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William
Avery “Billy” Bishop, 1894 - 1956
Perhaps no single name is more synonymous with hero than Billy Bishop. The native
of Owen Sound, Ontario, is credited with 72 victories in the Great War, making
him the greatest Allied pilot and second only to the Baron Manfred von Richthofen
in official kills.
Bishop was a mediocre student and a discipline problem at the Royal Military
College in Kingston, Ontario. He joined the army in 1914, going over to England
as an infantryman in 1915. Bishop hated the ground war and, catching site of
a biplane in 1915, he decided to transfer to the RFC, at first as an observer.
In 1916, after a brief recuperation from pneumonia in Canada, Bishop returned
to England and took up fighter pilot training. He took to the air as a fighter
pilot in March, 1917, and quickly proved his prowess by shooting down a German
Albatross on his first mission. |
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Apparently fearless and fiercely competitive, Bishop modeled his tactics on flying
ace Albert Ball and began racking up kills like no pilot before him. He won the
Military Cross in April, 1917, when he shot down a German observation balloon.
In little more than a month he had 17 kills and the Distinguished Service Order
for his flying and fighting skills. Though there may always be controversy over
the incident that won Bishop the Victoria Cross (a solo attack on a German aerodrome),
there is no debate that the young man from Owen Sound was Canada’s greatest
flying hero, shooting down a remarkable 72 planes before being ordered out of
the war in late 1917. Still, despite his heroism and his success, Bishop too
grew war-weary and in a letter home to his wife he wrote, “I am so sick
of it all, the killing, the war. All I want is home and you” – a
sentiment shared by thousands of other lesser-known soldiers. |
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Captain William Avery
Bishop, VC.
Perhaps the best-known hero of the war was Captain William
Avery Bishop, better known as Billy Bishop “The Lone Hawk”, the flying
ace who shot down a record 72 planes. |
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