Collinshaw, Raymond, 1893-1976

Flying ace Raymond Collinshaw was born in Nanaimo, BC, to Welsh immigrant parents and at the age of 15 went to sea. Starting as a cabin boy with Canadian Fisheries, he later participated in the mission which arrived too late to rescue find the doomed Arctic Stefansson expedition; he worked seven years on ships, attaining the position of first officer. As World War I began, he trained for the Royal Naval Air Service in Toronto and in England, qualifying as a pilot in 1916. He became a fighter pilot, and in the course of the war achieved the highest score in the RNAS, and second highest score of any Canadian pilot. Nicknamed “Collie,” he was leader of his Black Squadron, so named because the pilots had painted their planes black – his own plane was “Black Maria.” In 1919, he was sent with the 47th squadron to help White Russian forces against the Bolsheviks (a fiasco); he later commanded the No. 84 squadron in Egypt and Persia and then Wing No. 5 in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. He was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1921. At the start of World War II, he was promoted to Air Commodore in the RAF, commanding the No. 204 “Egypt Group” (later known as the Desert Air Force), the assignment of which he was proudest, as his outnumbered pilots bested their Italian adversaries. In 1941, he was involuntarily retired, possibly due to health problems, but he returned to his wife and two daughters in Canada, took up a second career in the mining industry, and lived to 92.