This was the extraordinary Ray Collishaw, officially known as Air Vice-Marshal Raymond Collishaw, CB, DSO, OBE, DSC, DFC (Companion of the Order of the Bath, Distinguished Service Order, Officer of the Order of the British Empire, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross) and many other medals. I would have said “the famous Ray Collishaw” except that he never seems to me to have attracted the fame he so richly deserved. That was largely his own fault. He was a modest man who often refused to take credit for his own exploits.

Early Life
Ray Collishaw was born in Nanaimo, B.C. on November 22, 1893, the son of an Englishman who was drawn to B.C. by the Barkerville Gold Rush. Collishaw Senior was so attracted to goldfields (California, the Klondike and Australia’s Ballarat gold fields were on his itinerary) that pure chance made Ray a Canadian rather than an American or an Australian. Ray went to school briefly in Oakland, California, but mostly in B.C. In the summer of 1908, at age 15, Ray signed on as a cabin boy with the Canadian Fisheries Protection Service. He was a serious-minded boy, studied at the navigation school in his spare time and got his papers as a seaman and then as First Officer.

In 1910, the Royal Canadian Navy was formed and the Fisheries Protection Service was folded into the Navy. By 1914, Ray was First Officer on the Fisheries Protection Service vessel Fispa, which was sent through the Bering Sea into the High Arctic to investigate the loss of Stefansson’s ship the Karluk earlier in the year. Later journalists and biographers mixed up this voyage to the Arctic with Scott’s disaster in the Antarctic. Typically, Ray was chronically embarrassed by the possible perception that he had wrongly claimed a medal for this.

Once the First World War was declared, being First Officer on the Fispa was no longer enough and, in 1915, Ray transferred to the Royal Navy Air Service and moved east. He learned to fly at the Curtis Aviation School based at Centre Island in Toronto harbour. All these young men volunteering for a just-formed service caused the usual confusion, but finally Ray and his colleagues were commissioned in the RCN Volunteer Reserve, trained in HMS Niobe (where Ray was named head of the first group of volunteers) and in January 1916 shipped out to England.

First Posting
At Redcar in Yorkshire, and later, at Eastchurch, Kent, Ray had what would later be called advanced flying training in the airplane types of the day, such as the Caudron, Avro 504, Curtis Jenny and the Maurice Farman short-horn. In August 1916, Ray had his first operational posting to No. 3 (Naval) Wing, an experimental bombing formation flying two-seater Sopwith 1 ½ Strutters, based on Luxeuil Les-Bains in Alsace. (In case you are wondering, the 1 ½ refers to the layout of the struts between the fuselage and the top wing.)

The experimental bombing turned out to be a premature venture. Their aim was strategic bombing, that is to say, the destruction of enemy factories and industrial plant – an idea that came to fruition with the thousand bomber raids of World War II. In 1916, the Sopwith bombers had a range of 100 miles, primitive navigational methods, and a minimal load of four 65-pound bombs. The administrative effort to mount a raid of 30 of these primitive bombers was such that one raid a fortnight was considered good. The thoughtful Collishaw concluded that it just wasn’t worth the wastage of planes and aircrew.

Not that there weren’t some hectic moments. On one solo ferry trip, simply for the purpose of transferring an airplane to another airfield, an unexpected wind blew Ray over the border and into Germany where he was attacked by several enemy scouts. A bullet smashed his goggles and sent powdered glass into his eyes. By the time he cleared his vision he had been blown much further east, was under attack by six German scouts, and was lost. He was saved by the fact that the Sopwith was designed with a long range, and his attackers ran out of fuel before he did. Even so, his attempt to land at one airfield was almost disastrous because it turned out to be German. He took off again, flew further west and finally landed at a French airfield 70 miles from where he should have been.

Over the Western Front
Whatever the efficacy of strategic bombing, the call for planes and pilots to gain and maintain air superiority over the trenches grew and grew. In January 1917, Ray and a number of other Canadian pilots were posted to No. 3 (Naval) Squadron at Vert Galand farm near Amiens, where the pace of the fighting over the frontlines shifted into high gear. The squadron flew Sopwith Pups, light manoeuvrable single-seat scouts that would have been popular with the pilots except for the armament. The Pup had one slow-firing Vickers machine gun whereas the German opponents, Albatros or Halberstadt, carried two faster-firing Spandaus. The winter of 1916-17 was particularly cold. Not only did the pilots suffer frostbite and a tendency to get lost when snow covered their landmarks, but their Vickers guns froze up regularly. This problem wasn’t cured until a new type of lubricating oil was developed, and even then jamming remained a problem.

