ace, downing his fifth German airplane, a German Albatros D.III fighter. Other "kills" quickly followed.
Barker's Sopwith Camel, serial number B6313, was to become the most successful fighter airplane in British history.
When his squadron was transferred to the Italian Front in late 1917, Barker took aim at Austrian air force. By April 1918, he had twenty-two victories. He also earned a reputation for taking down observation balloons, a deadly enterprise since the balloons were heavily protected by anti-aircraft guns.
In July, he was promoted to major and given command of the No. 139 Squadron.
Although the squadron flew the two-seater Bristol F.2b fighter and reconnaissance aircraft (also known as the "Brisfit"), Barker continued to prefer flying his cherished Sopwith Camel. When the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) visited the squadron in the summer of 1918, Barker took him aloft in a Brisfit, with the prince occupying the rear observer's seat. Barker flew the prince deep into enemy territory before returning to the Allied lines. Fortunately, although they encountered anti-aircraft fire from the ground, no Austrian airplane went up to challenge them.
By September 1918, he was a highly-decorated ace with at least forty-six victories to his credit.
Even more to his credit was the incredible achievement of not losing a single pilot or airplane under his escort during the previous year of active duty.
Ordered back to England to take command the flight school at Hounslow, Barker's greatest exploit, for which he was to earn the Victory Cross, was yet to come.
Arguing that he needed to reacquaint himself with the Western Front to do his job properly, he obtained a 10-day roving commission in France. On 27 October 1918, on the last day of his commission and only two weeks prior to the end of the war, he encountered a German reconnaissance airplane over the Forêt de Mormal while flying the new Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe.
Although Barker managed to down the two-seater craft, he made a rookie mistake and was caught unaware by a German fighter that had sneaked up behind him. He only found out that he was being pursued when his right leg was shattered by a bullet. Despite the pain, Barker managed to circle around the Fokker DVII, and bring it down too.
From there, things only got worse. Somehow during the dog fight with the Fokker, Barker had managed to stumble into an entire "circus" of German fighters. While accounts regarding the number of enemy aircraft vary from 15 to an incredible 60, Barker was vastly outnumbered. In front of thousands of Allied soldiers Barker managed to bring down two more German fighters but not before receiving crippling wounds to his left thigh and left elbow.
His Snipe, hit repeatedly, with its fuel tank shot away, crashed behind British lines. Barker, amazingly still alive, was pulled from the wreckage by Scottish troops. On 20 November 1918, he was awarded the Victory Cross for this epic, single-handed battle, and the congratulations of his grateful Sovereign, the Prince of Wales, and Sir Robert Borden, the Canadian Premier.
In early 1919, still recovering from his wounds, Barker flew again with the Prince of Wales, taking him on a tour of London by air. Barker needed canes to walk to the aircraft, and flew with his left arm strapped to his breast. Speaking of his flight, the Prince commented, "I have enjoyed it immensely but what a sensation it is when you go over backwards."
The RAF promoted Barker to Lieutenant Colonel.
On his return to Canada later that year, Barker entered civilian aviation in partnership with Billy Bishop. Together they operated an air-charter and aircraft maintenance firm located at Armour Heights Air Field in Toronto. In 1921, Barker married Jean Smith, the cousin of Billy Bishop. Their daughter Antoinette was born in 1923.
As was the case with many early civil aviation operations, Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes failed in 1922.
Barker then joined the Canadian Airforce (CAF) and was made commanding officer of Camp Borden. Subsequently, he was made acting director of the CAF, and for a time lived in Ottawa.
In 1924, with the establishment of the Royal Canadian Air Force, he was sent to England to act as the RCAF's liaison officer with the British Air Ministry.
He later studied at the RAF Staff College at Andover and saw service with the RAF in the Middle East.
In 1926, Barker resigned his commission from the RCAF, reportedly because he didn't get along with his commanding officer.
For a time, he operated a tobacco farm owned by his father-in-law, Horace B. Smith. This did not go well.
In 1927, Conn Smythe, the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs (himself a former RAF pilot), made Barker the team's first president. But civilian life did not come easy to the war hero. Like many veterans, he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. For a time, he turned to alcohol to quell his demons. His family life suffered.
In early 1930, things finally looked like they were turning around for him. He had just landed the job of vice president and general manager of the Fairchild Aviation Company of Canada in Montreal. The day of his death, he was in Ottawa to help sell the company's new trainer airplane, the two-person, Fairchild KR-21B biplane, to the Department of National Defence.
Wednesday, March 12, 1930, was a typical, late winter day in Ottawa. Weather conditions were good, with the wind out of the west, and a high temperature of 7 C.
The Fairchild trainer was flown from Montreal to the Rockcliffe aerodrome in the morning by Captain Donald Shaw, the Fairchild Company's test pilot. The trip was uneventful, with the airplane performing as it should. Shortly before 1 p.m., William Barker, who had travelled to Ottawa by train, decided to take the airplane up for a spin. He had never flown that model aircraft before but liked to take every opportunity to fly to maintain his competency. Apparently, until he joined the Fairchild Aviation Company two months earlier, he had done little flying since leaving the RCAF in 1926.
Barker seated himself in the real cockpit of the small trainer with registration marking CF-AKR. He warmed up his engine, taxied into the wind, and made a perfect take-off. After circling the airfield, he flew to the north-east across the Ottawa River to the Quebec side. Turning back towards the Rockcliffe aerodrome, something went wrong.
One observer, struck by the odd manner in which the airplane was performing, claimed that he had a premonition that something was about to happen.
Flying at an altitude of only a couple of hundred feet, the aircraft swerved and then plummeted straight down into the slushy ice of the Ottawa River, roughly 100 yards from the Rockcliffe slip, close to the aerodrome.
Striking the ice nose first, Barker's aircraft crashed onto its left side. The plane was a tangled wreck. One of the blades of the propeller was sheared off on impact, while the other was broken in two. The engine was jammed back into the fuselage by the force of the crash. Only the rear of the plane and its right wing were left relatively intact. Col. Barker was found still seated in the real cockpit, but he was beyond human help. His body had been crushed on impact, his head smashed against the dashboard of his control panel.
News of the accident flashed through a stunned Capital.
Immediately the Department of National Defence established a board of inquiry to examine the cause of the fatal crash.
The Board determined that the Fairchild trainer was airworthy before the crash, that weather conditions were good, and that Col. Barker was a "commercial pilot in good standing." Other than these basic facts, Board members had to depend on unreliable eye-witness testimony to draw their conclusions. Their verdict was pilot error.
Later, there was speculation that Barker, suffering from depression, may have killed himself. But there is no evidence to support this contention.
In many respects, the reasons for the crash remain a mystery.
Col. Barker's body was conveyed by train to the home of his father-in-law at 355 St. Clair Ave. W. in Toronto, where distinguished guests and friends paid their last respects.
On the Saturday afternoon after the accident, his body was brought to Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery and was laid to rest in the Smith family mausoleum. Two thousand servicemen, representing all of the Toronto-area regiments, paraded in his honour. Immediately behind the casket walked family and friends, Ontario Premier Ferguson, Major General McNaughton, and a group of Victory Cross recipients. A warrant officer bore Col. Barker's medals on a cushion. More than 50,000 people lined the route of the funeral cortege down St. Clair Avenue to the cemetery. Overhead a flight of planes flew, each in turn swooping down to shower the procession with rose petals. At the mausoleum, Rev. Canon Broughall, rector of Grace-Church-on-the-Hill, officiated at a short service.
For decades, there was little way of a public memorial to Lieutenant- Colonel William Barker, V.C., buried as he was in the Smith family's mausoleum.
In 2011, his grandchildren righted this wrong. They erected a monument outside of the mausoleum, consisting of a bronze propeller blade rising from a granite base with a bronze picture of Barker and a plaque noting his distinction as "The most decorated war hero in the history of Canada and the British Empire." There for the official unveiling of the memorial was Barker's descendants and the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, David Onley. Overhead, two vintage planes, one of them a Sopwith Snipe, and a CF-18 fighter flew a salute while a bugler sounded The Last Post. THE END
An ace pilot during World War I, he received the Victoria Cross, the highest award in the Commonwealth for gallantry in the face of the enemy. He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Order (twice), the Military Cross (three times), the Croix de Guerre from France, and the Silver Medal for Military Valour from Italy (twice). He was additionally mentioned in dispatches three times. Active on the Western Front in France and on the Italian Front, he is credited with shooting down at least 50 enemy aircraft.
Despite being a household name 100 years ago, ranking beside his friend Billy Bishop another Canadian war ace and Victory Cross recipient, he is largely forgotten today. In part, this is likely due to his untimely death at 35 years of age in a tragic accident that occurred on March 12, 1930 in Ottawa.
An ace pilot during World War I, he received the Victoria Cross, the highest award in the Commonwealth for gallantry in the face of the enemy. He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Order (twice), the Military Cross (three times), the Croix de Guerre from France, and the Silver Medal for Military Valour from Italy (twice). He was additionally mentioned in dispatches three times. Active on the Western Front in France and on the Italian Front, he is credited with shooting down at least 50 enemy aircraft.
Despite being a household name 100 years ago, ranking beside his friend Billy Bishop another Canadian war ace and Victory Cross recipient, he is largely forgotten today. In part, this is likely due to his untimely death at 35 years of age in a tragic accident that occurred on March 12, 1930 in Ottawa.
businessman; b. 3 Nov. 1894 in Dauphin, Man.,
son of George William John Barker, a
Jane Victoria Alguire; m. 1 June 1921 Jean Kilbourn Smith, and they had one daughter; d. 12 March 1930 in Rockcliffe (Ottawa) and was interred in the Mount Pleasant Mausoleum, Toronto.
The eldest of nine surviving children, William Barker was born in a log house on the family farm and was educated at schools in or near Dauphin and Russell, Man. His sister Edna remembered Willie as a boy with innate poise and self-confidence as well as an intense personality. As a teenager he displayed all the qualities that would later make him an exceptional military pilot. He was a kinaesthetic young man, attracted to risk, yet possessed of an analytical and independent mind. Gifted with exceptional eyesight, he was adept at shooting and was a skilled horseback rider.
He served in the militia with the 32nd (Manitoba) Horse in 1913.
After the outbreak of World War I, Barker, in his final year of high school at Dauphin Collegiate,
volunteered for the Canadian Expeditionary Force,
enlisting as a trooper in the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles Regiment on 1 Dec. 1914. He trained as a machine-gunner and arrived in the United Kingdom in June 1915. About 26 September his regiment entered the Ypres (Ieper) salient in Belgium, where he served until late February 1916.
Weary of trench life, Barker
volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps as a gunner;
he received four weeks of field training with 9 Squadron.
He was commissioned a temporary second lieutenant on 2 April 1916
and then joined 4 Squadron as an observer,
undertaking artillery cooperation and photographic and visual reconnaissance for ground troops.
In July he was transferred to 15 Squadron.
Four months later he and his pilot received the Military Cross for their superior work in support of an assault on Beaumont-Hamel (Beaumont), France.
In December he was sent to England for pilot training.
Barker completed all flying and ground school training in the brief period of four weeks,
was graded a flying officer on 14 Feb. 1917,
and returned to 15 Squadron.
By the end of May he had been promoted captain and given command of C Flight, and
had received a bar to his Military Cross.
Wounded by artillery fire in August, he was sent to England for a rest as an instructor.
With no enthusiasm for teaching novices, Barker frequently disobeyed regulations and on at least one occasion performed a low-level aerobatic display over Piccadilly Circus in London.
He was transferred to 28 Squadron on 29 September and flew to France on 10 October. By the end of October he had logged at least 35 hours in combat in his Sopwith Camel, B6313, and was credited with destroying three enemy aircraft.
Barker’s squadron was one of several units transferred to northern Italy in late October.
On Christmas Day he and Lieutenant Harold Byrne Hudson completed an impromptu low-level attack against a German aerodrome, probably at San Fior, setting fire to one hangar and damaging four aircraft.
In January 1918 he and Hudson were reprimanded by the commanding officer of 14 Wing for their successful but unauthorized attacks against enemy kite balloons. As a result of, or perhaps despite, his unauthorized patrols, Barker was awarded the Distinguished Service Order; the citation noted that “his splendid example of fearlessness and magnificent leadership have been of inestimable value to his squadron.” In March he received a second bar to his Military Cross “for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty.”
By the time he joined 66 Squadron on 10 April, Barker had 22 victories.
As commander of its C Flight, he would be credited with another 16.
In May 1918 Barker received the French Croix de Guerre. He was promoted temporary major in July and given command of 139 Squadron, equipped with two-seat Bristol Fighters. Unhappy with this aircraft, he was allowed to keep B6313 and added 8 more victories, bringing
his total to 46, a unique achievement by one pilot with one machine. British historians would call B6313 “the single most successful fighter aircraft” in the history of the Royal Air Force.
