British Army Air Marshal William Avery Bishop, VC, CB, DSO & Bar, MC, DFC, ED (8 February 1894 – 11 September 1956) was a Canadian flying ace of the First World War.

[10] 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.

[11] The granddaughter of Timothy Eaton, the department store magnate, Margaret Burden had become friends with Louise Bishop during summer vacations to Owen Sound.

[12] 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.

[18] Bishop's unit left Canada for England on 6 June 1915 on board the requisitioned cattle ship Caledonia as part of a convoy.

[20] On a jaunt to London, Bishop subsequently wrangled an appointment with the Royal Flying Corps recruitment officer, Lord Hugh Cecil.

By the end of October, Bishop was crossing the English Channel and flying his first missions in a combat zone, directing artillery fire.

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.

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.

[29] 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.

Now she used her influence to remove Bishop from hospital and install him as one of her guests in her four-story mansion, where he mingled with, and charmed, her influential social circle.

[35] Bishop returned to England in September 1916, and, with the influence of St Helier,[36] was accepted for training as a pilot at the Central Flying School at Upavon on Salisbury Plain.

[40] At that time, the average life expectancy of a new pilot in that sector was 11 days, and German aces were shooting down British aircraft 5 to 1.

[49] Bishop, in addition to the usual patrols with his squadron comrades, soon flew many unofficial "lone-wolf" missions deep into enemy territory, with the blessing of Major Scott.

[52] His new method of using the surprise attack proved successful; he claimed 12 aircraft in April alone, winning the Military Cross for his participation in the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

For this feat, he was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), although it has been suggested that he may have embellished his success, most notably by historian, Brereton Greenhous, in his 2002 book The Making of Billy Bishop.

[62] Bishop returned home on leave to Canada in fall 1917, where he was acclaimed a hero and helped boost the morale of the Canadian public, who were growing tired of the war.

[69] The Government of Canada was becoming increasingly worried about the effect on morale if Bishop were to be killed, so on 18 June he was ordered to return to England to help organize the new Canadian Flying Corps.

He established an importing firm, Interallied Aircraft Corporation,[75] and a short-lived passenger air service with fellow ace William Barker, but after legal and financial problems, and a serious crash, the partnership and company were dissolved.

[77] By 1944 the stress of the war had taken a serious toll on Bishop's health, and he resigned his post in the RCAF to return to private enterprise in Montreal, Quebec, before retiring in 1952.

[78] With the outbreak of the Korean War, Bishop again offered to return to his recruitment role, but he was in poor health and was politely refused by the RCAF.

[83]His citation for the Distinguished Service Order bar read: For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when engaging hostile aircraft.

He has destroyed no less than 45 hostile machines within the past 5 months, frequently attacking enemy formations single-handed, and on all occasions displaying a fighting spirit and determination to get to close quarter with his opponents which have earned the admiration of all in contact with him.

Billy Bishop Goes to War feature film and Canadian musical, written by John MacLachlan Gray in collaboration with the actor Eric Peterson in 1978.

It also led indirectly to a 1983 CBC Television documentary called The Kid Who Couldn't Miss, produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

[citation needed] Canadian authors Dan McCaffery and David Bashow also presented circumstantial evidence that Bishop did not fake the attack.

The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology discredited the documentary, saying it was an unfair and inaccurate portrayal of Bishop.

[citation needed] The Canadian Encyclopedia states: "Investigation by a Senate sub-committee exposed a number of minor errors in this apparent 'documentary' and confirmed that statements had been wrongly attributed and incidents shifted in time for dramatic effect.

Referring to Bishop's claims in early to mid-1918, Revell says another aviation historian, Ed Ferko, carried out extensive research on Germans records in 1987.

Revell says that Ferko failed "to match a single victory claim made by Bishop against a known German loss for the day, time or place in question."