For most of his childhood and youth, there wasn’t much to indicate that Billy Bishop would become a national hero. He wasn’t a good student, almost flunked out of school, and was described by a fellow flyer as “a fantastic shot but a terrible pilot.”
Yet William Avery Bishop became the first Canadian airman to win a Victoria Cross, and downed 72 enemy planes. He was the top scoring Canadian and Imperial ace of the Great War.
He may have started the war as a rookie to the flying game, but he earned the utmost respect in the skies from friend and foe alike.
Bishop was born February 8, 1894 to parents William and Margaret in Owen Sound, Ont, the middle of three children.
At age 17, Bishop started at Royal Military College in Kingston, but struggled with his studies throughout his school years. He failed in his first year at RMC due to a combination of poor grades, an unwillingness to participate in team sports, and reluctance to follow instructions.
The school allowed Bishop to stay for the remainder of the year as long as he stayed on to make up for his unsuccessful term. Bishop passed with good marks in his second year, but was caught using cheat notes during a final exam in his third year. Had it not been for the start of the Great War, he would have been expelled.
When the Great War broke out, Bishop left the college and joined the 9th Mississauga Horse Regiment of the Canadian Expedition Force in 1914, but fell ill with pneumonia right before his unit left for the front.
When Bishop recovered, he was assigned to the 14th battalion, Canadian Mounted Rifles, and left for England on June 9, 1915 on board the requisitioned battleship Caledonia.
The journey was eventful, Bishop recalled. “Oh what a trip! Fifteen days to reach England! We had 700 horses on board, and 700 seasick horses are not the most congenial steamer company.”
In July that year, he became weary of the muddy trenches and lack of action in the cavalry, so he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as an observer. The first aircraft he flew was an Avro 504, and it was with the RFC that Bishop rose to fame.
Bishop’s flying career started off with a bang. In March, 1917, he achieved first victory when his group of four Nieuport planes engaged three Albatross DIII Scouts near St.Leger. His tally only kept increasing after this. In April alone, Bishop shot down 25 planes.
Bishop was recognized with the Military Cross for his exploits over the skies of Vimy Ridge on April 7, 1917, and promoted to captain. A month later he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for attacking three planes and sending two down while under attack by four others.
By that time, Bishop had custom-painted his airplane, tinting the propeller blades bright blue. The colour scheme earned him the nicknames “The Blue Nosed Devil” and “Hell’s Handmaiden” from his German foes.
Perhaps Bishop’s most memorable flight was his encounter with Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron, on April 30, 1917. The two battled with one another, trying to get the best angle from which to shoot, yet neither was successful, and the duel ended in a draw.
But it was his feat on June 2, 1917 that earned Bishop the coveted Victoria Cross. He flew a solo mission behind enemy lines to attack a German-held aerodrome, where he shot down three planes that were taking off to attack him, and destroyed seven more on the ground.
Bishop was later promoted to major, then was sent to England in June 1918 for his own safety. The Canadian government feared his death in battle could ruin troop morale. Bishop wasn’t happy to no longer be fighting, and told his wife in a letter, “I’ve never been so furious in my life. It makes me livid with rage to be pulled away just as things are getting started.”
On the morning that he left France to go back to England, Bishop decided to have one last solo patrol. In the first 15 minutes that he was in combat, five more Germans were downed, bringing his total to an astounding 72.
After the war, Bishop became an honourary air marshal of the Royal Canadian Air Force and was placed in charge of recruitment. He resigned his post later in the Second World War, and died on September 11, 1956 in Palm Beach, Florida.
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