On the night of 9–10 August, Barker and Captain William Wedgwood Benn dropped an Italian army agent by parachute behind enemy lines. For this flight Barker received the Silver Medal for Military Valour, one of Italy’s highest military decorations. That same month he was awarded a bar to his DSO. Remarkably, in over 12 months of scout operations, from 9 or 10 Oct. 1917 to 27 Oct. 1918, he had never had a wingman killed in action and no aircraft he escorted had been shot down.
Prior to taking up a new command in late October, Barker was permitted to fly anywhere in France for a ten-day roving commission. He selected a Sopwith Snipe, E8102, and attached himself to 201 Squadron. On 27 October he attacked and shot down a German two-seater at around 22,000 feet and, in turn, was attacked by about 15 Fokker D-VIIs. He was wounded three times, but also shot down three more enemy aircraft. Bleeding profusely and barely conscious, he managed to crash-land and was evacuated to a field hospital. Awarded the Victoria Cross on 30 Nov. 1918, Barker now had 50 victories to his credit. Italy later conferred a second Silver Medal on him. While he struggled for survival in a French hospital, the Canadian Daily Record (London, England) declared that he held
“the record among Canadians for fighting decorations won during the war.”
Barker’s wounds would cause him considerable physical and emotional pain for the remainder of his life. His legs were damaged and his left elbow was destroyed, effectively turning him into a one-armed pilot. While recovering in London, he met fellow VC recipient William Avery Bishop*. After the end of the war and Barker’s release from hospital in April 1919, the two men first founded Bishop-Barker Company Limited in Ontario and then, in November 1919, a Toronto-based air charter and aircraft maintenance and sales firm, Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes Limited. Around this period they established an American importing firm, Interallied Aircraft Corporation, in New York City.
Barker tackled civil aviation with the same intensity he had shown in combat. Between 23 Aug. and 6 Sept. 1919 he led an aerial display team at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, the first occasion on which formation flying was performed in Canada for a non-military audience.
On 25–27 August he participated in an air race from Toronto to New York and back, becoming the first Canadian pilot to carry international airmail. He flew the first commercial cargo between the United States and Canada, from New York City via Montreal to Toronto in January 1921.
A commercial failure, like many other flying companies of this period, Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes ceased flying operations in 1922. On 3 June Barker was commissioned a wing commander in the Canadian Air Force, which had been created two years earlier [see Sir Willoughby Garnons Gwatkin]. His first permanent posting was as the commanding officer of the air station at Camp Borden, where he served from 1 Nov. 1922 to 15 Jan. 1924. He would be remembered for his highly innovative ideas and experiments in aircraft armament. He was then transferred to Ottawa and in mid February assumed the highest position within the CAF, acting director. He held this post on 1 April 1924, when the CAF was disbanded and the Royal Canadian Air Force was officially born [see Sir James Howden MacBrien*]. The following month he was posted to England as the RCAF’s representative to the British Air Ministry. As a liaison officer, Barker witnessed RAF operations in Iraq in the spring of 1925 and in May he began advanced studies at the Royal Air Force Staff College in Andover; he graduated in March 1926.
Barker returned to Canada knowing that he would have to serve under Group Captain James Stanley Scott, the director of the RCAF and an officer he did not respect. Unwilling to compromise, he submitted his resignation in August 1926. He had struggled with the usual adjustments to civilian life of any wounded veteran and especially with the burden of being a much decorated hero. In these last years of his life he also suffered from alcoholism and possibly from post-traumatic stress disorder.
In 1927 the Toronto Maple Leafs’ manager, Constantine Falkland Cary (Conn) Smythe*, a former RAF pilot, had Barker appointed the first president of the hockey club, a symbolic gesture to help raise the losing team’s profile. Smythe, a teetotaller, had no appreciation of the emotional challenges Barker faced and no sympathy for alcohol abuse; this situation led to public embarrassment for both men. Barker was also appointed general manager of an Ontario tobacco-growing company owned by his wife’s father, Horace Bruce Smith. Oddly, Barker was a non-smoker with an antipathy to farming. As a sinecure offered by an unsympathetic father-in-law, the tobacco job was unrewarding, if not humiliating.
A much better post, suited to Barker’s natural talents and experience, was secured when Fairchild Aircraft Limited of Canada in Montreal hired him in January 1930 as vice-president and general manager. While demonstrating a new biplane trainer, the Fairchild KR-21, at the RCAF air station in Rockcliffe, he lost control of the aircraft at the apex of a steep climb and was instantly killed when the aircraft struck the ice on the Ottawa River. His state funeral, held in Toronto on 15 March, included political and military leaders, six VC recipients, and an honour guard of 2,000 men.
On 6 June 1931 an airport in Toronto was renamed Barker Field in his memory and Bishop lauded his friend both then and later as “the deadliest air fighter that ever lived.” Author Ernest Hemingway had another point of view. In a short story published in 1936, “The snows of Kilimanjaro,” he portrayed Barker as a “bloody murderous bastard.” Barker’s character was in keeping with the tradition of the larger-than-life hero. He was driven above all else to excel – to be a figurehead was anathema to him. Because of his untimely death many of his war and post-war achievements would later be overlooked and he would be overshadowed by Bishop, who lived to 1956. The RCAF picked Barker as one of its role models for the recruitment of a new generation of flyers during World War II, but afterwards his legend, well known in Great Britain and the United States, faded in Canada. Few Canadians are aware that he was, and still is, Canada’s most decorated war hero.
Another problem Britain inherited with its war declaration was its lack of physical space for airfields, factories, training centres and military airport areas. If Britain were to create the space required it would have to rely on its ‘possessions’ such as Australia, New Zealand, India, Newfoundland and Canada. These countries would make it or break it for Britain’s war effort. Gone were the days when Britain alone ruled the waves or anyplace except British storytelling. Its former colonies were gaining independence, so negotiations, cooperation and enticement were tactics mandatory to get pilots trained and in the air.
Even before August 4 it was widely known that the First Lord of the Admiralty was unimpressed with airships. He, Sir Winston Churchill, also believed Germany would surrender before the end of 2015. Underestimations and poor foresight were compounding problems which demanded urgent solutions. Politics and war were always inseparable. Wise people knew that political attitudes needed some adjusting.
Britain’s former ‘colonies’ included the second largest country in the world: Canada. As a young ‘possession’ of Britain, it had nearly eight million people, most of whom had British heritage. A key military requirement of Britain was dozens of squadrons. The political leadership wondered how and where it could recruit, form, and train such huge numbers of pilots. Highly creative minds in British military leadership knew that ‘The Empire’ contained some young, eager pilots and those willing to be trained to fly. The strategy for getting this training done abroad must have been a logistical nightmare.
When, in the summer of 1908, Wilbur Wright made over a hundred flights in France Canadian headlines about these mysterious flying machines may have sparked thoughts such as there must be something to this flying thing rumour. General knowledge about aeroplanes and flying was starting to increase and the enigmatic nature of flying was disappearing on some fronts. The British War Office had more than a dozen planes before 1909 and Canada lagged far behind. American and European exploits, experiments, trials, and serious research was taking off. Serious money by governments of Europe and private entrepreneurs was being poured into this new possibility. Canadian men who dreamed of skyward bound adventures had to go elsewhere at this time before the Great War.
Chapter 2. Early Flight Training
The need for Canadian airmen would not be fully appreciated until the summer of 1916.
About a decade after the first flight of the Kitty Hawk, the first engine-powered airplane flights in the USA, France and Britain were found to be indispensable. More flight advances would take several years to attain. Thousands of specialized warplanes and highly trained pilots in such things as engine maintenance, map reading, navigation and instrument reading were a long way off as soldiers and pilots lost their lives in desperation, obedience, and willingness to take risks.
Early flight training in England can be compared to early education methods of the 18th century: rudimentary, lacking quality and in need of developmental strategical insight. Also, the British bias toward men not ‘born and bred’ in England, were inferior simply because they were from ‘the colonies’. These attitudes needed adjustment if flight training was to get off the ground.
While ‘training’ Canadian pilots to fly in England, at first, meant teaching them what not to do. As the war progressed training methods changed. “Earlier, pupils had been simply warned to avoid spins; those of 1918 were taught how to get into a spin and then recover from it,” “In 1917-1918 the Royal Flying Corps (Canada) produced thousands of pilots, observers and technicians at bases on southern Ontario. Some of these later helped found the RCAF, others put commercial aviation in Canada on its feet.” These pioneers shone in their effort to find solutions to problems being created by war.
British expertise in racing engines was developing rapidly and entrepreneurs and investors such as Sopwith and McCurdy helped revolutionize British aeronautics. Engines originally designed for racing cars were quickly adapted to aircraft, including the Avro 504 and the Sopwith Tabloid. People with vision saw that aircraft which could fly faster and higher and defect-free.
Chapter 3. Aeronautic Development
Most of the training in Texas was done in dual control aeroplanes, with the Canadians as the instructors and the Americans as the students.
1909 was an auspicious year for controlled powered flight in Canada. Under the guidance of the inventor of the telephone, A. G. Bell, in Nova Scotia, and Canada’s first aviator, A. Douglas McCurdy, the bold and inventive pair designed the original Silver Dart on February 23rd. In Baddeck, Nova Scotia, the Aerial Experimental Association became a catalyst for experimental aeronautical engineering ideas for design and production in Canada. For Canadians, twenty-six-year-old Fredrick Walker (‘Casey’) made a flight on March 12, 1908, in Hammondsport, New York.
John McCurdy and his inventiveness helped push wireless communications for pilots when he “sent the first message from an aeroplane to be received by a ground station.” This was done four years before WW1, so the inventiveness and foresight of Canadians was at the foundation of telecommunications for aeronautics as early as 1910.
The British declaration of war was an underlying catalyst for creative minds who kept producing solutions to the many growing problems Britain and its allies faced. To take the advantage at the earliest possible stages in this war the British Admiralty found vital what no other country at war before had the capability of building: a fleet of aircraft with devoted pilots to defend itself and bring quick, accurate information on German troop movement and trench demarcation. Britain also found it essential to have pilots who could fly, observe, photograph, and return safely. Safe take-off, mechanically-error-free flights and landings in aircraft built in the first flight-experimental decade of the twentieth century were rare but getting better. Britain found it essential to have thousands of aircrafts, and many thousands of highly skilled pilots to operate them. It called for this by September 1914. It was not about to happen.
Aircraft suddenly, in a few headquarters, became vital to waging war. This critical issue had never happened before because the thinking had always been to rely solely on troops-on-the-ground or ships-at-sea. Flying anything but huge hydrogen -filled balloons as a military offense or defence strategy was out-of-the-box thinking in the lead up to WW1.
As experienced military minds and entrepreneurs and investors who could see ideas turning profit hedged their bets in the air. The success of some early pre-war flights prompted inventors and technical engineers to build engines and flying machines better, quicker, safer, lighter, more flexible and therefore more successful. As test pilots began to provide feedback on the improvements needed, year after year problems were fixed. Some of the issues included castor oil from the engine infecting the eyes of pilots and providing oxygen above ten thousand feet. “Flying in open unheated cockpits exposed men to buffeting airstream, petrol fumes, and in some machines burnt castor oil that could infect the eyes.” The extended physical ailments included, at the time, inexplicable sensation of uncomfortable tingling or prickling, usually felt in the arms, legs, hands or feet. We now know that nerve compression causes this pins-and-needles sensation. Severe problems with ears, eyes, nose, throat, sinuses, and throbbing headaches were all issues which grounded pilots. Keen eyesight, sharp hearing and proper breathing are among the top qualifiers for being a pilot in WW1. Excellent overall health is also included.
That was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Digestion, bowel, skin, kidney, cardiovascular and liver issues became internal and long-lasting problems for many pilots. Then there were the long-term psychologist effects of near-death experiences pilots in WW1 faced daily. These everyday psychological traumas would be similar to a stranger walking up to you on the sidewalk, pointing a gun at your face and firing at you several times a day. When the mind, body and soul receive severe death-facing shocks on a daily basis some people cannot take it. The constant build-up of nervous tensions would lead to the body or mind or both giving up. “Going ‘stale,’ the polite word for nervous breakdown, also entered the military language” Pilots needed to “know the score” or be totally aware of everything around them: Situation Awareness. It was a difficult skill to teach and even harder to describe. All of their faculties plus a sixth sense or intuitive sense took superb alertness. They had to have a ‘picture of the sky’ or a three-dimensional picture of the sky around them and the position, direction, altitude and owner of all aircraft. This awareness meant the pilot needed not only mental clarity but a calm, sharp reflex in every tense, death-defying flight, particularly the dogfights with enemy planes. Having this bright vigilance was the difference between an Ace and a regular pilot and a fatal crash.
