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Page 3 West Vancouver Historical Society March 2005 Ray Collishaw by Philip Collings There were few visible signs that Ray Collishaw had led a life so full of violence and danger, sustained over such periods of time and at such a peak of intensity, that one wonders equally: first, how he fit it all in; secondly, how he managed to survive into his retirement. This was the extraordinary Ray Collishaw, officially known as Air Vice-Marshall Raymond Collishaw, CB, DSO, OBE, DSC, DEL (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. He was a modest man who often refused to take credit for his own exploits. Early Life Ray Collishaw was born in Nanaimo, BC, on November 22, 1893, the son of an Englishman who was drawn to BC by the Barkerville Gold Rush. Collishaw Senior was so attracted to the goldfields (California, the Klondike and Ballarat were on his itinerary) that pure chance made Ray a Canadian rather than an American or an Australian. He went to school briefly in Oakland, California, but mostly in BC. In the summer of 1908, at age 15, he 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 seaman and then as First Officer. In 1910, the Royal Canadian Navy was formed and 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 Arctic. 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 he 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 which included experience on the airplane types of the day, such as the Caudron, Avro 504, Curtis Jenny and the Maurice Farman Short-Horn. In August 1916 he had his first operational posting to No. 3 (Naval) Wing, and experimental bombing formation flying two-seater Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutters, based on Luxeuil-Les-Bains in Alsace. In case you were wondering, the 1 1/2 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, the destruction of enemy factories and industrial plantâ€"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 feiTy trip, simply for the purpose of transferring and aiiplane 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 further and further east, he was under attack by six German scouts, and he 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 Continued Overleaf Note: Before Phil began his research on Raymond Collishaw 1 left him with the impression that the retired aviator had been a “Province” customer of mine, and that he’d lived near 15th and Queens after the war. As it turned out, Collishaw lived in the Altamont area; my customer was a retired air force of- ficer with a name that resembled Phil’s subject. TT