It became obvious that Ray had found his métier (career). He was an excellent shot and learned to “keep a sharp lookout in all directions,” his recipe for longevity as a fighter pilot. That winter, pilots topped their many layers of clothing with a silk scarf, the only thing that didn’t chafe their necks as they swivelled their heads around. Ray opened his official score of enemies shot down and earned his place in the “Super Sacrifice Flight” which was the pilots’ name for the top cover, usually the first aircraft to engage.

However, after a few weeks, he had a mishap reminiscent of his being blown into Germany when he was with the bombing unit. He was flying an early morning patrol at 17,000 feet when he was attacked and again a bullet smashed his goggles and glass got in his eyes. Getting rid of the smashed glasses, he also lost his facemask that protected him from frostbite. He managed to escape the German scouts and make his way home, but this time he not only had glass in his eyes but also a badly frostbitten face. He managed to land at his home base but his face was so swollen that he could hardly open his eyes. He was a hospital case and spent a month in England on sick leave.

By April 26, 1917, when he returned, he had been posted to a new squadron – No. 10 (Naval) Squadron at Furnes in Belgium near the North Sea coast. This unit was equipped with the new Sopwith Triplane that was a great success from the start. The Triplane resembled a Pup but had more power. The three thinner wings gave the pilot a better view, and also gave the airplane a terrific rate of climb as well as keeping the Pup’s manoeuvrability. The only drawback was, again, the single Vickers gun, so prone to jamming.

At Naval Ten, as the squadron was called, Ray was appointed Flight Leader of B Flight - five Triplanes out of Naval Ten’s fifteen, and here began the period of exploits for which he is best known. He had their airplanes painted black and given names: Black Maria, Black Roger, Black Prince, Black Sheep and Black Death. The pilots, mainly Canadian, were capable and experienced, “good scrappers” in Ray’s words. The Germans had started sending their fighters over in “flying circuses” - Jastas as the Germans called them. The skill of the Canadian pilots and the Triplane’s superb rate of climb over the next few months gave “ the Black Flight” a legendary reputation in battles with the Jastas.

Ray was involved in many combats between March and the end of July 1917. The squadron downed 87 German aircraft and Ray personally 27. In this essay it isn’t possible to describe them all – those that seek that sort of detail are referred to Ray’s autobiography entitled Air Command published by William Kimber of London in 1973. Here I propose to give an account from the autobiography of one combat and proceed with his life story.

“One thing that I learned very early in my air force career was the astounding number of things that can go wrong in any sort of military plan that involves more than one person. In this instance, however, things went off very well indeed for us. In accordance with instructions, a patrol of eight FE2d’s left its aerodrome at 6:15 pm. One of them had to land because of engine trouble but the others carried on towards Menin, about 20 miles behind the German lines. On arrival there, flying at 12,000 feet, they were greeted by several formations of Albatros fighters, about two dozen in all. Half these Germans worked around to the west to cut off a retreat by the FE’s, while the remainder attacked them from the rear. Normally the FE’s would have formed into their usual defensive circle, but their job was to decoy the hostile fighters back towards their own lines… The rendezvous point was over Polygon Wood and by the time the FE’s arrived there, still furiously fighting off their attackers, a sizable number of additional German machines had joined in. Waiting for them were no fewer than 59 allied fighters, most of them RFC machines with some French aircraft and of course our 12 Triplanes. We were all patrolling in layered formations, waiting for the enemy to arrive and when they did we went down on them.

It was a very brisk affair indeed… Our scraps extended all the way from 16,000 to 4,000 feet. Some of the enemy fighters, exercising caution, had stayed well above the FE’s and we ran into a formation of six Albatros at about our own height. Nick Carter led a flight in an assault on them and getting close in behind one fired 15 rounds, which he reported as going right into the pilot. The Albatros turned over on its back and went straight down. The remaining German fighters dived down to between 8,000 and 9,000 feet and we all followed them. Seven other Germans joined them and a more or less private dogfight of our own ensued, one of the numerous such scraps that were going on all around, above and below us. I dived on a formation of three Albatros DV’s, picking out one of them and opening fire. Tracers from both my guns went straight into the pilot’s cockpit. The pilot, I am sure, was hit but so was something else, for the wings folded and the Albatros went straight down, shedding pieces as it fell.” (Collishaw, Raymond and R.V. Dodds. Air Command: A Fighter Pilot’s Story. London: Kimber, 1973.)