As pilots became airborne, they learned very quickly the vital necessity of alertness and being aware of their surroundings for enemy aircraft, so their necks were constantly swivelling from shoulder to shoulder. These twisting movements caused their leather jackets to rub on their skin and bruise it. Wearing “the trademark silk white scarf” around their necks became the solution.
Pilots would turn to alcohol to bury their pain. The more severe the pain, the more drinking would take place since alcohol became an escape from feelings the pilots didn’t want to experience. Many wrote home about their feelings when watching the bullets they just shot, causing damage to an enemy plane and the sudden burst of flames engulf the German pilot. Being burned alive was one of WW1 pilot’s worst fears and like all combatants, pilots were haunted by death every hour of the day.
Within a year of war declaration, the British had used the RFC to drop spies behind enemy lines on the Western Front. The stealth used to drop spies behind enemy lines in France involved pilots flying a BE12a with a spy agent strapped to a lower reinforced wing with a kite balloonist parachute and release mechanism.
For civil aviation in ‘The Formative Years.’ the Canadian Government relied on cities to help with the costs of pre-war and post war aircraft. Postal service via air was experimental, sporadic and as reliable as the airplane. As technology, engine stability, speed and durability increased, so did the service. “Sponsoring was a way for Canadians on the home front to directly support the war effort. In this case, Winnipeggers were thanked by having the name of their city emblazoned in red on the side of their plane. Built in August 1917, C282 was assigned to 89 Squadron at Leaside”
Chapter 4. Zeppelin Threat
The first commandment at Beamsville Aerodrome was Major F M Ballard of London, England. “indulging in the exhilarating sport of chasing Zeppelins over London”
For much of the first two years of war, observation balloons, airships, Zeppelins, and aeroplanes were in the skies over France, Germany, and England. German Zeppelins travelled over 80km/hr, silently at night to drop tons of bombs on British citizens in their homes, munition dumps, lines of communication, shipping harbours, cities, and troop concentrations. During the war, the devastation of ghostly, midnight bombing, the British Admiralty decided to experiment with a preparedness strategy. To be well prepared, planes would ‘hang’ or be suspended from airships above London, in a ready to attack defense against the silent raid of convoys of Zeppelins. It was an experiment in futility.
While most of the conflict, England’s air war included reconnaissance airships and it felt the horror of thousands of tons of bombs being dropped on cities, silently by day or night. Dozens of German Zeppelins attacked English cities, starting within the first six month after war had been declared. Hundreds of citizens died and were wounded. WW1 had moved from the soldiers’ battlefront to the women and children left behind. These airships, powered by hydrogen, and six two hundred forty Maybach engines travelled at over one hundred km/hr.
Britain faced another huge problem if it hoped to get young, trained pilots from Canada. The attitude of the Minister of Militia and Defence was shocking, and Britain had an obligation to help it change. “‘The aeroplane is an invention of the devil’, thundered Sam Hughes, Canada’s Minister of Militia and Defence.” His outspoken misapprehension of aeroplanes was publicly declared at a time when Britain and other European countries saw the value of aeroplanes to replace the centuries-old use of surveillance balloons, airships, and Zeppelins as war weapons. Troops on the front relied on the pilots. “Work of aerial reconnaissance, and photography, artillery observations, and contact patrolling, was done by pilots and observers of the corps squadron… No. 16 Squadron, with its two-seater BE 2’s, was assigned to the Canadian Corps during the winter of 1916-1917 (and would stay with it for the duration of the war).” British Admiralty continually updated strategic maps according to feedback from the pilots’ photos.
Two years into the war, Zeppelins continued to bomb cities which raised the anger of townsfolk who expressed their frustration at the RFC which was not able to get planes off the ground fast enough to shoot down the silent, floating hell-makers. Civilian disorders like this broadcast the growing call in Britain for RFC retaliation. When pilots began shooting holes in the floating German monsters it was ineffective for destroying these huge, gas-filled monstrosities.
The Achilles heel of these silent monsters was their size and power source: hydrogen. They became easy pickings with exploding bullets which would ignite, on impact, and set the Zeppelin on fire. Such terminal ballistic technology development as shock-sensitive dynamite tipped .303 bullets caused the Germans to stop using their bomb-droppers shortly before the end of the war.
It was crucial for Britain to ward off German bomb-dropping Zeppelins which carried tons of bombs. Within a few months of war declaration those German floating bomb-carriers had wrecked havoc on British cities. Early anti-German propaganda posters in England showed the dirigibles as ‘baby killers’ and posted them going down in flames.
Chapter 5. A Winning Attitude
Only well educated, athletic and thoroughly fit men with excellent eyesight could be accepted.
Some British Admiralty had a sceptical attitude about the young airmen, early in the war, and their aircraft or ‘dangerous toy’. Such attitude quickly changed after Britain won the Battle of the Marne. Accurate reconnaissance intelligence was relayed quickly and suddenly the aeroplane proved its worth.
In less than two months of his famous ‘invention of the devil’ comment, Colonel Hughes had an apparent change of heart, attitude and behaviour about pilots and planes.
Hughes, a mercurial, effortlessly distracted army man, was easily duped by a Galt Ontario “confidence trickster,” named Edward Janney. Janney astoundingly convinced Hughes to give him “an appointment to command the Canadian Aviation Corps.” He was without a licence to fly, although in 1914 not much was required. Colonel Hughes, authorised, on September 16, 1914, “the formation of the Canadian Aviation Corps consisting of provisional commander Captain Ernest Lloyd Janney and Lieutenant William F. N. Sharpe with Staff Sergeant Harry A. Farr as mechanic.” “Neither of the officers are qualified to fly…” Colonel Hughes’ decision was the genesis of Canada’s pilot training program. Although Lt. W. Sharpe died on his first solo flight in February, the C.A.C hardly got off the ground. Nobody told Prime Minister Robert Borden about the CAC formation so on Oct. 1914 he remarked that “his government did not think it desirable to organize an air service during the war.” (Remarkably one of Canada’s most outstanding military bases is named after his cousin, Sir Fredrick William Borden)
In both England and Canada some political attitudes created drag when thrust was required. It was the forward-thinking visionaries who produced lift to the war effort in order to prevent the aeronautical ideas from crashing.
Chapter 6. Loss and Shock
Just two months before war was declared, Canadians were shocked at the loss of over one thousand passengers aboard the “Empress of Ireland, as it sinks on May 29, 1914. It collided with the steamer Storstad in the St. Lawrence River.” The additional shocking announcement of war changed the focus from mourning to excitement since most Canadians claimed British heritage at this time. Conscription created divisions in Canada, particularly with Quebec residents being against the war.
If a young Canadian man wanted to become a pilot in England, it would take a great deal of passion, drive, and a bit of money, in 1915 or 1916, a little over two years after the Titanic sank, to take, from St. John NB, Halifax NS or Quebec City, or Boston or Ellis Island (New York) a steamship like RMS Empress of Britain, RMS Carmania or RMS Aquitania to Liverpool England. The port of Quebec had just finished renovations and welcomed its first passengers at a time when, “only agriculturalists and domestics were permitted to enter Canada.” Upon arrival at Liverpool, the young Canadian who aimed at going directly into the RAF, would find his way to one of England’s few training schools such as RAF Northolt, about four km from Uxbridge, western London. Northolt is RAF’s oldest pilot training camp which opened about ten months after war was declared.
Several years after Canada’s first pilots were trained, and in the skies, huge numbers were desperately needed to pilot the aircraft being produced. Canadian recruiting propaganda included bringing its newly Victoria Cross recipient back to Canada for a tour to attract young pilots toward flying as a ‘knight of the air’
A newly licenced and trained pilot would have his aviation photography training with Southern Ontario maps tossed to the wind: he was about to learn a new terrain in England and France, whose combined size was smaller than the province of Ontario. Now he was trying to find where the heavy batteries were camouflaged since Canadian airmen, “by the end of 1916…were charged with attaining and maintaining air superiority.” From 1914 on, Canadian pilots learned about squadron formation about which the Germans had become superior by 1916.
Detling, a village in the Borough of Maidstone in Kent, Redcar, near Middlesborough or Britain’s No. 201 Squadron were among the typical groups assigned to Canadian pilots. Those who trained in the Reconnaissance Experimental No. 7, claimed it “a strange flying contraption.” Later he may train in or fly in an Avro 504 trainer, a Caudron or Sopwith triplane. The new recruit could have been placed with such men as Flight Sub-Lieutenant L.S. Breadner, E.V.Reid, or Major Donald Rodrick McLean: People of great determination, strength, courage and valour and eventually-to-become aces.
Shattered or irreparable propellors, stall on bank turns, control column (joy-stick) problems, several emergency landings, getting lost or disoriented, loss of lateral control on landing, poor weather were all part of the unbelievably short training period these pilots endured before becoming part of the training squadron in Leaside for formation flying, aerial photography and bomb dropping. Next, Beamsville Ontario training provided him with less than five days advanced gunnery and skilled photography manoeuvres prior to being posted overseas. This journey, if his ship avoided a German submarine attack, was a miserable, seasick voyage of at least fourteen days, to the RAF in Shorncliffe military camp, England, a country he heard about and was about to make his first visit.
After training in wireless, photography, navigation and observation, map reading and bombing, and technical tours of the aircraft, the pilot-in-training would learn to see how the controls of the plane operated. Cadet-observation of how the instructor flew the plane was basic to teaching methods. Watch, listen, learn, then fly. British flying instructors at the RNAS air schools believed if you can fly, you can teach anyone to fly. Many had contempt or “disdain, especially if they were from the colonies!” Students were to watch, listen and learn. Within one year of leaving Canada many pilots would be flying solo. Cadets could get under a dozen flying hours before being sent on a mission. Within two months of flying dual with an instructor for a total of less than eight hours of flight time he would take his first trepid solo.
It took Canada at least three years to establish an aviation school. With the help of Britain, the recruits began as a trickle and, over four frenzied years, turned into a torrent of passionate, qualified young pilots willing to undergo horrific life-altering trauma as an answer to Canada’s call to arms.
The same Curtis designer was responsible for the Sopwith and Jenny planes although the major differences became sharp learning curves and remained so for the typical Canadian pilot training for air warfare. The Jenny (Curtis JN-4) differed in wing-turn adaptation, to new regulations, twin syncronized engines, maneverability, and shoulder yoke controls. Although it maintained stability in the air most changed became a quick adaptation for these bright young pilots. Canadians quickly learned to fly the Sopwith Pup, one of the more famous WW1 fighter aircraft with over one thousand downed enemy planes.
In shortly less than a year after WW1 was declared, Canadian pilots were finally able to train at the Aerodrome and Flying School thanks to John A. McCurdy who managed Canada’s first aviation school, on May 20, 1915. It was established at Toronto Island for the Curtiss flying boats and Long Branch for the JN-3 land planes. The flying school was producing its own graduate pilots in less than two months.
The anti-aircraft attitude of Sam Hughes may have influenced some Canadians to be reluctant to take up flying. The apathy in Canada toward flying was another problem the British had to solve as it fended off airships, Zeppelin bomb-drops and built momentum with troops and trenches to establish lines and war boundaries. Young eager Canadian men, determined to help the war effort, began to sign up for service in the RNAS from 1914 through 1915 after transferring from the CEF. Minds may have been changed after experiencing the mud and sludge of trench fighting. This was exactly the case with a Canadian icon, Billy Bishop, who wanted a transfer to the Flying Corps. “It was the mud, I think, that made me take to flying” (William A. Bishop, Winged Warfare)
Chapter 7. Maturing of a Nation
Above the heart sinking mud of France soared the flying machine
Rumblings of dissatisfaction and malcontent toward aircraft, in both Canadian and British governments was not a good way to begin a war. Solutions to building, concurrent problems would bring cohesion and maturing for Canada.
The hardships faced by the pilots of this new industry in a nation of nearly eight million was unbelievable. Canada was forced to join a war of which most Canadians at the time were only a generation or two out of England, Ireland, or Scotland. There was no room in Canada for anti-British or anti-Imperial resistance. Being a ‘British possession’ made Canada an automatic British ally of any war England decided it to fight. The pilots went to battle in the bloodiest four-year gruelling war Canada would ever fight. For more than fifteen hundred Canadian pilots going to England for WW1, it was a one-way trip they had not planned.
In 1914 getting men and women to join the armed forces was a difficult decision. This was a time when most of western Canada was the breadbasket for the nation and farming found it obligatory for young hands to grow and bring in the crops which fed the cities.
For young men, at any age, the general attraction to seeing the ground from a bird’s eye view would be an attraction. As the thought of the possibility of gaining this world view increased, the image of adventure would have been addictive to some, romanticised by others.
Chapter 8. Conflict At Home
There was a growing protest in Canada against the war and the government debated whether to leave signing up for the war voluntary or mandatory (conscription).
