Air Marshal William Avery "Billy" Bishop, Jr., (8 February 1894 – 11 September 1956) was a Canadian flying ace of the First World War. He was officially credited with 72 victories, making him the top Canadian and British Empire ace of the war, and also received a Victoria Cross. During the Second World War, Bishop was instrumental in setting up and promoting the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
Early life William Avery Bishop (commonly called Billy Bishop to distinguish him from his father) was born in Owen Sound, Ontario, on 8 February 1894, blond, blue-eyed, and weighing 11 pounds. He was the third of four children born to William Avery Bishop Sr. and Margaret Louisa (Green) Bishop. William Avery Bishop Sr. was a lawyer and graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Ontario. He was the Registrar of Grey County and was appointed to the post after backing the winning Liberal Party candidate in the national elections of 1896.McCaffery 2002, p. 25Kilduff 2014, pp. 17-18 He was consequential enough to be invited to a dinner for British dignitaries hosted by Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier.Kilduff 2014, pp. 46-47
Eldest brother Worth was ten years old when Billy arrived. His other brother, Kilbourn, was born in 1886, but died in 1893, the year before Billy's birth. Sister Louise, to whom Billy became very close, was born in 1895, a year after him.A. Bishop 1965, p. 14
School days Young Billy Bishop grew up in the inland port city of Owen Sound on Georgian Bay, touted to be "the next Liverpool".A. Bishop 1965, p. 12 He was distinguished from the other children on several counts. He spoke with a slight lisp.A. Bishop 1965, p. 15 Also, he was the only boy in town who attended classes at Miss Pearl's Dancing School with the local girls. Add to that, his mother sent him to school in suit and tie; his schoolboy classmates scorned his formal dress and damaged his garb. Then too, he did not care for team sports like lacrosse, football, and hockey, preferring solitary sports, such as riding, swimming, or billiards at the YMCA or local pool halls. Most especially, he became a marksman. His father gave him a .22 caliber rifle for Christmas, along with a promise of 25 cents for every squirrel the youth shot. The family orchard, which had been overrun by a destructive plague of squirrels, was soon free of the beasts as the young sniper mastered the one-shot kill. Some sources insist that the young hunter learned the art of deflection shooting, the knack of leading a moving target, at this time.Kilduff 2014, p. 18
Bishop attended Beech Street School (1045 3rd Ave West; Dufferin Public School in 1910, now closed and home to M'Wikwedong Indigenous Friendship Centre) near his home and later at Owen Sound Collegiate Institute (at the 3rd Avenue East site and later at the now closed Strathcona Senior Public School).
Bishop developed a reputation in his youth for defending himself and others against bullying, reportedly engaging in multiple schoolyard fights. Some accounts describe an incident in which he fought several opponents at once. He was also noted for his physical appearance, being described as slender, of average height, and conventionally attractive.McCaffery 2002, pp. 26-27
In the classroom, it was a different tale. Bishop was less successful at his studies; he would abandon any subject he could not easily master, and was often absent from class.
In 1910, at the age of 16, after reading a newspaper article, Bishop built a glider out of cardboard, wooden crates, bedsheets, and twine, and made an attempt to fly off the roof of his three-story house. He was dug, unharmed, out of the wreckage by his sister Louise. After she helped him hide the wreckage, she insisted he owed her a favor, and insisted he date her girlfriend Margaret Burden.Kilduff 2014, p. 19
The granddaughter of Timothy Eaton, the department store magnate, Margaret Burden had become friends with Louise Bishop during summer vacations to Owen Sound. Once she met Billy, they were smitten with one another, which greatly annoyed her parents.Kilduff 2014, pp. 19-20
College
On his 17th birthday, 8 February 1911, Billy Bishop applied to the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in Kingston, Ontario, where his brother Worth had graduated in 1903. Bishop placed 42nd of the 43 candidates admitted to the three-year school. He spent a hard first year during 1911 and 1912, struggling academically. He also suffered severe hazing from seniors; RMC regulations barred him from retaliatory fisticuffs. Then he was caught cheating on a year-end exam, and narrowly avoided expulsion. Too humiliated to return home for the summer, he stayed in Kingston and worked for Worth. Bishop was readmitted to the RMC as a second year student for the 1912–1913 term, though with an extra year's study added for him to graduate. That year, he raised his class standing to 23rd of 42 students.Kilduff 2014, pp. 20-21
During the 1913–1914 term, Bishop's class standing sagged to 33rd of 34. On 28 August 1914, he returned to RMC as a senior. After 15 of Bishop's classmates left school to serve as officers in the burgeoning war, Bishop withdrew from the RMC on 30 September 1914 with the same intention. That same day, he was commissioned into a cavalry unit, the Mississauga Horse. He journeyed to Toronto to inform Margaret Burden of his decision before reporting for duty.Kilduff 2014, pp. 21-23
First World War
Mud and manure When The Mississauga Horse shipped out for the war, Second Lieutenant Bishop was not with them; he was in hospital with pneumonia and allergies. After recovering, he was transferred to the 7th Canadian Mounted Rifles, a mounted infantry unit, then stationed in London, Ontario, in January 1915. Bishop was placed in charge of the regimental machine guns. Popular with the enlisted men, Bishop was nicknamed "Bish" and "Billy". He excelled on the firing range. As one of his subordinates remembered:Kilduff 2014, p. 23
"Bish would just riddle a target that the rest of us could barely see. The instructors would keep putting it further back, until it was just a tiny black dot, and he'd shoot it to ribbons...he put every damn' bullet on target. He never missed."