This is a description of a part of one engagement. Ray often flew two or three patrols each day. For all his evident skill, he must still have led a charmed life. Although it was notable that the more experienced pilots lived longer, so much depended on luck that in time, the law of averages should catch up with everyone.

Squadron Leader
In August 1917, Ray went on home leave, during which he became engaged to Neita Trapp of New Westminster. It took nearly six years for them to get married, at the pace of Ray’s life. On his return to Europe in November 1917, he was posted to the Seaplane Defence Squadron near Dunkirk, in command of A Flight. This certainly sounds as if he should have been flying seaplanes, but in fact the squadron was equipped with the famous Sopwith Camel, a larger and more powerful development of the Pup, this time standardized with two machines guns. The breeches of the guns were enclosed in a “hump” which is what gave the Camel its name.

In January 1918, this squadron was renamed Naval 13. Ray counted the two months he spent with them as a quiet time. Only once did he fly more than one patrol a day, whereas at Naval 10 two, three or even four were routine. He did however gain experience as acting squadron leader when the official squadron leader was injured in an accident. He learned some of the trials of command – headquarters insisted that he should get up at 4:00 am daily and personally decode meaningless messages. He also learned (or honed) some management skills.

Any unit Ray commanded had two characteristics. First, all or most of his pilots were Canadian (this dated back to the days of the Black Flight). Secondly, he managed to get experienced and capable pilots, this in the teeth of an official policy hotly opposed to “hand picking pilots to produce super squadrons”. How did he achieve this? I quote – “I was fortunate enough to have a friend at the Admiralty who was concerned with pilot postings.” (Collishaw, Raymond and R.V. Dodds. Air Command: A Fighter Pilot’s Story. London: Kimber, 1973.)

In January 1918 he was posted to the substantive command of Naval 3 that also flew Camels. From March onwards, he was posted at Mont St. Eloi in Belgium, directly in the path of the planned German Spring offensive with the Jastas in the area constantly receiving reinforcements and new equipment (notably the new Fokkers). On March 21, 1918, the attack started with an intense German artillery bombardment and an advance through a thick mist. Ray’s squadron was heavily involved, not just against German fighters but also in desperate low-level bombing and strafing attacks on the advancing German infantry. This cost many pilots their lives, even the experienced ones. You cannot dodge bullets from soldiers on the ground that you cannot see, no matter how skilful you are.

On March 28th, the Germans had advanced so far that their shells began to land on Mont St. Eloi airfield and the squadron was forced to move to Treizennes, France. Getting all the equipment and personnel out of the field under shellfire was, in Ray’s words “a touch and go affair” but it was done. By the end of March the main German attack ran out of steam, but subsidiary attacks and counter-attacks by the allies kept up the air activity, particularly the ground strafing. A German infantry officer described being on the receiving end: “Several Tommies flew so low that the wheels of their airplanes touched the ground. My company commander had to throw himself on the ground but for all that he was struck on the back by the wheels of one machine, literally run over.” (Collishaw, Raymond and R.V. Dodds. Air Command: A Fighter Pilot’s Story. London: Kimber, 1973.)

As squadron leader, Ray was busy with administrative duties and flew less combat patrols, but from the beginning of June he was able to fly regularly. His score of German aircraft shot down, which had been slumping, climbed again. By now he was credited with 47 official victories. All this success didn’t blunt his edge; he still set up and personally led the most hair-raising exploits. With one other pilot he staged a dawn attack on a German airfield and then, having stirred up the hornet’s nest, flew back to the airfield an hour later to see how much damage he’d done.

By the summer of 1918, the allied offensives that ended the war were underway. Ray went on flying and building his victories until the armistice with apparently undiminished enthusiasm. His final tally of enemy aircraft shot down stands at 59 or 61, depending on whose records you use.

Collishaw in Russia
In 1918, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service were amalgamated into the Royal Air Force, in which Ray Collishaw was given a permanent commission as a squadron leader. The coming of peace and the consequent downsizing of the new service led to a hiatus in appointing him to a specific squadron, but when the appointment did come it was welcome, a semi-independent command in the only active combat zone of the time. He took over 47 Squadron, which had operated against the Bulgarians out of Salonika at the end of the war, and was now posted to Southern Russia to support the White Russians under General Anton Denikin in the Russian Civil War. The background to this unlikely British intervention is murky and complicated.