In a country of about eight million people, about half a million had a telephone. Canada had the highest male to female ratio in the world (1.13 men for each female).
Some conditions were ripe for men to go to war including the fact that most people outside of the Province of Quebec was strongly British, yet few military positions were open to women.
Conflict in Canada about the war was tearing the country apart.
Putting things in perspective, today, one would imagine, going to war without any fighting aircraft would be unthinkable yet Great Britain, declared war with Germany in 1914, because Germany refused to withdraw its troops from Belgium. The first two decades of the 20th century were turbulent and include the Russian revolution, WW1, preparation for the first trans-Atlantic flight, more than fifty-million lives lost around the world to the Spanish flu, women gaining the right to vote in Canada and immense advancement in aircraft technology, much of that advancement coming from the pressures of war.
Canada was automatically at war since it was only a self-governing dominion and had no armed forces or air force. It has a close relationship with Britain, and the risk of great loss of lives was high as Britain launched the Great War. The RAF eventually had as many as twenty-five precent its total pilots from Canada. In 1914 the RAF used its aircraft to photograph enemy positions and soon became aware of the demand for increased air-ground communication and greater attack power with weapons. Within four months of war being declared, Canadian troops landed in France, but it would take many more months for pilots to be trained, both in Canada and England. For many Canadians in 1914, building an air force was absurd because myths and evil spirits were prevalent connections with flying machines. Sending a young man, who was crucial on the farm, away to an unpopular war, to fight that war in an ‘invention of the devil’ was too much to ask.
Chapter 9. Answering The Call
Canada’s population was less than eight million in 1914 and its contribution to WW1 was significant: over six hundred thousand enlisted in the “Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) for services overseas.” The CEF grew in numbers and leadership over the next four years.
The Dominion of Canada kept increasing its contributions to this complex war and created the Canadian Corps almost within a year of Britain’s declaration of war. The Canadian Corps was a unique, cohesive, “operational and administrative grouping of most Canadian fighting units.” As the war progressed, the Corps was commanded by “British Lieutenant-General Sir E.A.H. Alderson and, from May 1916 to June 1917, by British Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng,” after which only Canadian leadership ruled the Corps. Throughout the war no Canadians who served as pilots in the RAF saw a rank above Group level. Even when there was forty percent Canadian aircrew in an RFC/RAF Italian Expeditionary Force of Camel pilots from Canada, Lieutenant Colonel William Barker was the most experienced and most qualified to lead, there were “no Canadian commanding officers.”
A silent, cohesive bond was about to happen; over six hundred and fifty thousand men and women left for the war as Newfoundlanders, Quebecers, or Albertans and those who returned, did so, as proud Canadians. An invisible national identity spread across the provinces as transportation and communications opened up and brought a maturing change. The divisions of going to war drought back from the war the unification of a country. In 1914 those who were against the war required convincing of it importance. In 1918 Canadians rejoiced at our victory and contributions which went along with our collective sacrifice.
The Kitty Hawk was first successfully flown just eleven years prior to the declaration of war, so just a few of the dozens of countries involved in the war were producing first generation aircraft. During the air battles from 1914-1916, before the US entered WW1, while on reconnaissance missions over the trench lines, pilots in early warplanes would fire their revolvers at the enemy when their aircraft lacked a propeller interrupter gear or a machine gun that was synchronized with the propeller. These rudimentary flying machines were clearly in the developmental and experimental stage. The open cockpits and simple places for single pilots who suffered frost bite at high altitudes and wasn’t constructed to use the heat from the motor to warm up the cockpit. Flight path, calculated on a school atlas map forced highly creative skills from these young pilots. Stories abound about pilots getting lost, and landing in an open field, to ask for directions.
Chapter 10. Providing Solutions
It was hoped that Canada’s first plane would help its army overseas.
About three years before the war the Vickers Shipbuilding company of England formed the Vickers Ltd Aviation Department. By 1915 Vickers designed and built the prototype for the Vickers Vimy in less than six months. Throughout the war, Vickers Ltd produced, “Vickers FB.5 Gunbus Britain’s first practical fighting aircraft which proved highly successful in World War 1.” With its Royal Royce Eagle engine, it weighed in at slightly over three thousand kilograms and had a range of slightly over one thousand kilometres at around one hundred and sixty kilometres per hour. Today this would get you from Toronto to Fredericton in about six hours. The Vickers F.B series continued until 1917 when the Vampire, Vimy, Valentia and Viking followed almost a year apart.
“In August 1918 Britain’s Air Ministry proposed a modest plan for an organization designated No. 1 Wing to comprise two Canadian squadrons – one with fighters, one with bombers. On September 19 Ottawa approved this and the Canadian Air Force (England) was born.”
Most of the more than one hundred and seventy Ace Canadian pilots of WW1 had a typical preparation at the Canadian Training Squadron, and throughout WW1 more than twenty-thousand pilots served in the Imperial Flying Services, the Royal Naval Air Service, Royal Flying Corps, and the Royal Air Force in England. The Burgess-Dunn float plane was used for initial training and was a pre-owned American aircraft: the first and only warplane of the CAC.
Britain’s newly formed Royal Flying Corps, in 1912, witnessed its first Sopwith company factory which lasted only eight years.* Unlike sparsely populated Canada which would wait another three years to host McCurdy’s small JN-4 manufacturing plant in Toronto. Vickers Ltd., a British company, had a branch in Canada which became Canada’s first and only aeronautics company a year earlier. It was not until 2015 that McCurdy’s flying school was established on Toronto’s Strachan Avenue.
There is evidence that some forward-thinking industrialists saw air passenger travel as the new investment tool in their portfolio. Envisioning air transport, was an easy step if capitalistic financial advantage had already been tasted.
In fact, by 1914 the CAC’s three members proved to be a false start, under secretive and misinformed circumstances.
After Curtis’s company exported about twenty float planes to Spain, the Canadian government created the Canadian Aeroplane Ltd. December 2016 until the end of WW1 Canadian Aeroplanes Limited employed over two thousand people and bult nearly three thousand JN-4 aircraft which most pilots in Canada learned to fly. This aircraft gained in popularity and dexterity. The Sopwith Snipe had doubled its speed and height and was able to make spins, loops and rolls without losing a wing or stalling. Improvements throughout the war was remarkable.
*By 1920, the Sopwith Aviation Company was unable to face the financial demands from the Governments Excess War Profits Duty and were forced into liquidation. The lease on the Ham Works was sold to Leyland Motors and other assets were disposed of. Despite this huge failing of one of the country’s largest aircraft manufacturers, T.O.M. Sopwith, Harry Hawker and Chief Designer Fred Sigrist went on to form the hugely successful HG Hawker Engineering Company which quickly acquired the Sopwith Aircraft design patents, as well as taking on the support of pre-existing Sopwith aircraft.
Chapter 6. Americans Join WW1 -April 1917
An official announcement from Ottawa on July 31, 1917 stated that 9,813 recruits had given their place of birth as the United Stated.
Chapter 7. 1917-Canadians Train Americans To Fly
Both Americans and Canadians in Texas trained in the Curtiss Canuck and this was to considered to have been the best planes used for training anywhere.
Chapter 8. Canadian Snow to Fort Worth Texas Snow.
The Royal Flying Corps wanted to escape the cold of Camp Borden winter and went to Texas, Sept 26, 1917 to have heavy snow and high winds the following day.
Chapter 9. Beamsville-Borden Training Camps
The first commandment at Beamsville Aerodrome was Major F M Ballard of London, England. “indulging in the exhilarating sport of chasing Zeppelins over London”
Chapter 11. Sopwell Contribution
The use of balloons, airships and planes for observation of enemy lines, defence positions and trench changes, as a means of artillery detection and information gathering was common after August 4, 1914. Britain needed to prevent Germany from observation and information gathering, thus having faster, more flexible turns gave greater ability to win dogfights. This need grew. Synchronised gun-equipped fighter planes were invented and used by both sides.
Aerial combat known as ‘dogfighting’ became common above France, Germany and England. The German Fokker Eindecker was its most successful fighter while England and Canada developed new air technology. The Sopwith Camel quickly became Britain’s most effective fighting plane.
Prior to the Sopwith Camel was the Sopwith Pup which started showing its wings within a year of the WW1 outbreak. In the final months of 1916, the No. 8 Squadron RNAS destroyed 20 enemy aircraft over the Somme battlefield. While the Pups proved successful, the Sopwith Pups were eventually outmatched by updated German fighters, including the Albatross D.III, prompting the development of the superior Sopwith Camel. Sharper turns, greater speed, helped the Camel attack enemy aircraft swifter and shoot them down in greater numbers.
Greater agility, heavier armaments and superior speed were the result of smart development and design for the Sopwith Camel. Designs by chief designer Herbert Smith made this new plane, dubbed the “Big Pup”, superior, despite its official designation was the Sopwith F.1. New design included a metal fairing over gun breeches, so that the guns would not freeze at high altitudes. The results were a hump shape, leading pilots to call this new aircraft the Sopwith Camel.
There were not many changes for pilots to get used to since the Camel maintained similarities to the Pup, but had a larger wooden box-like fuselage. For the interior, it had plywood panelling around the cockpit, an aluminium engine cowling, and two 7.7 mm (0.303 inch) Vickers machine guns, mounted at the front of the cockpit. These guns were synchronised to fire through the propeller. The bullets would leave the chamber when the props were not in front of the gun.. Four Cooper bombs were also included, to be used for ground attack when required.
Harry Hawker flew the first Camel prototype, powered by a 110 HP Clerget 9Z engine, on December 22nd, 1916, at Brooklands, Weybridge, Surrey. Within six months a production contract of 250 Sopwith Camels was issued by the British War Office in May 1917, with a total of 1325 produced throughout 1917. By the end of war nearly six thousand were built.
The Sopwith Camel held significant advantages over the Pup and Triplane. In fact the Camel proved to be far more difficult to fly. The tight positioning of the pilot, engine, guns, and fuel tank in the aircraft’s front seven feet created extreme manoeuvrability and demanding handling.
The Camel’s reputation as an unforgiving aircraft swiftly grew as inexperienced pilots failed to adjust to the steep learning curve. One of the major problems was that the Camel lacked a variable incidence tailplane. This meant that in order to maintain a level attitude at low altitudes, pilots had to apply constant forward pressure. The Camel could also be set up to fly hands-off at high altitudes, but stalls would instantly result in dangerous spins. The challenge of coming out of such spins depended on training and practice of making the plane go into a spin and bringing it out of the spin.
No. 4 Squadron of the RNS near Dunkirk entered the Sopwith Camel initial service in June 1917. By July, No.3 and No. 9 Naval Squadrons were equipped with Sopwith Camels, and by early 1918 it was the primary aircraft for 13 squadrons.
The Camel’s first combat flight was on June 4th, 1917. The following day Canadian WW I Ace, Major Alexander MacDonald Shook, scored the Camel’s first victory, destroying a German Albatros D.III.
Major William George “Billy” Barker, another Canadian Ace, shot down forty-six aircraft and balloons across four hundred and four operational flying hours in his Sopwith Camel, the most of any RAF fighter.
The air defence of Britain and France was a big part of the Sopwith Camel’s war effort, it played an equally important role in defending Britain from German bombers and Zeppelin air raids which cost the lives of hundreds of citizens. The Camels flew from Manston and Eastchurch airfields to counter daytime raids by German bombers. There was a public outcry about London’s poor response to night raids, so British Admiralty diverted the RFC Camels meant for the frontlines.
Navigation lights were missing from the nighttime aircraft required for nighttime defences were promptly equipped with navigation lights, while a limited number were given additional changes. The Sopwith was dubbed the ‘Comic’ after modifications were made. Right away they were modified to have their Vickers machine guns replaced with overwing Lewis guns, and their cockpits were shifted back to allow the pilot to reload.
After the British discovered the ‘exploding .303 bullets’ and following the German’s final night raid on May 20th/21st, 1918, a combined 74 Sopwith Camels and RAF S.E.5s intercepted 28 German Gothas and Zeppelin-Staaken R.VIs. This resulted in the German bombers suffering their heaviest defeat in a single night over Britain, with three bombers downed by aircraft and two more by anti-aircraft fire.
Credited with downing over a thousand enemy aircraft, the Sopwith Camel was the most successful Allied aircraft of WW1. The Camel’s involvement had a major impact on the war’s result, making it one of the most important fighter planes in history.
Chapter 12. August-September 1918 Was A Dark Month For Germans
The low strafing of German troops in surprise attacks were welcome sights to Canadian soldiers in the trenches as the war progressed. Masses of Americans flooded the battle field and hundreds of squadrons filled the air. The massive push of hundreds of thousands of troops, aircraft, tanks against the weakening German forces forced the German Kaiser to concede to the allied forces.
