Prior to the US entry into World War II, nearly 9,000 enthusiastic Americans joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. Nearly 2000 of the 9000 hailed from Texas.
They came for many reasons. Some because they wanted to join the fight against the Nazis. Some because the long economic depression of the 1930’s left many poor and unemployed and looking for some excitement. Some because they were on the run from the law. All who came found that the easiest and fastest way to enlist was to walk across the long unprotected US/Canadian border and enter one of the many recruiting centers that the RCAF had conveniently located near the border crossings.
These airmen, trained in Canada, joined what was to become the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan which was responsible for training more than 170,000 airmen across Canada at more than 100 locations.
After the Pearl Harbor attack, about 3000 of the 9000 Americans returned to the US and joined the United States Air Force. The training and experience they received was critical to the fast cycling from peace to war of the US effort to train airmen in America.
5000 of the 9000 Americans who joined the RCAF stayed in the RCAF throughout the war. Some 800 died while fighting the Nazis. 379 have their names inscribed on Canada’s Bomber Command Memorial Wall which is located on the front lawn of the Bomber Command Museum of Canada, located south of Calgary, Alberta.
When Canada declared war on Nazi Germany on September 10, 1939, the Canadian Air Force was in dire need of pilots. The Canadian government immediately sought out the help of Canada’s most famous World War I air ace, Billy Bishop. Bishop was credited with more 72 air victories in WW1, and on several occasions had dueled in the air with the famous German Ace, Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron. Bishop shot down 12 German planes in one day over Vimy Ridge during the heat of that battle. And he ended the war having been awarded the Victoria Cross and more than 10 additional medals for valor under fire. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment is that he lived to tell the tale.
Thus when the Government of Canada needed someone to help build up the RCAF, Bishop was the natural “man for the job”. It was Bishop who came up with the idea of setting up and promoting the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Where better to train pilots than over broad flat lands where you could see forever and not run into enemy planes trying to shoot down inexperienced pilots. The huge expanses of Canada were a natural location for this. Bishop also knew that Americans who were already pilots or wanted to be pilots would quickly hear about the giant effort underway just on the other side of the border and be attracted to the fight out of a sense of adventure.
Bishop called upon a along time American friend of his named Clayton Knight. Knight had flown with the British during WW1 and had become a very popular aviation artist after the war. Bishop knew that he had lots of contacts amongst the pilot community in the US. Knight agreed to help and formed an organization called the Clayton Knight Committee whose function was to help US recruits travel to Canada and join the RCAF. There was just had one small problem. This was a total and obvious violation of the US Neutrality Act and was completely illegal.
Undeterred, the Clayton Knight Committee opened more than 20 offices all around the US including one in the Waldorf Astoria in New York. They were not able to advertise because they knew it was a violation of US law so instead, they used word-of-mouth and sent letters to flying schools all over the country. Eventually the US Government got angry over this and in November of 1940, the US State Department released a letter to the media stating that the Canadian Government was directly violating US law by spending Canadian Government money to lure Americans to Canada to serve it the RCAF in violation of the US Neutrality Act.
The Canadian Government had to immediately apologize but Bishop had a new idea. He ingeniously and quickly set up something called the “Dominion Aeronautical Association” in between the Clayton Knight Committee and the RCAF. Suddenly the offers for flight school were coming not from the RCAF but from the DAA. When the new recruits from America arrived at the DAA offices in Canada, they were magically informed that the DAA had no open positions but “please go to the RCAF recruiting offices as I believe they have positions available. And oh… By the way, their offices are right next door”.
The situation improved when the Lend-Lease program came into effect in the spring of 1941. After this, the US government treated the enlistment of Americans in the RCAF as part of the aid program and even exempted the recruits from the US military draft that was just being implemented.
One of the most famous Americans in the RCAF was Joe McCarthy from Long Island who played a leading role in the highly successful and well known “Dambusters Raid” in 1943 when the 617 Squadron of the RAF, using special barrel shaped bouncing bombs, destroyed the Mohn and Edersee Dams causing significant flooding and damage to German factories in the Ruhr Valley.
Another well known American in the RCAF was John Magee who wrote the very famous poem about aviation called “High Flight’. Some will remember that Ronald Reagan quoted from this poem, using the first and last lines when he spoke immediately after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986. Magee did not survive the war.
High Flight
“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air….
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
– Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”
One of the Texans who served in the RCAF was Bill Ash from Dallas and a University of Texas graduate. In 1942 while engaged in a large RAF attack over France, Ash was shot down. He evaded capture for some time in France but eventually was rounded up by the Gestapo who threatened to shoot him as a spy as he had changed out of his uniform and into civilian clothes. Luckily for Ash, the Luftwaffe found out that the Gestapo was holding an RCAF pilot. They demanded that Ash be turned over to the Luftwaffe who sent him into Stalag Luft III in Sagan in Lower Silesia. They would come to regret this as Ash became deeply involved in planning prisoner escapes and Stalag Luft III was the POW camp where the inmates successfully tunneled out of the camp in what became known as “The Great Escape”. Although Ash was not one of the 77 who made it out of the tunnel that night, he went on to attempt numerous escapes. He escaped from various POW camps more than 12 times by going over the wire with ladders, under the wire through tunnels and sometimes through the wire with wire cutters. His exploits are memorialized in a book that he wrote called “Under the Wire”.
There are few recorded histories of these Americans who fought for Canada. On this Remembrance Day, (Veteran’s Day in the US), we remember.