In late 1917, while Ray was leading fighter flights on the western front, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia by a revolution and forthwith opened peace talks with the Germans. Indeed, peace was concluded with almost indecent haste at the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, the Bolsheviks being willing to bargain away almost anything to get a free hand to establish themselves. The Germans, who up till now had been fighting on two fronts, were able to confront the western allies with massive reinforcements from the dormant eastern front. These were the troops who launched the German Spring Offensives of 1918 that so nearly succeeded. It seemed to the Allies that the Bolsheviks were vulnerable, and might be toppled so that the Russian war effort against the Germans could be resurrected. In fact, largely because of the arrival of the Americans, the Allies won the war with little or no help from Russians of any political stripe. By that time, however, the die was cast and the Allies had dispatched considerable forces to help the White Russians.

The Russian Civil War, replete with the usual fratricidal atrocities, was confused by the internal dissensions of the Whites. Once the Tsar was removed from the board, the various White Russian forces acknowledged no common authority and fought among themselves. Strategically, however, the situation was clear. The Bolshevik (Red) forces had been successful in Moscow and central Russia, but had left certain parts of the periphery in the hands of the Tsar’s successors (the Whites). There were Whites holding out at Murmansk in the north, at Vladivostock in Siberia and in southern Russia (the Ukraine and the Kuban) around Novorossisk. Various Allied units, British, French and American, attempted with little success to encourage and prop up these Whites. Denikin, in southern Russia, was considered marginally more effective than the other generals-become-warlords, and it was to his assistance that, more in hope than in confidence, 47 Squadron was sent in June 1919. The squadron had two flights of DH9 and DH9A light bombers and one large flight of Sopwith Camel fighters.

They found themselves in a singular type of war, in which vast hordes of cavalry contested with each other and the front was fluid. There was none of the usual industrial support needed by an air force. All their supplies had to be transported from the Black Sea ports by river barge or more commonly by rail. In practice, the air force depended wholly on the railroad. Each flight had an airbase, a train of 40 or 50 carriages, parked on a suitable siding (finding flat ground for an airfield was no problem). Trains from the south brought their supplies, and friendly cavalry occasionally provided perimeter defence.

At first, the load of administrative work kept Ray at headquarters smoothing out the flow of aircraft, equipment and stores to the front. When he was able to get back into a Camel cockpit, he found little in the way of air combat. The Bolsheviks had few planes and fewer trained pilots. Such as they had lasted a very short time at the front. The squadron’s chief activities were bombing and strafing (machine gunning) river barges, particularly those carrying Red artillery, and strafing cavalry concentrations, which produced spectacular stampedes but little permanent result. Ray describes how some of the cavalry were Moslems “and galloped into battle with their green banners inscribed with sayings from the Koran streaming overhead. Watching one of these cavalry charges from the cockpit of a Camel was an exhilarating but odd sensation, as if one had suddenly turned the controls of a Wellsian time machine and was watching a battle that had taken place a hundred years or more before.” (Collishaw, Raymond and R.V. Dodds. Air Command: A Fighter Pilot’s Story. London: Kimber, 1973.)

Many of the squadron’s casualties were from disease rather than from combat. While flying at the front, Ray contracted typhus, became dangerously ill and was sent back to the base hospital on a southbound train. By chance, in the next village there lived an elderly refugee countess who had trained as a nurse. She had Ray carried off the train to her cottage where she nursed him through the crisis of his illness. It was two weeks before he could be moved, and even then he was too sick to know what was happening. Later, he tried to trace her, but as so often happens in times of chaos she was gone beyond tracing.

Ray returned to work on November 27, 1919, to find a completely altered situation. When he had become sick, the Whites were on the attack and Denikin was talking about an advance on Moscow. However, a month or two later, it was obvious that Denikin had been wildly over-optimistic. His thinly spread forces were defeated at Orel and his offensive fell to pieces. The RAF trains were in danger of being encircled, and there began a marathon evacuation. By now winter had set in and these movements were hampered by snow and bitter cold.