Chapter 13. Recognition of Greatness
The pilots who flew over enemy lines or near the deadly German howitzers, the chances of being shot down by such enemy fire was rare. Canadian soldier, Lieutenant Clifford Wells made this fact clear as he wrote praise for the Canadian pilots above him. “Usually, it takes a plane to bring down a plane.”
Camp Borden, within two years of the start of WW1 became the new Canadian Air Command training centre partly because the Canadian Forces School of Aeroscience Technology and Engineering was based there. Although the RCAF did not begin until at least six years after WW1, the Canadian Air Force of 1920 morphed into the RCAF just four years later. Naturally, Camp Borden, since the mid-WW1 creation of the RFC, is considered the cradle and birthplace of the RCAF since it can trace its roots to that ‘Land of Sand, Sin and Sorrow’. The worst part of training pilots in Camp Borden had nothing to do with deteriorating politics, money or war issues: deteriorating cold winter weather became insufferable with open cockpits. Moving all training, lock stock and barrel to Texas became the solution. Once the Americans joined WW1 this became an allied effort to beat the ‘huns’.
***Of the eighty-two flying aces who shot down more than ten enemy aircraft throughout WW1 the vast majority had achieved the rank of captain. Those with the rank of Lieutenant or Lieutenant-Colonel came a close second. Some of the outstanding flying aces include heroes like Captain Thomas Fredric Williams who eventually became a founding member of the RCAF. Three of these brave flying aces were elected to Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame: Captains Thomas Fredric Williams, Harold Anthony Oaks, and Flight Commander Wilfred Austin Curtis.
Within a year of the Great War ending, Captain Ernest Charles Hoy, who shot down thirteen enemy planes, distinguished himself by making the first airmail flight across the Rocky Mountains on August 7, 1919.
***In 1894 Lloyd Samuel Breadner was born in Carlton Place, Ontario. Before his twenty-second birthday he was part of the RNAS and stayed so throughout the war. His remarkable service earned him the rank of Air Chief Marshal before his fifty-first birthday. Eight years after his twenty-year-old son, Flying Officer Donald Lloyd Breadner died in Nova Scotia, he passed away in his sleep in 1952.
***Second Lieutenant Clennell Haggerston (Punch) Dickens is another WW1 pilot hero. At the age of ten his family moved to Edmonton from Portage la Prairie. As an adolescent at sixteen, he enlisted with the CEF infantry. The RFC, the air arm of the Britsh Army at the outbreak of the war, was his branch throughout the war. For his accomplishments he was awarded many honours including the OBE in 1935 and the Order of Canada in 1968. After the war, like many WW1 pilots, “Punch” flew northern bush planes and consulted with DeHaveland about the famous Beaver’s design and instrumentation. The Beaver became the prototype for the Otter, Caribou, Buffalo and Dash 7. After ninety-six years, Punch died as a distinguished hero among WW1 pilots in 1995.
***In 1896 an armoured ship christened HMCS Niobe, named after the daughter of Tantalus, in Greek mythology, launched a harrowing, long journey of more than a decade. In the Fall of 1910 it arrived in Halifax as the first purchase of Canada’s Naval Service Act. Able Seaman Raymond Collishaw was appointed in writing by Vice-Admiral C.E Kingsmill, Director of Naval Service, to the position of Petty Officer, but nobody told him.
Petty Officer Collishaw stayed in service on the HMCS Niobe until a year and a half after WW1 had started when the newly promoted Flight Sub-Liutenent Collishaw was sent to Ottawa to learn he was going to England aboard the luxury liner (Turkish bath and indoor swimming pool) and the fastest of ‘The Big Four’, the White Star Adriatic. In his company were others including, “Charles E. Pattison, Patrick S. Kennedy, Henry M. Hill, James A Shaw, William H. Chisam, Lloyd S. Breadner, Rober A. Campbell, Ellis Vair Reid, and William E. Robinson.”
One harrowing story exemplifies a heroic act of one of the six hundered fifty Canadian pilots serving. Collishaw was dispatched to ferry a Sopwith from Luxeuil to Ochey, France without his gunner, Portsmouth.
He strayed further east due to the prevailing westerly winds, and over Luneville he was
attacked by six enemy aircraft. Machine-gun fire from the EA passed close to his face
with one bullet smashing his goggles, spraying glass into his eyes. Collishaw could barely
see. With Portsmouth not there to protect him, Collishaw flew like a mad man, throwing
his machine all over the place, hoping to escape the deadly fire of the enemy. Blood
blurred his sight as he dove to avoid the six enemy machines. Close to ground level, he
was attacked by a German pilot who misjudged how close he was to the ground and
collided with a tree. Collishaw managed to fire at one of the Germans who took evasive
action. Suddenly, as fast as the attack happened, it was over. The enemy machines had
gotten low on fuel as Collishaw’s machine was as well. Trying to gain altitude and with
the setting sun over his left shoulder, he set a course to what he hoped would be a
friendly aerodrome….Collishaw had landed at an enemy aerodrome! Gunning his engine
to escape, he narrowly missed the trees at the end of the field. Collishaw flew on toward
the front line trenches and eventually landed at a French aerodrome near Verdun.
Sidney F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War the Official History of the Royal Canadian Volume I Air Force (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 11
Douglas H. Robinson, The Zeppelin in Combat: A History of the German Naval Airship Division 1912-1918 (London 1966), 262-3.
Brereton Greenhous, Stephen J. Harris. Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Canada Communication Group Publishing, (Ottawa, Canada, 1992)
Larry Milberry, Aviation in Canada: Evolution of an Airforce. (CANAV Books, Toronto. 2001). 22.
Brereton Greenhous, Hugh A. Halliday. Canada’s Air Forces: 1914-1999 (Art Global and the Department of National Defence. Montreal, Quebec, Canada)
Quotes by William E. Chajkowky-
The village of Beamsville, the town of Barrie, cities of Toronto and Ottawa, small and large, communities throughout Canada rejoiced at the war’s end. 115
Canada, during the first few years of the war had no airforce. 12
Above the heart sinking mud of France soared a flying machine! 12
It was hoped that Canada’s first plane would help its army overseas. 14
As early as 1915 the British had contemplated Canada as a source of recruits for her Flying Corps. 15
Only well educated, athletic and thoroughly fit men with excellent eyesight could be accepted. 17
The aeroplane upset many old ideas of Military Strategy.(Imperial Royal Flying Corps poster, Barrie recruiting office) 16
The Canadians again appeared as the answer to Britain’s needs. 19
By the summer of 1916 negotiations has started between the Canadian Government and the British Government about establishing a training school in Canada. 20.
The first aerodrome to be built in Canada would be at Camp Borden, Ontario. 24
Camp Borden became the finest camp in all of Canada - if not all of North America. 30
It was the largest flying field to be built by the British in Canada during the first Great War, and was reported to be one of the finest aviation centers in the world. 31
Air training in Canada, at first, was to be for lower training only. 36
If the timing gear slipped and the machine gun fired, the wooden propeller would be shot to pieces. 38
Each day during the cold weather, warm water was put into the engine of the plane (antifreeze was still a thing of the future)
Petroleum jelly was put on the hands and face of the pilot to prevent frost bite. 41
Wireless training began at Borden with the arrival of 16 wireless operators on April 30, 1917. 41
(Voltage used in the two countries was different so modifications must be made to all equipment from England )mm
An official announcement from Ottawa on July 31, 1917 stated that 9,813 recruits had given their place of birth as the United Stated 43
In the winter of 1917 consideration was made of transferring training to British Columbia but this changed when the Americans joined WW1 in April, 1917. 45
An official announcement from Ottawa on July 31, 1917 stated that 9,813 recruits had given their place of birth as the United Stated. 51
The Royal Flying Corps wanted to escape the cold of Camp Borden winter and went to Texas, Sept 26, 1917 to have heavy snow and high winds the following day.53
Both Americans and Canadians in Texas trained in the Curtiss Canuck and this was to considered to have been the best planes used for training anywhere. 55
The guns were synchronized with the engine, thus enabling the pilot to fire through the propeller without fear of shooting it to pieces. 57
Accidents were a common, almost every day occurrence at the flying fields in Texas. 59
During the stay of the Corps in Texas, there were 47 deaths due to aeroplane accidents, 29 deaths were Canadian. 59
Six miles from Fort Worth was a camp where pneumonia and contagious diseases killed over two hundred men with a high of twenty-eight in one day. 67
Summer of 1918 were busy months for the Air Force throughout Canada…It was announced in August that the Canadian built Avro was to replace the Curtiss. It was faster, could climb quicker and was easier to handle. 92
The first commandment at Beamsville Aerodrome was Major F M Ballard of London, England. “indulging in the exhilarating sport of chasing Zeppelins over London” 94
The Americans were very pleased at the training given by Canadians. 69
Chapter 1. Building Problems
Canada, during the first few years of the war had no airforce.
When Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, Britain required reconnaissance aircraft whose pilots would secretly photograph enemy defensive trenches in the fields below. The British Admiralty desperately wanted aerial photographs showing troop movements, new battle lines drawn by trenches of the enemy, and the heavy guns that defended those trenches. It also desperately required hundreds of Handley Page twin-engine biplane patrol bombers, to eventually replace the observation airships, dirigibles, and blimps, the first and only airborne mechanisms employed in wars for more than a century. Britain declared not just a war: it declared multiple huge, unpredicted problems which kept growing.
Another problem Britain inherited with its war declaration was its lack of physical space for airfields, factories, training centres and military airport areas. If Britain were to create the space required it would have to rely on its ‘possessions’ such as Australia, New Zealand, India, Newfoundland and Canada. These countries would make it or break it for Britain’s war effort. Gone were the days when Britain alone ruled the waves or anyplace except British storytelling. Its former colonies were gaining independence, so negotiations, cooperation and enticement were tactics mandatory to get pilots trained and in the air.
Even before August 4 it was widely known that the First Lord of the Admiralty was unimpressed with airships. He, Sir Winston Churchill, also believed Germany would surrender before the end of 2015. Underestimations and poor foresight were compounding problems which demanded urgent solutions. Politics and war were always inseparable. Wise people knew that political attitudes needed some adjusting.
Britain’s former ‘colonies’ included the second largest country in the world: Canada. As a young ‘possession’ of Britain, it had nearly eight million people, most of whom had British heritage. A key military requirement of Britain was dozens of squadrons. The political leadership wondered how and where it could recruit, form, and train such huge numbers of pilots. Highly creative minds in British military leadership knew that ‘The Empire’ contained some young, eager pilots and those willing to be trained to fly. The strategy for getting this training done abroad must have been a logistical nightmare.
When, in the summer of 1908, Wilbur Wright made over a hundred flights in France Canadian headlines about these mysterious flying machines may have sparked thoughts such as there must be something to this flying thing rumour. General knowledge about aeroplanes and flying was starting to increase and the enigmatic nature of flying was disappearing on some fronts. The British War Office had more than a dozen planes before 1909 and Canada lagged far behind. American and European exploits, experiments, trials, and serious research was taking off. Serious money by governments of Europe and private entrepreneurs was being poured into this new possibility. Canadian men who dreamed of skyward bound adventures had to go elsewhere at this time before the Great War.
Chapter 2. Early Flight Training
The need for Canadian airmen would not be fully appreciated until the summer of 1916.
About a decade after the first flight of the Kitty Hawk, the first engine-powered airplane flights in the USA, France and Britain were found to be indispensable. More flight advances would take several years to attain. Thousands of specialized warplanes and highly trained pilots in such things as engine maintenance, map reading, navigation and instrument reading were a long way off as soldiers and pilots lost their lives in desperation, obedience, and willingness to take risks.
Early flight training in England can be compared to early education methods of the 18th century: rudimentary, lacking quality and in need of developmental strategical insight. Also, the British bias toward men not ‘born and bred’ in England, were inferior simply because they were from ‘the colonies’. These attitudes needed adjustment if flight training was to get off the ground.
While ‘training’ Canadian pilots to fly in England, at first, meant teaching them what not to do. As the war progressed training methods changed. “Earlier, pupils had been simply warned to avoid spins; those of 1918 were taught how to get into a spin and then recover from it,” “In 1917-1918 the Royal Flying Corps (Canada) produced thousands of pilots, observers and technicians at bases on southern Ontario. Some of these later helped found the RCAF, others put commercial aviation in Canada on its feet.” These pioneers shone in their effort to find solutions to problems being created by war.
British expertise in racing engines was developing rapidly and entrepreneurs and investors such as Sopwith and McCurdy helped revolutionize British aeronautics. Engines originally designed for racing cars were quickly adapted to aircraft, including the Avro 504 and the Sopwith Tabloid. People with vision saw that aircraft which could fly faster and higher and defect-free.