Mishap continued to dog Bishop. On 6 April 1915, a horse he was riding reared and fell on him;Kilduff 2014, P. 24 he was back riding a week later. At the end of the month, the bolt of a rifle he was firing blew back and whacked him on the cheekbone. Then he became so ill from an inoculation that he fell off his horse.McCaffery 2008, pp. 37-38 It was during this time that Bishop slipped away to Ontario, and proposed marriage to Margaret Burden. She accepted, and they were engaged. He gave her his RMC ring as a symbol of his troth.Kilduff 2014, p. 25
Bishop's unit left Canada for England on 6 June 1915 on board the requisitioned cattle ship Caledonia as part of a convoy. The voyage through rough seas was poor on food. Most of the 240 men and 600 horses on board were seasick. From time to time, the ship's crew chucked dead horses overboard. On 21 June, near Ireland, U-boats attacked the convoy. Three ships were sunk and 300 Canadians killed, but Bishop's ship arrived unscathed in Plymouth harbour on 23 June.McCaffery 2002, pp. 40–41.
The 7th Canadian Mounted Rifles were assigned to train at Shorncliffe Cavalry Camp in outmoded cavalry tactics. Living in tents, the Canadians suffered through sandstorms when it was dry; usually, though, they lived in a rainy swamp of mud and horse manure. Bishop spent more time in hospital in late July. Afterwards, during one especially mucky day, Bishop watched an aeroplane land in a nearby field. He remarked to his companion, "You don't get any mud or horseshit on you up there. If you died, it would be a clean death." Bishop decided to apply for a transfer.McCaffery 2002, pp. 41-43
Into the air On a jaunt to London, Bishop subsequently wrangled an appointment with the Royal Flying Corps recruitment officer, Lord Hugh Cecil. When Bishop was told it would be a year before he could train as a pilot, he accepted the immediate chance to become an aerial observer.Kilduff 2014, pp. 26-27 On 1 September, he reported to 21 (Training) Squadron at Netheravon in Wiltshire for elementary air instruction. The first aircraft he trained in was the Avro 504.Kilduff 2014, p. 28 Having taken a month for preliminary training, on 2 October 1915 Bishop transferred to gunnery training at Dover. By the end of October, Bishop was crossing the English Channel and flying his first missions in a combat zone, directing artillery fire. On 24 November, Bishop's pilot crashed their airplane upon landing back in England. Bishop suffered a bruised foot; the pilot was also only bruised. Three days later, Bishop took a check ride in a new aircraft. When he wrote home to Margaret describing this flight, he boasted of a 300 mph (400 km) dive in an aircraft that could not have exceeded half that. Such braggadocio characterized his correspondence with her.Kilduff 2014, pp. 31-32
No. 21 Squadron was re-equipped with new Royal Aircraft Factory RE.7s.Kilduff 2014, pp. 33-34 On 15 January 1916, No. 21 Squadron began its transfer to France. By 23 January, as the squadron established itself at Boisdinghem, Bishop began a three-day illness.Kilduff 2014, pp. 35-36 He emerged from hospital to join his squadron in adjusting to the realities of the infant military science of aerial warfare. Until this time, fliers on both sides of the conflict had been fumbling their way towards mounting firearms on aircraft. When Bishop emerged from hospital, there were already reports of German Fokker Eindecker monoplanes that could fire a machine gun through their propeller arc without striking a blade. Aim the aircraft; aim the gun. As the deadly little Fokkers slowly multiplied on the front, they became feared by the Royal Flying Corps as the Fokker Scourge.Franks 2001, pp. viii-ix, 2-3 In response, the RFC quit single plane patrols, mandating two escorts for every reconnaissance aircraft.Kilduff 2014, pp. 36-37 However, casualties were rare, and dismissed airily. One of Bishop's letters to his fiancée mentioned that the German fliers were chivalrous; the two sides exchanged dropped messages on the occasional casualty. Bishop wrote: "It is awfully nice to be on such good terms with one's enemies, and everyone here speaks very highly of all the German flyers. They seem to all be of a fine crowd."Kilduff 2014, p. 37
Meanwhile, No. 21 Squadron RFC was discovering that their underpowered RE.7s could not take flight with a bomb load, and so failed as a bomber.Kilduff 2014, pp. 38-39 The awkward crew positioning also hindered its fighting ability, with the observer in front with a non-synchronized Lewis gun hemmed in by struts and bracing wires. The pilot was seated behind him, back under the upper wing.Kilduff 2014, pp. 34, 42
The rest of Bishop's time as an observer was a string of mishaps. Weather aloft was arctic bitter. A three and a half hour flight on 9 February 1916 frostbit his cheek so severely it burst open and put him back under medical care. In March, he was injured in a vehicle collision. Then he was hit in the head by an aircraft cable; he spent two days unconscious. This was followed by an abscessed tooth. Once returned to duty, he whacked a knee against an aircraft's frame when his pilot pulled a hard landing.Kilduff 2014, pp. 42-43