William Avery (Billy) Bishop

"It made my heart leap to see my smoking bullets hitting the machine just where the closely hooded pilot was sitting." These are the words that Billy Bishop used to describe how he felt about the many air battles he participated in during the First World War. This is a remarkable story of a silly young man who joined the military flying services where he became very focused on being a fighter pilot. After becoming a fighter pilot, he became one of the world's best and received many medals, including the Victoria Cross. Bishop was the most well-known Canadian fighter pilot during the war, and his success gave hope and leadership to Canadian soliers and citizens.

Bishop was born on Febuary 8th, 1894 in Owensound, Ontario. Bishop was the second oldest of three children. His father William A. Bishop, was a law graduate of Osgoode Hall in Toronto, and was he was the Register for Grey County. His mother's name was Mary Louise. Bishop wasn't a good student, and liked to joke around. My great, great grandmother, Ellen Bennett went to school with Billy Bishop, and one day he dipped her pigtail into the ink jar. Billy Bishop also teased her and her friends. Bishop preferred individual sports rather than team sports. With his poor grades and prankster life as a kid, he didn't qualify for university at the University of Toronto, where his father wanted him to go. In 1911, he went to the Royal Military College (RMC) in Kingston, Ontario, where his older brother Worth was attending.

Bishop was not a good student at RMC. He was very popular and funny at the College, but did not apply himself to his schoolwork. He was also known to be popular with the young women in the Kingston area. Bishop never graduated from the three year RMC program, and joined a Canadian Cavalry Regiment in 1915. He didn't like the mud and trenches, so he decided to join the flying services. He was able to do this by using his family connections and outgoing personality to gain entry into the Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

In 1916 Bishop joined the RFC as an observer with No 21 Squadron, which was stationed in France. After a few trips the pilot crashed his plane while landing, and Bishop injured his knee. Bishop was sent back to England for a few months to recover from his injury and, when his knee healed, he was sent back to the RFC. He then trained to be a pilot, which included extensive ground and classroom instruction, followed by actual flight training starting in November of 1916. Bishop worked hard during this training period and, after several months, he performed his first solo training flight. This was one of the greatest things that ever happened to Bishop at the time. They had ambulances ready for Bishop if he crashed, but it was no sweat for Bishop. Now he was really getting into flying. Soon after the people at the RFC convinced him that he really wanted to be a fighter pilot and join the Air Force. Bishop thought about it and decided that it would be great if he could help people around the world by doing something he liked to do at the same time. He trained his hardest and became one of the best flyers, not to mention shooters, in the area. In March 1917 at the age of 23, he got his pilot's certificate. Bishop was now ready for war.

Bishop went to war and received his first air victory on March 25 against a German airplane called the "Albatros." Bishop was in his first air fight when he started shooting at German planes with tracer bullets (bullets that leave a trace of smoke to show where they are going). The German plane started to spin out of control and started to drop. Bishop followed the plane just to make sure it had been shot down. All of a sudden the German plane started to come back at him, but Bishop was quicker and open fired at the cockpit. The plane started to drop down out of control. Bishop followed full throttle, thinking that it was a trick again, but the German plane kept dropping closer and closer to the ground. Bishop realized it wasn’t a trick and the German plane crashed to the ground. At the same time Bishop's plane engine stopped working. He had to land his plane or it would crash. Bishop found an area to land his plane, but he wasn’t sure if he was behind enemy lines. After landing, he ran from his plane and took cover in a near-by ditch. Fortunately, some British ground troops saw him land and came to his rescue. The British troops then told him that he had landed only about a 130 meters outside of enemy lines.

Bishop returned safely from this mission and continued on a 15-month fighting career during which he recorded a total of 80 air victories, the most of any fighter pilot ever. Bishop received several major medals, including: Distinguished Flying Cross - A U.S. military award given for heroism or extraordinary achievement in aerial combat; Victoria Cross - British military award for gallantry; Distinguished Service Order - A British military award for gallantry in action; Military Cross - Awarded for additional acts of bravery; and, The Legion of Honor - For military and civil service.

Bishop is most well known for winning the Victoria Cross because he went into 170 air battles and survived all of them. One battle in particular happened on June 2nd 1917. At about 3:57 am that day, he volunteered to fly alone into enemy territory where he observed six planes on the ground at a small airbase. The enemy planes attempted to go after him, but Bishop shot three of them down as they were trying to take off. Bishop then headed back towards his airbase and avoided a German flying patrol before he got there.

In June of 1917, Bishop's flying career ended. He had become very popular and a symbol of hope for Canadians. The Canadian Government was concerned that if Bishop died there would be a bad affect on morale.

Bishop has had a great influence on me because just to know that someone put their life in danger over and over and become a hero to many people during the war is amazing.

Bishop was one of the top fighter pilots in the world that ever lived. Though he didn’t try hard in school he found something in life that he loved and he could be the best at. Overall I think Bishop never tried hard at any thing until he became a fighter pilot and then became one of Canada’s most well-known people for fighting for his country, surviving the war and destroying 72 German air crafts. Just like the saying goes zero to hero.