Chapter 3. Aeronautic Development
Most of the training in Texas was done in dual control aeroplanes, with the Canadians as the instructors and the Americans as the students.
1909 was an auspicious year for controlled powered flight in Canada. Under the guidance of the inventor of the telephone, A. G. Bell, in Nova Scotia, and Canada’s first aviator, A. Douglas McCurdy, the bold and inventive pair designed the original Silver Dart on February 23rd. In Baddeck, Nova Scotia, the Aerial Experimental Association became a catalyst for experimental aeronautical engineering ideas for design and production in Canada. For Canadians, twenty-six-year-old Fredrick Walker (‘Casey’) made a flight on March 12, 1908, in Hammondsport, New York.
John McCurdy and his inventiveness helped push wireless communications for pilots when he “sent the first message from an aeroplane to be received by a ground station.” This was done four years before WW1, so the inventiveness and foresight of Canadians was at the foundation of telecommunications for aeronautics as early as 1910.
The British declaration of war was an underlying catalyst for creative minds who kept producing solutions to the many growing problems Britain and its allies faced. To take the advantage at the earliest possible stages in this war the British Admiralty found vital what no other country at war before had the capability of building: a fleet of aircraft with devoted pilots to defend itself and bring quick, accurate information on German troop movement and trench demarcation. Britain also found it essential to have pilots who could fly, observe, photograph, and return safely. Safe take-off, mechanically-error-free flights and landings in aircraft built in the first flight-experimental decade of the twentieth century were rare but getting better. Britain found it essential to have thousands of aircrafts, and many thousands of highly skilled pilots to operate them. It called for this by September 1914. It was not about to happen.
Aircraft suddenly, in a few headquarters, became vital to waging war. This critical issue had never happened before because the thinking had always been to rely solely on troops-on-the-ground or ships-at-sea. Flying anything but huge hydrogen -filled balloons as a military offense or defence strategy was out-of-the-box thinking in the lead up to WW1.
As experienced military minds and entrepreneurs and investors who could see ideas turning profit hedged their bets in the air. The success of some early pre-war flights prompted inventors and technical engineers to build engines and flying machines better, quicker, safer, lighter, more flexible and therefore more successful. As test pilots began to provide feedback on the improvements needed, year after year problems were fixed. Some of the issues included castor oil from the engine infecting the eyes of pilots and providing oxygen above ten thousand feet. “Flying in open unheated cockpits exposed men to buffeting airstream, petrol fumes, and in some machines burnt castor oil that could infect the eyes.” The extended physical ailments included, at the time, the inexplicable sensation of uncomfortable tingling or prickling, usually felt in the arms, legs, hands or feet. We now know that nerve compression causes this pins-and-needles sensation. Severe problems with ears, eyes, nose, throat, sinuses and throbbing headaches were all issues that grounded pilots. Keen eyesight, sharp hearing and proper breathing are among the top qualifiers for being a pilot in WW1. Excellent overall health is also included.
That was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Digestion, bowel, skin, kidney, cardiovascular and liver issues became internal and long-lasting problems for many pilots. Then there were the long-term psychologist effects of near-death experiences pilots in WW1 faced daily. These everyday psychological traumas would be similar to a stranger walking up to you on the sidewalk, pointing a gun at your face and firing at you several times a day. When the mind, body and soul receive severe death-facing shocks on a daily basis some people cannot take it. The constant build-up of nervous tensions would lead to the body or mind or both giving up. “Going ‘stale,’ the polite word for nervous breakdown, also entered the military language” Pilots needed to “know the score” or be totally aware of everything around them: Situation Awareness. It was a difficult skill to teach and even harder to describe. All of their faculties plus a sixth sense or intuitive sense took superb alertness. They had to have a ‘picture of the sky’ or a three-dimensional picture of the sky around them and the position, direction, altitude and owner of all aircraft. This awareness meant the pilot needed not only mental clarity but a calm, sharp reflex in every tense, death-defying flight, particularly the dogfights with enemy planes. Having this bright vigilance was the difference between an Ace and a regular pilot and a fatal crash.
As pilots became airborne, they learned very quickly the vital necessity of alertness and being aware of their surroundings for enemy aircraft, so their necks were constantly swivelling from shoulder to shoulder. These twisting movements caused their leather jackets to rub on their skin and bruise it. Wearing “the trademark silk white scarf” around their necks became the solution.
Pilots would turn to alcohol to bury their pain. The more severe the pain, the more drinking would take place since alcohol became an escape from feelings the pilots didn’t want to experience. Many wrote home about their feelings when watching the bullets they just shot, causing damage to an enemy plane and the sudden burst of flames engulf the German pilot. Being burned alive was one of WW1 pilot’s worst fears and like all combatants, pilots were haunted by death every hour of the day.
Within a year of war declaration, the British had used the RFC to drop spies behind enemy lines on the Western Front. The stealth used to drop spies behind enemy lines in France involved pilots flying a BE12a with a spy agent strapped to a lower reinforced wing with a kite balloonist parachute and release mechanism.
For civil aviation in ‘The Formative Years.’ the Canadian Government relied on cities to help with the costs of pre-war and post war aircraft. Postal service via air was experimental, sporadic and as reliable as the airplane. As technology, engine stability, speed and durability increased, so did the service. “Sponsoring was a way for Canadians on the home front to directly support the war effort. In this case, Winnipeggers were thanked by having the name of their city emblazoned in red on the side of their plane. Built in August 1917, C282 was assigned to 89 Squadron at Leaside”
Chapter 4. Zeppelin Threat
The first commandment at Beamsville Aerodrome was Major F M Ballard of London, England. “indulging in the exhilarating sport of chasing Zeppelins over London”
For much of the first two years of war, observation balloons, airships, Zeppelins, and aeroplanes were in the skies over France, Germany, and England. German Zeppelins travelled over 80km/hr, silently at night to drop tons of bombs on British citizens in their homes, munition dumps, lines of communication, shipping harbours, cities, and troop concentrations. During the war, the devastation of ghostly, midnight bombing, the British Admiralty decided to experiment with a preparedness strategy. To be well prepared, planes would ‘hang’ or be suspended from airships above London, in a ready to attack defense against the silent raid of convoys of Zeppelins. It was an experiment in futility.
While most of the conflict, England’s air war included reconnaissance airships and it felt the horror of thousands of tons of bombs being dropped on cities, silently by day or night. Dozens of German Zeppelins attacked English cities, starting within the first six month after war had been declared. Hundreds of citizens died and were wounded. WW1 had moved from the soldiers’ battlefront to the women and children left behind. These airships, powered by hydrogen, and six two hundred forty Maybach engines travelled at over one hundred km/hr.
Britain faced another huge problem if it hoped to get young, trained pilots from Canada. The attitude of the Minister of Militia and Defence was shocking, and Britain had an obligation to help it change. “‘The aeroplane is an invention of the devil’, thundered Sam Hughes, Canada’s Minister of Militia and Defence.” His outspoken misapprehension of aeroplanes was publicly declared at a time when Britain and other European countries saw the value of aeroplanes to replace the centuries-old use of surveillance balloons, airships, and Zeppelins as war weapons. Troops on the front relied on the pilots. “Work of aerial reconnaissance, and photography, artillery observations, and contact patrolling, was done by pilots and observers of the corps squadron… No. 16 Squadron, with its two-seater BE 2’s, was assigned to the Canadian Corps during the winter of 1916-1917 (and would stay with it for the duration of the war).” British Admiralty continually updated strategic maps according to feedback from the pilots’ photos.
Two years into the war, Zeppelins continued to bomb cities which raised the anger of townsfolk who expressed their frustration at the RFC which was not able to get planes off the ground fast enough to shoot down the silent, floating hell-makers. Civilian disorders like this broadcast the growing call in Britain for RFC retaliation. When pilots began shooting holes in the floating German monsters it was ineffective for destroying these huge, gas-filled monstrosities.
The Achilles heel of these silent monsters was their size and power source: hydrogen. They became easy pickings with exploding bullets which would ignite, on impact, and set the Zeppelin on fire. Such terminal ballistic technology development as shock-sensitive dynamite tipped .303 bullets caused the Germans to stop using their bomb-droppers shortly before the end of the war.
It was crucial for Britain to ward off German bomb-dropping Zeppelins which carried tons of bombs. Within a few months of war declaration those German floating bomb-carriers had wrecked havoc on British cities. Early anti-German propaganda posters in England showed the dirigibles as ‘baby killers’ and posted them going down in flames.
Chapter 5. A Winning Attitude
Only well educated, athletic and thoroughly fit men with excellent eyesight could be accepted.
Some British Admiralty had a sceptical attitude about the young airmen, early in the war, and their aircraft or ‘dangerous toy’. Such attitude quickly changed after Britain won the Battle of the Marne. Accurate reconnaissance intelligence was relayed quickly and suddenly the aeroplane proved its worth.
In less than two months of his famous ‘invention of the devil’ comment, Colonel Hughes had an apparent change of heart, attitude and behaviour about pilots and planes.
Hughes, a mercurial, effortlessly distracted army man, was easily duped by a Galt Ontario “confidence trickster,” named Edward Janney. Janney astoundingly convinced Hughes to give him “an appointment to command the Canadian Aviation Corps.” He was without a licence to fly, although in 1914 not much was required. Colonel Hughes, authorised, on September 16, 1914, “the formation of the Canadian Aviation Corps consisting of provisional commander Captain Ernest Lloyd Janney and Lieutenant William F. N. Sharpe with Staff Sergeant Harry A. Farr as mechanic.” “Neither of the officers are qualified to fly…” Colonel Hughes’ decision was the genesis of Canada’s pilot training program. Although Lt. W. Sharpe died on his first solo flight in February, the C.A.C hardly got off the ground. Nobody told Prime Minister Robert Borden about the CAC formation so on Oct. 1914 he remarked that “his government did not think it desirable to organize an air service during the war.” (Remarkably one of Canada’s most outstanding military bases is named after his cousin, Sir Fredrick William Borden)
In both England and Canada some political attitudes created drag when thrust was required. It was the forward-thinking visionaries who produced lift to the war effort in order to prevent the aeronautical ideas from crashing.
Chapter 6. Loss and Shock
Just two months before war was declared, Canadians were shocked at the loss of over one thousand passengers aboard the “Empress of Ireland, as it sinks on May 29, 1914. It collided with the steamer Storstad in the St. Lawrence River.” The additional shocking announcement of war changed the focus from mourning to excitement since most Canadians claimed British heritage at this time. Conscription created divisions in Canada, particularly with Quebec residents being against the war.
If a young Canadian man wanted to become a pilot in England, it would take a great deal of passion, drive, and a bit of money, in 1915 or 1916, a little over two years after the Titanic sank, to take, from St. John NB, Halifax NS or Quebec City, or Boston or Ellis Island (New York) a steamship like RMS Empress of Britain, RMS Carmania or RMS Aquitania to Liverpool England. The port of Quebec had just finished renovations and welcomed its first passengers at a time when, “only agriculturalists and domestics were permitted to enter Canada.” Upon arrival at Liverpool, the young Canadian who aimed at going directly into the RAF, would find his way to one of England’s few training schools such as RAF Northolt, about four km from Uxbridge, western London. Northolt is RAF’s oldest pilot training camp which opened about ten months after war was declared.
Several years after Canada’s first pilots were trained, and in the skies, huge numbers were desperately needed to pilot the aircraft being produced. Canadian recruiting propaganda included bringing its newly Victoria Cross recipient back to Canada for a tour to attract young pilots toward flying as a ‘knight of the air’
A newly licenced and trained pilot would have his aviation photography training with Southern Ontario maps tossed to the wind: he was about to learn a new terrain in England and France, whose combined size was smaller than the province of Ontario. Now he was trying to find where the heavy batteries were camouflaged since Canadian airmen, “by the end of 1916…were charged with attaining and maintaining air superiority.” From 1914 on, Canadian pilots learned about squadron formation about which the Germans had become superior by 1916.
Detling, a village in the Borough of Maidstone in Kent, Redcar, near Middlesborough or Britain’s No. 201 Squadron were among the typical groups assigned to Canadian pilots. Those who trained in the Reconnaissance Experimental No. 7, claimed it “a strange flying contraption.” Later he may train in or fly in an Avro 504 trainer, a Caudron or Sopwith triplane. The new recruit could have been placed with such men as Flight Sub-Lieutenant L.S. Breadner, E.V.Reid, or Major Donald Rodrick McLean: People of great determination, strength, courage and valour and eventually-to-become aces.
