Ted Barris divides his time between teaching at Toronto’s 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, 1939–1945 (with Alex Barris, 1st edition, 1995)
Deadlock in Korea: Canadians at War, 1950–1953
Canada and Korea: Perspectives 2000 (contributor)
Juno: Canadians at D-Day, June 6 , 1944
Days of Victory: Canadians Remember, 1939–1945 (Sixtieth Anniversary edition, 2005)
Victory at Vimy: Canada Comes of Age, April 9–12, 1917
Breaking the Silence: Veterans’ Untold Stories from 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: 125 Years of Granite Club History
Making Music: Profiles from a Century of Canadian Music (with Alex Barris)
101 Things Canadians Should Know About Canada (contributor)
Behind the
GLORY
CANADA’S 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 Plan—History. 2. World War, 1939–1945 — Aerial operations, Canadian. 3. World War, 1939-1945 — Aerial operations. 4. Aeronautics, Military—Study 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 National Air 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
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 Corporation’s 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 son’s and granddaughters’ wouldn’t have to
CONTENTS
Preface to the Thomas Allen Publishers Edition
3 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
5 Cockpit Classroom
6 Recruiting at the Waldorf
7 Hollywood Heroes
8 Yellow Perils
9 Too Valuable to Risk
10 To the Edge of the World
11 The Survival Dividend
12 They Got No Gongs