Two of the airbase trains were in dire danger – those of Z Flight and Headquarters Flight. The main line south was heavily congested by other would-be escapers, the coal supply was low and they were plagued by the desertion of the train crew who had to be replaced by aircraftsmen. The two trains flew off air strikes against the pursuing Reds and for a long time managed to keep them at a distance. The two trains were fleeing down the west side of the Don River. They planned to cross the great Rostov Bridge and seek sanctuary in the Kuban, Denikin’s stronghold, but the trains became separated. The Z Flight train managed to get across, but the Headquarters train, with Ray aboard, found the bridge cut, and this was the last bridge across the river. The only thing left for them to do was to try to traverse the whole north side of the Sea of Azov and get into the Crimea from the western end.

The country was in a complete uproar. Many of the local inhabitants changed sides and attacked the train. Thousands of desperate refugees clambered aboard. When they were within 100 miles of safety in the Crimea, at a place called Balshoi-Tomak, the Reds sent an unmanned locomotive careening down the line after them. This smashed at high speed into the rearmost carriages. Ray had managed to clear them of passengers, but the train ground to a halt dragging a mess of broken rolling stock. Herculean efforts disengaged the wrecked carriages. On January 4, 1920, the train reached the port of Sebastopol and they were able to get supplies and protection from a Royal Navy warship.

There were still the remains of Denikin’s forces spread through the Kuban and the Crimea, but theirs was clearly a losing cause. Ray and the remains of the Headquarters Flight managed to put back together some broken aircraft and fly a few missions, but they were soon ordered to turn aircraft and equipment over to the Whites and evacuate. Everyone involved was haunted by having to bar desperate refugees from overfull ships and leave them to their doom.

A Few Postscripts to Activities in Russia:
1. The defeated Whites gave all the pilots resplendent medals and orders.
2. General Denikin escaped and managed to resettle in the United States where he died in 1947.
3. The story of the “Last Train Out” is so dramatic that it should be the subject of a novel if not a movie. And so it is – Marion Aten, a Californian who was one of Collishaw’s pilots, wrote a fictionalized account called Last Train Over Rostov Bridge, New York, Messner, 1961.
4. This was not Ray Collishaw’s last involvement with the Bolsheviks, at least not quite. During this period the British had been very worried lest the Reds penetrate northern India through the Caspian area. They attempted to negotiate an agreement with the Iranians to station British troops in northern Persia. In fact, they didn’t wait for the agreement but sent three battalions under General Ironside to Persia anyway. Ray Collishaw and a small party from 30 Squadron were sent to north Persia in the fall of 1920. They operated in support of General Ironside for that winter. The mountainous country and the bitter winter brought out Ray’s pioneer ingenuity – he created airstrips by having the local camels stamp up and down in the snow. Airborne reconnaissance soon established that the Bolsheviks were approaching from the north in great force. Furthermore, the Iranians refused to sign the agreement sanctioning the presence of General Ironside. In the spring of 1921 the British forces, including the air contingent, were withdrawn.

Collishaw in Later Life
The Great Powers had known peace since 1918. It came to Ray in 1921, and he had to get used to being a career peacetime military officer. His 30 Squadron was involved in various colonial roles in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq that had become a British Mandate under the Treaty of Versailles. These included surveying and building roads, planning air routes for Imperial Airways, and assisting the Mandate authority in putting down local rebellions and disturbances, mainly in Kurdistan, the perennial trouble spot of the area. Ray finally married his long-time fiancée (after six years).

In late 1923, he was recalled to England and appointed to command 41 Squadron, a fighter squadron flying Siskins out of Northholt, Middlesex. For all his prowess as a flier, Ray was clearly the stuff of which senior officers are made – he was responsible, resourceful, and a good leader. In 1924, he was sent to the Royal Air Force staff college, where he was involved in arguing the policy questions of the day, such as strategic versus tactical bombing (shades of his experiences with No. 3 (Naval) Wing in 1916). This was followed by more fighter squadron commands, a staff intelligence appointment in 1927, and from 1929 to 1932, a posting as senior RAF officer aboard the Royal Navy aircraft carrier “Courageous.”

This last appointment was both unique and politically sensitive. In the early days of British military flying, the Royal Flying Corps (army) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) had been separate services. Ray himself came up through the RNAS. When the two services were amalgamated in 1918 as the Royal Air Force (RAF), the airplanes and aircrew on a carrier were left in an anomalous position – they belonged to the RAF but lived on a naval ship and were under the operational control of naval officers. In the end this arrangement proved so unsatisfactory that the command of ship-borne and naval-related aircraft reverted to the Navy under the title “Fleet Air Arm.” It says a lot for Ray’s tact that he filled this difficult job for over three years, an unusually long posting.