Shattered or irreparable propellors, stall on bank turns, control column (joy-stick) problems, several emergency landings, getting lost or disoriented, loss of lateral control on landing, poor weather were all part of the unbelievably short training period these pilots endured before becoming part of the training squadron in Leaside for formation flying, aerial photography and bomb dropping. Next, Beamsville Ontario training provided him with less than five days advanced gunnery and skilled photography manoeuvres prior to being posted overseas. This journey, if his ship avoided a German submarine attack, was a miserable, seasick voyage of at least fourteen days, to the RAF in Shorncliffe military camp, England, a country he heard about and was about to make his first visit.
After training in wireless, photography, navigation and observation, map reading and bombing, and technical tours of the aircraft, the pilot-in-training would learn to see how the controls of the plane operated. Cadet-observation of how the instructor flew the plane was basic to teaching methods. Watch, listen, learn, then fly. British flying instructors at the RNAS air schools believed if you can fly, you can teach anyone to fly. Many had contempt or “disdain, especially if they were from the colonies!” Students were to watch, listen and learn. Within one year of leaving Canada many pilots would be flying solo. Cadets could get under a dozen flying hours before being sent on a mission. Within two months of flying dual with an instructor for a total of less than eight hours of flight time he would take his first trepid solo.
It took Canada at least three years to establish an aviation school. With the help of Britain, the recruits began as a trickle and, over four frenzied years, turned into a torrent of passionate, qualified young pilots willing to undergo horrific life-altering trauma as an answer to Canada’s call to arms.
The same Curtis designer was responsible for the Sopwith and Jenny planes although the major differences became sharp learning curves and remained so for the typical Canadian pilot training for air warfare. The Jenny (Curtis JN-4) differed in wing-turn adaptation, to new regulations, twin syncronized engines, maneverability, and shoulder yoke controls. Although it maintained stability in the air most changed became a quick adaptation for these bright young pilots. Canadians quickly learned to fly the Sopwith Pup, one of the more famous WW1 fighter aircraft with over one thousand downed enemy planes.
In shortly less than a year after WW1 was declared, Canadian pilots were finally able to train at the Aerodrome and Flying School thanks to John A. McCurdy who managed Canada’s first aviation school, on May 20, 1915. It was established at Toronto Island for the Curtiss flying boats and Long Branch for the JN-3 land planes. The flying school was producing its own graduate pilots in less than two months.
The anti-aircraft attitude of Sam Hughes may have influenced some Canadians to be reluctant to take up flying. The apathy in Canada toward flying was another problem the British had to solve as it fended off airships, Zeppelin bomb-drops and built momentum with troops and trenches to establish lines and war boundaries. Young eager Canadian men, determined to help the war effort, began to sign up for service in the RNAS from 1914 through 1915 after transferring from the CEF. Minds may have been changed after experiencing the mud and sludge of trench fighting. This was exactly the case with a Canadian icon, Billy Bishop, who wanted a transfer to the Flying Corps. “It was the mud, I think, that made me take to flying” (William A. Bishop, Winged Warfare)
Chapter 7. Maturing of a Nation
Above the heart sinking mud of France soared the flying machine
Rumblings of dissatisfaction and malcontent toward aircraft, in both Canadian and British governments was not a good way to begin a war. Solutions to building, concurrent problems would bring cohesion and maturing for Canada.
The hardships faced by the pilots of this new industry in a nation of nearly eight million was unbelievable. Canada was forced to join a war of which most Canadians at the time were only a generation or two out of England, Ireland, or Scotland. There was no room in Canada for anti-British or anti-Imperial resistance. Being a ‘British possession’ made Canada an automatic British ally of any war England decided it to fight. The pilots went to battle in the bloodiest four-year gruelling war Canada would ever fight. For more than fifteen hundred Canadian pilots going to England for WW1, it was a one-way trip they had not planned.
In 1914 getting men and women to join the armed forces was a difficult decision. This was a time when most of western Canada was the breadbasket for the nation and farming found it obligatory for young hands to grow and bring in the crops which fed the cities.
For young men, at any age, the general attraction to seeing the ground from a bird’s eye view would be an attraction. As the thought of the possibility of gaining this world view increased, the image of adventure would have been addictive to some, romanticised by others.
Chapter 8. Conflict At Home
There was a growing protest in Canada against the war and the government debated whether to leave signing up for the war voluntary or mandatory (conscription).
In a country of about eight million people, about half a million had a telephone. Canada had the highest male to female ratio in the world (1.13 men for each female).
Conflict in Canada about the war was tearing the country apart.
Putting things in perspective, today, one would imagine, going to war without any fighting aircraft would be unthinkable yet Great Britain, declared war with Germany in 1914, because Germany refused to withdraw its troops from Belgium. The first two decades of the 20th century were turbulent and include the Russian revolution, WW1, preparation for the first trans-Atlantic flight, more than fifty-million lives lost around the world to the Spanish flu, women gaining the right to vote in Canada and immense advancement in aircraft technology, much of that advancement coming from the pressures of war.
Canada was automatically at war since it was only a self-governing dominion and had no armed forces or air force. It has a close relationship with Britain, and the risk of great loss of lives was high as Britain launched the Great War. The RAF eventually had as many as twenty-five precent its total pilots from Canada. In 1914 the RAF used its aircraft to photograph enemy positions and soon became aware of the demand for increased air-ground communication and greater attack power with weapons. Within four months of war being declared, Canadian troops landed in France, but it would take many more months for pilots to be trained, both in Canada and England. For many Canadians in 1914, building an air force was absurd because myths and evil spirits were prevalent connections with flying machines. Sending a young man, who was crucial on the farm, away to an unpopular war, to fight that war in an ‘invention of the devil’ was too much to ask.
Chapter 9. Answering The Call
Canada’s population was less than eight million in 1914 and its contribution to WW1 was significant: over six hundred thousand enlisted in the “Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) for services overseas.” The CEF grew in numbers and leadership over the next four years.
The Dominion of Canada kept increasing its contributions to this complex war and created the Canadian Corps almost within a year of Britain’s declaration of war. The Canadian Corps was a unique, cohesive, “operational and administrative grouping of most Canadian fighting units.” As the war progressed, the Corps was commanded by “British Lieutenant-General Sir E.A.H. Alderson and, from May 1916 to June 1917, by British Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng,” after which only Canadian leadership ruled the Corps. Throughout the war no Canadians who served as pilots in the RAF saw a rank above Group level. Even when there was forty percent Canadian aircrew in an RFC/RAF Italian Expeditionary Force of Camel pilots from Canada, Lieutenant Colonel William Barker was the most experienced and most qualified to lead, there were “no Canadian commanding officers.”
A silent, cohesive bond was about to happen; over six hundred and fifty thousand men and women left for the war as Newfoundlanders, Quebecers, or Albertans and those who returned, did so, as proud Canadians. An invisible national identity spread across the provinces as transportation and communications opened up and brought a maturing change. The divisions of going to war drought back from the war the unification of a country. In 1914 those who were against the war required convincing of it importance. In 1918 Canadians rejoiced at our victory and contributions which went along with our collective sacrifice.
The Kitty Hawk was first successfully flown just eleven years prior to the declaration of war, so just a few of the dozens of countries involved in the war were producing first generation aircraft. During the air battles from 1914-1916, before the US entered WW1, while on reconnaissance missions over the trench lines, pilots in early warplanes would fire their revolvers at the enemy when their aircraft lacked a propeller interrupter gear or a machine gun that was synchronized with the propeller. These rudimentary flying machines were clearly in the developmental and experimental stage. The open cockpits and simple places for single pilots who suffered frost bite at high altitudes and wasn’t constructed to use the heat from the motor to warm up the cockpit. Flight path, calculated on a school atlas map forced highly creative skills from these young pilots. Stories abound about pilots getting lost, and landing in an open field, to ask for directions.
Chapter 10. Providing Solutions
It was hoped that Canada’s first plane would help its army overseas.
About three years before the war the Vickers Shipbuilding company of England formed the Vickers Ltd Aviation Department. By 1915 Vickers designed and built the prototype for the Vickers Vimy in less than six months. Throughout the war, Vickers Ltd produced, “Vickers FB.5 Gunbus Britain’s first practical fighting aircraft which proved highly successful in World War 1.” With its Royal Royce Eagle engine, it weighed in at slightly over three thousand kilograms and had a range of slightly over one thousand kilometres at around one hundred and sixty kilometres per hour. Today this would get you from Toronto to Fredericton in about six hours. The Vickers F.B series continued until 1917 when the Vampire, Vimy, Valentia and Viking followed almost a year apart.
“In August 1918 Britain’s Air Ministry proposed a modest plan for an organization designated No. 1 Wing to comprise two Canadian squadrons – one with fighters, one with bombers. On September 19 Ottawa approved this and the Canadian Air Force (England) was born.”
Most of the more than one hundred and seventy Ace Canadian pilots of WW1 had a typical preparation at the Canadian Training Squadron, and throughout WW1 more than twenty-thousand pilots served in the Imperial Flying Services, the Royal Naval Air Service, Royal Flying Corps, and the Royal Air Force in England. The Burgess-Dunn float plane was used for initial training and was a pre-owned American aircraft: the first and only warplane of the CAC.
Britain’s newly formed Royal Flying Corps, in 1912, witnessed its first Sopwith company factory which lasted only eight years.* Unlike sparsely populated Canada which would wait another three years to host McCurdy’s small JN-4 manufacturing plant in Toronto. Vickers Ltd., a British company, had a branch in Canada which became Canada’s first and only aeronautics company a year earlier. It was not until 2015 that McCurdy’s flying school was established on Toronto’s Strachan Avenue.
There is evidence that some forward-thinking industrialists saw air passenger travel as the new investment tool in their portfolio. Envisioning air transport, was an easy step if capitalistic financial advantage had already been tasted.
In fact, by 1914 the CAC’s three members proved to be a false start, under secretive and misinformed circumstances.
After Curtis’s company exported about twenty float planes to Spain, the Canadian government created the Canadian Aeroplane Ltd. December 2016 until the end of WW1 Canadian Aeroplanes Limited employed over two thousand people and bult nearly three thousand JN-4 aircraft which most pilots in Canada learned to fly. This aircraft gained in popularity and dexterity. The Sopwith Snipe had doubled its speed and height and was able to make spins, loops and rolls without losing a wing or stalling. Improvements throughout the war was remarkable.
*By 1920, the Sopwith Aviation Company was unable to face the financial demands from the Governments Excess War Profits Duty and were forced into liquidation. The lease on the Ham Works was sold to Leyland Motors and other assets were disposed of. Despite this huge failing of one of the country’s largest aircraft manufacturers, T.O.M. Sopwith, Harry Hawker and Chief Designer Fred Sigrist went on to form the hugely successful HG Hawker Engineering Company which quickly acquired the Sopwith Aircraft design patents, as well as taking on the support of pre-existing Sopwith aircraft.
Chapter 6. Americans Join WW1 -April 1917
An official announcement from Ottawa on July 31, 1917 stated that 9,813 recruits had given their place of birth as the United Stated.
Chapter 7. 1917-Canadians Train Americans To Fly
Both Americans and Canadians in Texas trained in the Curtiss Canuck and this was to considered to have been the best planes used for training anywhere.
Chapter 8. Canadian Snow to Fort Worth Texas Snow.
The Royal Flying Corps wanted to escape the cold of Camp Borden winter and went to Texas, Sept 26, 1917 to have heavy snow and high winds the following day.
Chapter 9. Beamsville-Borden Training Camps
The first commandment at Beamsville Aerodrome was Major F M Ballard of London, England. “indulging in the exhilarating sport of chasing Zeppelins over London”
Chapter 11. Sopwell Contribution
The use of balloons, airships and planes for observation of enemy lines, defence positions and trench changes, as a means of artillery detection and information gathering was common after August 4, 1914. Britain needed to prevent Germany from observation and information gathering, thus having faster, more flexible turns gave greater ability to win dogfights. This need grew. Synchronised gun-equipped fighter planes were invented and used by both sides.
Aerial combat known as ‘dogfighting’ became common above France, Germany and England. The German Fokker Eindecker was its most successful fighter while England and Canada developed new air technology. The Sopwith Camel quickly became Britain’s most effective fighting plane.
Prior to the Sopwith Camel was the Sopwith Pup which started showing its wings within a year of the WW1 outbreak. In the final months of 1916, the No. 8 Squadron RNAS destroyed 20 enemy aircraft over the Somme battlefield. While the Pups proved successful, the Sopwith Pups were eventually outmatched by updated German fighters, including the Albatross D.III, prompting the development of the superior Sopwith Camel. Sharper turns, greater speed, helped the Camel attack enemy aircraft swifter and shoot them down in greater numbers.
Greater agility, heavier armaments and superior speed were the result of smart development and design for the Sopwith Camel. Designs by chief designer Herbert Smith made this new plane, dubbed the “Big Pup”, superior, despite its official designation was the Sopwith F.1. New design included a metal fairing over gun breeches so that the guns would not freeze at high altitudes. The results were a hump shape, leading pilots to call this new aircraft the Sopwith Camel.
