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Heroism
in the Air
Amid the squalor and death of the war on land – with its muddy battlefields
and rat-infested trenches – the war in the air, with its apparent freedom,
seemed to represent the last vestiges of the notion of the glamour of war. Air
warfare was new – the Wright brothers had flown the first aircraft in 1903
and the propeller-driven aircraft was only about a decade old when the war began.
Canada had no flight schools; no aircraft were being built in Canada. Not surprisingly,
the country had few pilots. But enthusiasm for flying was high in Canada and
by 1916, young Canadians were in the air, members of the British Royal Flying
Corps (RFC) or the Royal Naval Air Service.
In short order, Canadians, who seemed to have an aptitude for flying, would distinguish
themselves as daring and skilled pilots. Though these “knights of the air,” engaging
in brilliant and exciting dogfights, quickly became the stuff of legend, the
reality of air warfare was, in many ways, as grim as the statistics in the trenches. |
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Up against superior airplanes and more experienced pilots, the Allies suffered
terrible casualties in the battle for the skies over Europe. Most young pilots
lasted only a few weeks before being shot down, often dying in the fiery crashes.
In 1917, the average life span of a pilot in action was 45 days.
One airman who beat the odds was Raymond Collishaw. A native of Nanaimo, B.C.,
Collishaw was a sailor at heart and attempted to join the navy before landing
with the Royal Naval Air Service. Thrust into battle in 1916, Collishaw quickly
emerged as a skilled and daring pilot. He soon amassed several kills and, once
equipped with the new Sopwith Triplane (painted all black), Collishaw became
part of the much-feared Black Flight group. He was awarded the Distinguished
Service Cross in 1917 for “gallantry and skill” in all his battles
and he won the Distinguised Service Order for a July 2 battle in which he single-handedly
shot down six Albatross scouts. Officially, Collishaw is credited with 60 kills,
but some experts put his actual tally closer to 80 or more. Regardless, he was
one of Canada’s heroes |
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Curtiss JN-4 Aircraft
While much of the fighting on the Western Front was
landbased, Canadians we also trained for new airwar that broke out overhead. |
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