British Commonwealth Air Training Plan - Behind the glory: Canadas role in the Allied air war

Ted Barris divides his time between teaching at Torontos Centennial College in the journalism department and writing/ broadcasting professionally. His work on CBC and TVO is well known (he has earned a Billboard Radio Documentary Award and numerous ACTRA Award nominations) and his bylines appear in such publications as the National Post and Globe and Mail, and the Legion, Beaver, and Air Force magazines. He has published 16 non-fiction books. In 1993, he received the Canada 125 Medal for service to Canada and community. In 2004, the Remembrance Service Association of Halifax recognized Ted Barris and his military history writing with its annual Patriot Award. In 2006, the 78th Fraser Highlander regiment awarded Barris its annual excellence award, the Bear Hackle Award, to recognize his contribution to the awareness and preservation of Canadian military history and traditions.

Books of Merit

Reproduced by Mapping and Charting Establishment.

Compiled and drawn by the Directorate of History.

ALSO BY TED BARRIS

MILITARY HISTORY

Days of Victory: Canadians Remember,19391945 (with Alex Barris, 1st edition, 1995)

Deadlock in Korea: Canadians at War,19501953

Canada and Korea: Perspectives2000 (contributor)

Juno: Canadians at D-Day, June6,1944

Days of Victory: Canadians Remember,19391945 (Sixtieth Anniversary edition, 2005)

Victory at Vimy: Canada Comes of Age, April912, 1917

Breaking the Silence: Veterans Untold Storiesfrom the Great War to Afghanistan

OTHER NON-FICTION

Fire Canoe: Prairie Steamboat Days Revisited

Rodeo Cowboys: The Last Heroes

Positive Power: The Story of the Edmonton Oilers Hockey Club

Spirit of the West: The Beginnings, the Land, the Life

Playing Overtime: A Celebration of Oldtimers Hockey

Carved in Granite:125Years of Granite Club History

Making Music: Profiles from a Century of Canadian Music (with Alex Barris)

101Things Canadians Should Know About Canada (contributor)

Behind the

GLORY

CANADAS ROLE IN
THE ALLIED AIR WAR

Ted Barris

Thomas Allen Publishers
Toronto

Copyright 1992 Ted Barris
New Preface copyright 2005 Ted Barris
First paperback edition copyright 2010 by Ted Barris

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems without the prior written permission of the publisher, or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Barris, Ted

Behind the glory : Canada's role in the Allied air war / Ted Barris.
1st pbk. ed.

Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-88762-723-1

1. British Commonwealth Air Training PlanHistory. 2. World War, 19391945 Aerial operations, Canadian. 3. World War, 1939-1945 Aerial operations. 4. Aeronautics, MilitaryStudy and teaching Canada History.

I. Title.

UG639.C3B37 2010 940.54'4971 C2010-905882-8

Maps showing the location of BCATP stations are reprinted from The Creation of a NationalAir Force: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, by W.A. B. Douglas, vol. 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986). Used with the permission of The Department of National Defence.

Published by Thomas Allen Publishers,
a division of Thomas Allen & Son Limited,
145 Front Street East, Suite 209,
Toronto, Ontario M5A 1E3 Canada

www.thomasallen.ca

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

We acknowledge the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporations Ontario Book Initiative.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities.

10 09 08 07 06 1 2 3 4 5

Printed and bound in Canada

To Kay and Alex, whose generation served so that their sons andgranddaughters wouldnt have to

CONTENTS

From its first appearance in 1992, this book created a stir.

Originally considered a niche subject, Behind the Glorys story of wartime aviation instructors immediately struck a chord with reviewers and readers. While on a coast-to-coast tour of Canada that fall, I gave 150 interviews in just over two weeks. Reporters seemed drawn to the unsung heroism of the story. Reviewers loved the Hollywood angle. And broadcasters scoured the books pages for former instructors willing to go on-air. Even as much of that media went to air or press, copies of the book seemed in short supply. By mid-autumn I was besieged with calls from people desperate to find the book, including from a commercial pilot who flew from Sarnia, Ontario, to Montreal to pick up a reserved copy. Behind the Glory had captured peoples imagination.

Just as important, however, the book kindled long overdue recognition for the nearly forgotten instructors from their air force community. In 1993, for example, many of the 12,000 members of the Allied Air Forces gathered at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. At its 23rd annual reunion, the association dedicated much of the honours program to those who served in Training Command, in particular, instructors in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). In a keynote address to AAF members, I highlighted the contribution of Canadas unknown soldiers and reminded the air force veterans present how much they owed their original instructors for their survival. As part of my tribute to the role of instructors, I echoed words of support offered by a former navigational instructor to a graduating class of airmen bound for service in the BCATP in 1942:

The difference between an operational flyer and an instructor, can be the equivalent to that between a single rifleman and a Bren gunner, he said. The operational flyer can fight with only his own brain, his own hands. The instructor can fight with the brains and hands of all the hundreds he influences and teaches.

That air forces reunion speech proved a watershed. Since its publication, Glorys research has been the source of many presentations about the BCATP and its neglected instructors. The book became an entre to similarly address such organizations as the Canadian Aviation Historical Society, the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, the Aircrew Association of Canada, the Air Force Association, the Billy Bishop Museum, the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association, the Royal Canadian Legion, the Canadian Club, the Empire Club, as well as BCATP commemorative societies in Nanton, Alberta, and Yorkton, Saskatchewan. On occasion, the books content was presented in support of instructors seeking veterans status and pension benefits. During 2005Canadas designated Year of the Veteran History Television aired the documentary Bomber Boys: A Commonwealth of Heroes based in part on