There were not many changes for pilots to get used to since the Camel maintained similarities to the Pup, but had a larger wooden box-like fuselage. For the interior, it had plywood panelling around the cockpit, an aluminum engine cowling, and two 7.7 mm (0.303 inch) Vickers machine guns, mounted at the front of the cockpit. These guns were synchronized to fire through the propeller. The bullets would leave the chamber when the props were not in front of the gun.. Four Cooper bombs were also included, to be used for ground attack when required.
Harry Hawker flew the first Camel prototype, powered by a 110 HP Clerget 9Z engine, on December 22nd, 1916, at Brooklands, Weybridge, Surrey. Within six months a production contract of 250 Sopwith Camels was issued by the British War Office in May 1917, with a total of 1325 produced throughout 1917. By the end of war nearly six thousand were built.
The Sopwith Camel held significant advantages over the Pup and Triplane. In fact the Camel proved to be far more difficult to fly. The tight positioning of the pilot, engine, guns, and fuel tank in the aircraft’s front seven feet created extreme manoeuvrability, and demanding handling.
The Camel’s reputation as an unforgiving aircraft swiftly grew as inexperienced pilots failed to adjust to the steep learning curve. One of the major problems was that the Camel lacked a variable incidence tailplane. This meant that in order to maintain a level attitude at low altitudes, pilots had to apply constant forward pressure. The Camel could also be set up to fly hands off at high altitudes, but stalls would instantly result in dangerous spins. The challenge of coming out of such spins depended on training and practice of making the plane go into a spin and bringing it out of the spin.
No. 4 Squadron of the RNS near Dunkirk entered the Sopwith Camel initial service in June 1917. By July, No.3 and No. 9 Naval Squadrons were equipped with Sopwith Camels, and by early 1918 it was the primary aircraft for 13 squadrons.
The Camel’s first combat flight was on June 4th, 1917. The following day Canadian WW I Ace, Major Alexander MacDonald Shook, scored the Camel’s first victory, destroying a German Albatros D.III.
Major William George “Billy” Barker, another Canadian Ace, shot down forty-six aircraft and balloons across four hundred and four operational flying hours in his Sopwith Camel, the most of any RAF fighter.
The air defence of Britain and France was a big part of the Sopwith Camel’s war effort, it played an equally important role in defending Britain from German bombers and Zeppelin air raids which cost the lives of hundreds of citizens. The Camels flew from Manston and Eastchurch airfields to counter daytime raids by German bombers. There was a public outcry about London’s poor response to night raids, so British Admiralty diverted the RFC Camels meant for the frontlines.
Navigation lights were missing from the nighttime aircraft required for nighttime defences were promptly equipped with navigation lights, while a limited number were given additional changes. The Sopwith was dubbed the ‘Comic’ after modifications were made. Right away they were modified to have their Vickers machine guns replaced with overwing Lewis guns, and their cockpits were shifted back to allow the pilot to reload.
After the British discovered the ‘exploding .303 bullets’ and following the German’s final night raid on May 20th/21st, 1918, a combined 74 Sopwith Camels and RAF S.E.5s intercepted 28 German Gothas and Zeppelin-Staaken R.VIs. This resulted in the German bombers suffering their heaviest defeat in a single night over Britain, with three bombers downed by aircraft and two more by anti-aircraft fire.
Credited with downing over a thousand enemy aircraft, the Sopwith Camel was the most successful Allied aircraft of WW1. The Camel’s involvement had a major impact on the war’s result, making it one of the most important fighter planes in history.
Chapter 12. August-September 1918 Was A Dark Month For Germans
The low strafing of German troops in surprise attacks were welcome sights to Canadian soldiers in the trenches as the war progressed. Masses of Americans flooded the battle field and hundreds of squadrons filled the air. The massive push of hundreds of thousands of troops, aircraft, tanks against the weakening German forces forced the German Kaiser to concede to the allied forces.
Chapter 13. Recognition of Greatness
The pilots who flew over enemy lines or near the deadly German howitzers, the chances of being shot down by such enemy fire was rare. Canadian soldier, Lieutenant Clifford Wells made this fact clear as he wrote praise for the Canadian pilots above him. “Usually, it takes a plane to bring down a plane.”
Camp Borden, within two years of the start of WW1 became the new Canadian Air Command training centre partly because the Canadian Forces School of Aeroscience Technology and Engineering was based there. Although the RCAF did not begin until at least six years after WW1, the Canadian Air Force of 1920 morphed into the RCAF just four years later. Naturally, Camp Borden, since the mid-WW1 creation of the RFC, is considered the cradle and birthplace of the RCAF since it can trace its roots to that ‘Land of Sand, Sin and Sorrow’. The worst part of training pilots in Camp Borden had nothing to do with deteriorating politics, money or war issues: deteriorating cold winter weather became insufferable with open cockpits. Moving all training, lock stock and barrel to Texas became the solution. Once the Americans joined WW1 this became an allied effort to beat the ‘huns’.
***Of the eighty-two flying aces who shot down more than ten enemy aircraft throughout WW1 the vast majority had achieved the rank of captain. Those with the rank of Lieutenant or Lieutenant-Colonel came a close second. Some of the outstanding flying aces include heroes like Captain Thomas Fredric Williams who eventually became a founding member of the RCAF. Three of these brave flying aces were elected to Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame: Captains Thomas Fredric Williams, Harold Anthony Oaks, and Flight Commander Wilfred Austin Curtis.
Within a year of the Great War ending, Captain Ernest Charles Hoy, who shot down thirteen enemy planes, distinguished himself by making the first airmail flight across the Rocky Mountains on August 7, 1919.
***In 1894 Lloyd Samuel Breadner was born in Carlton Place, Ontario. Before his twenty-second birthday he was part of the RNAS and stayed so throughout the war. His remarkable service earned him the rank of Air Chief Marshal before his fifty-first birthday. Eight years after his twenty-year-old son, Flying Officer Donald Lloyd Breadner died in Nova Scotia, he passed away in his sleep in 1952.
***Second Lieutenant Clennell Haggerston (Punch) Dickens is another WW1 pilot hero. At the age of ten his family moved to Edmonton from Portage la Prairie. As an adolescent at sixteen, he enlisted with the CEF infantry. The RFC, the air arm of the Britsh Army at the outbreak of the war, was his branch throughout the war. For his accomplishments he was awarded many honours including the OBE in 1935 and the Order of Canada in 1968. After the war, like many WW1 pilots, “Punch” flew northern bush planes and consulted with DeHaveland about the famous Beaver’s design and instrumentation. The Beaver became the prototype for the Otter, Caribou, Buffalo and Dash 7. After ninety-six years, Punch died as a distinguished hero among WW1 pilots in 1995.
***In 1896 an armoured ship christened HMCS Niobe, named after the daughter of Tantalus, in Greek mythology, launched a harrowing, long journey of more than a decade. In the Fall of 1910 it arrived in Halifax as the first purchase of Canada’s Naval Service Act. Able Seaman Raymond Collishaw was appointed in writing by Vice-Admiral C.E Kingsmill, Director of Naval Service, to the position of Petty Officer, but nobody told him.
Petty Officer Collishaw stayed in service on the HMCS Niobe until a year and a half after WW1 had started when the newly promoted Flight Sub-Liutenent Collishaw was sent to Ottawa to learn he was going to England aboard the luxury liner (Turkish bath and indoor swimming pool) and the fastest of ‘The Big Four’, the White Star Adriatic. In his company were others including, “Charles E. Pattison, Patrick S. Kennedy, Henry M. Hill, James A Shaw, William H. Chisam, Lloyd S. Breadner, Rober A. Campbell, Ellis Vair Reid, and William E. Robinson.”
One harrowing story exemplifies a heroic act of one of the six hundered fifty Canadian pilots serving. Collishaw was dispatched to ferry a Sopwith from Luxeuil to Ochey, France without his gunner, Portsmouth.
He strayed further east due to the prevailing westerly winds, and over Luneville he was
attacked by six enemy aircraft. Machine-gun fire from the EA passed close to his face
with one bullet smashing his goggles, spraying glass into his eyes. Collishaw could barely
see. With Portsmouth not there to protect him, Collishaw flew like a mad man, throwing
his machine all over the place, hoping to escape the deadly fire of the enemy. Blood
blurred his sight as he dove to avoid the six enemy machines. Close to ground level, he
was attacked by a German pilot who misjudged how close he was to the ground and
collided with a tree. Collishaw managed to fire at one of the Germans who took evasive
action. Suddenly, as fast as the attack happened, it was over. The enemy machines had
gotten low on fuel as Collishaw’s machine was as well. Trying to gain altitude and with
the setting sun over his left shoulder, he set a course to what he hoped would be a
friendly aerodrome….Collishaw had landed at an enemy aerodrome! Gunning his engine
to escape, he narrowly missed the trees at the end of the field. Collishaw flew on toward
the front line trenches and eventually landed at a French aerodrome near Verdun.
Sidney F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War the Official History of the Royal Canadian Volume I Air Force (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 11
Douglas H. Robinson, The Zeppelin in Combat: A History of the German Naval Airship Division 1912-1918 (London 1966), 262-3.
Brereton Greenhous, Stephen J. Harris. Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Canada Communication Group Publishing, (Ottawa, Canada, 1992)
Larry Milberry, Aviation in Canada: Evolution of an Airforce. (CANAV Books, Toronto. 2001). 22.
Brereton Greenhous, Hugh A. Halliday. Canada’s Air Forces: 1914-1999 (Art Global and the Department of National Defence. Montreal, Quebec, Canada)
Quotes by William E. Chajkowky-
All section quotes are from William E. Chajkowsky, Royal Flying Corps: Borden To Texas To Beamsville. (The Boston Mills Press, Cheltenham, Ontario, 1979)
The village of Beamsville, the town of Barrie, cities of Toronto and Ottawa, small and large, communities throughout Canada rejoiced at the war’s end. 115
Canada, during the first few years of the war had no airforce. 12
Above the heart sinking mud of France soared a flying machine! 12
It was hoped that Canada’s first plane would help its army overseas. 14
As early as 1915 the British had contemplated Canada as a source of recruits for her Flying Corps. 15
Only well educated, athletic and thoroughly fit men with excellent eyesight could be accepted. 17
The aeroplane upset many old ideas of Military Strategy.(Imperial Royal Flying Corps poster, Barrie recruiting office) 16
The Canadians again appeared as the answer to Britain’s needs. 19
By the summer of 1916 negotiations has started between the Canadian Government and the British Government about establishing a training school in Canada. 20.
The first aerodrome to be built in Canada would be at Camp Borden, Ontario. 24
Camp Borden became the finest camp in all of Canada - if not all of North America. 30
It was the largest flying field to be built by the British in Canada during the first Great War, and was reported to be one of the finest aviation centers in the world. 31
Air training in Canada, at first, was to be for lower training only. 36
If the timing gear slipped and the machine gun fired, the wooden propeller would be shot to pieces. 38
Each day during the cold weather, warm water was put into the engine of the plane (antifreeze was still a thing of the future)
Petroleum jelly was put on the hands and face of the pilot to prevent frost bite. 41
Wireless training began at Borden with the arrival of 16 wireless operators on April 30, 1917. 41
(Voltage used in the two countries was different so modifications must be made to all equipment from England )mm
An official announcement from Ottawa on July 31, 1917 stated that 9,813 recruits had given their place of birth as the United Stated 43
In the winter of 1917 consideration was made of transferring training to British Columbia but this changed when the Americans joined WW1 in April, 1917. 45
An official announcement from Ottawa on July 31, 1917 stated that 9,813 recruits had given their place of birth as the United Stated. 51
The Royal Flying Corps wanted to escape the cold of Camp Borden winter and went to Texas, Sept 26, 1917 to have heavy snow and high winds the following day.53
Both Americans and Canadians in Texas trained in the Curtiss Canuck and this was to considered to have been the best planes used for training anywhere. 55
The guns were synchronized with the engine, thus enabling the pilot to fire through the propeller without fear of shooting it to pieces. 57
Accidents were a common, almost every day occurrence at the flying fields in Texas. 59
During the stay of the Corps in Texas, there were 47 deaths due to aeroplane accidents, 29 deaths were Canadian. 59
Six miles from Fort Worth was a camp where pneumonia and contagious diseases killed over two hundred men with a high of twenty-eight in one day. 67
Summer of 1918 were busy months for the Air Force throughout Canada…It was announced in August that the Canadian built Avro was to replace the Curtiss. It was faster, could climb quicker and was easier to handle. 92
The first commandment at Beamsville Aerodrome was Major F M Ballard of London, England. “indulging in the exhilarating sport of chasing Zeppelins over London” 94
The Americans were very pleased at the training given by Canadians. 69