It was followed by a promotion, the command of a large RAF base in England, another promotion in 1935 as a Group Captain, and further postings in the Middle East, first to the Sudan at the time of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and then in 1936, in the command of the RAF base at Heliopolis (a suburb of Cairo) which was the RAF’s main base in the Middle East. Ray always did his homework, back to the days of 1914 when he studied to be a First Officer in the Fisheries Protection Service. In Egypt, he took his leaves locally and toured the North African coast by car as far as Libya. The information he got was very useful later on.

In 1939, with war obviously approaching fast, Ray was appointed Air Officer Commanding Egypt, as a Group Captain controlling seven bomber squadrons, one fighter squadron and one army co-operation squadron. British re-armament had moved slowly in the late 1930’s and several of these units were more on paper than in the flesh. Nevertheless, this was the organization that later became the powerful Desert Air Force.

No one could accuse the British Forces in Egypt of passivity. The army readied to take the offensive against the Italians when they should declare war; the Air Force set up a series of advanced bases with caches of food, water and supplies, as mobile and self-contained as possible. This must have reminded Ray of the Russian Civil War and the airbase trains. Alas, there were few trains in the desert.

The outbreak of war against Germany in September 1939 didn’t immediately involve war in the Middle East. Mussolini and the Italians waited until the fall of France to be absolutely confident that their Middle Eastern prey couldn’t defend itself. Then on June 10, 1940, Mussolini declared war on France and England.

He should have waited longer. The day after, Ray ordered a bombing strike against an Italian airfield at El Adern near Tobruk. The raid caught the Italians in a ceremonial parade, with eight squadrons of Italian planes lined up by the runway. The damage was considerable. Other raids on airfields, harbours and troop concentrations followed. The cruiser, San Giorgio, was bombed and sunk in Tobruk harbour. Elaborate deception schemes persuaded the Italians that they were greatly out numbered, whereas the opposite was true. The total of British aircraft was 150 and many of them were antiquated. In Libya and western Egypt the Italians had between 300 and 400, and could easily fly reinforcements across the Mediterranean. However, they were timid, and weren’t going to attack until they were really ready. Furthermore, they demanded that fighters escort their ground forces and attacking air forces on a generous, indeed unrealistic, scale.

The Italian army under Marshall Graziani advanced slowly into Egypt and before it reached the main British line of resistance, struck and went to ground. The British army headed by Generals Warell and O’Connor struck back, initially for very limited objectives, but when the Italian army simply fell apart they followed it into Cyrenaiea, encircled it at Beda Fomm and in essence captured the whole force. Ray Collishaw’s Egypt Air Force, still in support, prevented the Italian air force from any substantial interference with this process – they calculated that one way or another 1,100 Italian aircraft were captured or destroyed.

I don’t propose to tell the story of the rest of the North African campaign in detail. Suffice it to say that the Germans came to the rescue of the Italians, with heavy resupplies and reinforcements, most notably General Rommel and the Afrika Korps. The British, at the end of a long and fragile supply line, were beaten back all the way to Egypt. Ray Collishaw’s Egypt Air Force, still outnumbered, had some successes but when the front stabilized after the long retreat, the command structure was “reorganized” as they say. Among the “outs” was Ray Collishaw; at the end of July 1941 he turned over his command to A.V.M. Arthur Conyngham, and as he says in his autobiography “that turned out to be pretty much the end of the shooting war for me.” He commanded a Fighter Group in Scotland, a quiet area by that time, but in the summer of 1943, he retired to West Vancouver, where he led a quiet life as a local notable. He was an Honorary Patron of the West Vancouver Memorial Library. He was a director of various mining companies.

He died in West Vancouver on September 9, 1976, at the age of 82. A full military funeral was held, and there was a flypast of four Voodoo jets from RCAF Comox. Many people attended, nevertheless, one can not help feeling that Ray Collishaw has been undervalued by fame, particularly since many of his experiences were so colourful and dramatic – the Black Flight, the Russian Civil War and the defeat of the Italians to give just three examples. Surely these were the deeds of a hero and the stuff of legends. However, Ray himself never sought the limelight, and would probably be just as content not to be legendary.

Collishaw, Raymond and R.V. Dodds. Air Command: A Fighter Pilot’s Story. London: Kimber, 1973.

West Vancouver Archives. Rupert Harrison fonds. 061.1.159 Noteworthy people - Collishaw, 1929-2004.