The stories about him are insane.

Military commander, fighter pilot — maybe one of the best in the world. (Like, better than the Red Baron best. Better than Billy Bishop best.)

This is the story of the great Canadian wartime flying ace that nobody’s heard of.

Raymond Collishaw was raised in Nanaimo BC which, during his time, was a rough-and-tumble coal mining town on Vancouver Island.

You might actually think he would have been a good miner. His parents were miners (I mean, everyone was in Nanaimo back then.) But he had absolutely no interest in it. He found it boring, tedious.

“Screw mining,” he thought. “And screw this little Island hicktown. Raymond Collishaw is going to make a name for himself.”

From Fish to Flight

In 1908, at the age of 15, he packed up and joined… the Canadian Fisheries Protection Service. I mean sure, it’s not the Air Force, but it’s a start, right? He spends a few years there, rising up the ranks, and finally applies to the Royal Canadian Navy. Which ghosts him. No reply. 

That’s okay. Screw those guys. He’ll go to the Royal Naval Air Service instead.

Frankly, it’s a miracle he survives training at all. Those planes. Engines keep breaking down, sometimes mid-flight, for god’s sake. (No, not sometimes. Frequently. His log books are full of it.)

But somehow training didn’t kill him, and in 1916, he was off. 

World War I

His first victory was a raid against a rifle factory in Germany. As his squadron narrowed in on the target, out of nowhere, a bunch of German fuckers (sorry, “fokkers”) attacked. Collishaw spun back, circled behind, and let his wingman fire. They hit one, bad. Collishaw turned, climbed altitude, and bore down on the Fokker with the focus of a lion. “Open fire”, he yelled and together, they unloaded hell into the German plane. It spun like a child’s toy, broke up into a million pieces, and fell to German soil like rain.

According to the German authorities — nope. They didn’t lose any aircraft. Fake news.

Then, the famous Black Flight. Collishaw commanded that flight in a plane called the Black Maria. All the planes were like that. Black Prince. Black Roger. Hell, they even named one of them Black Death.

Corny names aside, the squadron was devastating. His unit downed 87 enemy planes in just two months. Collishaw himself hit 27 of them. (Or maybe 60. Depends on which record you believe.)

Once, delivering a new aircraft from headquarters, six German fighters came out of nowhere and ambushed Collishaw. It was six-to-one, and the Germans had the advantage of height. But no worries. Collishaw liked being low. He could lure them.

Flying just under the enemy fighters, Collishaw dipped even lower, forcing the confused fighters to follow him, right until Collishaw made a sudden pitch up, inches before the treeline. He made it. Two German fighters didn’t. The other four got the hell out of there.

The French were so impressed, they awarded him the Croix de Guerre.

The Quiet Between Wars

Lucky or not, his name was attached to some of the most decorated fights in the first world war: The Last Hundred Days. The 1918 German Offensive. The Allied Counteroffensive.

They promoted the hell out of him. Squadron leader. Commander. At the end of the war, that former little pudgy red-faced kid from Nanaimo had made a name for himself.

After the first war, he spent time training, they gave him a horse (for some reason). Deployed him to Sudan, then to an aircraft carrier, then to Russia, the Middle East, Africa. He was pretty much everywhere.

And, for a while, the world was at peace. 

World War II

By the time Hitler showed up, Collishaw was a senior commander. Things weren’t going well. The Germans kept taking over territory. Churchill’s Operation Battleax was a huge failure. Collishaw was doing what he could with what he had. Which wasn’t much.

They didn’t have as many planes as the enemy. They didn’t have as much firepower. Hell, Collishaw only had one modern Hurricane fighter to use. The rest were assigned to training. But Collishaw, who was charged with keeping the Italians at bay, decided ‘If I can’t win the air war, I’ll fight them in their minds.’

He took that single Hurricane and moved it. Constantly. From base to base, making sure the enemy saw it each time. That plane was everywhere. He sent it to attack  formations, dozens of times, making them think they had a whole squadron at his disposal. Sometimes, he’d send the plane to do loud flyovers of their forts — not for recon or to bomb them… just piss them off. 

The crazy thing is: It worked. Trying to stay on top of it all, the Italians spread their fleet too far and wide. They were assigning soldiers to watch the fort for this fucking plane that keeps showing up, instead of actually going on missions.

And yet, a few months later, Collishaw was fired. Well, fired as much as the military fires anyone. He was recalled and given a posting in Scotland where, after two years he was ”involuntarily retired.”

He spent the rest of the war behind a desk as an Air Liaison Officer.

He wasn’t even 50.

Full Circle, Sort Of

After the war, Collishaw returned to Canada, but never did move back to Nanaimo. He and his wife raised two daughters.

Oh and guess what? After all that “screw mining” stuff in his youth, he ended up getting into the mining industry after all.

He also became a respected military historian, unravelling mysteries like who shot down the Red Baron.

Raymond Collishaw died in West Vancouver in 1976. He was 82.

In 1999, the Nanaimo Airport named its terminal building after him.

In the end, it’s hard to say where Raymond Collishaw ranks in the record books. History’s complicated like that. Some historians credit him with 81 kills. Some more. Some fewer.

But if 81 is the number? That would put him at the top of the First World War flying aces.

Ahead of Billy Bishop.

Ahead of the Red Baron.

Not bad, for a round little red-faced kid from Nanaimo, who just wanted to make a name for himself.

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• Drag performers nonchalantly crashed Trump and Melania’s date night at the Kennedy Center in a protest against his anti-‘woke’ agenda, following his move to name himself chairman and vow to ban drag shows from the venue.

• A new poll shows U.S. President Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 38%. 

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• Safe and sound: A stowaway porcupine hitched a wild ride across B.C., travelling nearly 2,000 kilometres by helicopter, plane, boat, and truck hidden in a small plane wreck before being discovered at a salvage yard in Kelowna.

The Trade War That Nobody Asked For

• Tariffs aren’t going anywhere… for now: An American federal appeals court ruled this week that Trump’s global tariffs will stay in place during ongoing legal proceedings.

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• Trade war hangover: The Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority is ending its ban on U.S.-made alcohol, reversing trade war restrictions and resuming sales of American products.

• Canada-U.S. travel has dropped for the fifth straight month, with fewer Canadians returning from the U.S. in May compared to last year.

Sciencey Things You Missed

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The First Peoples 

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• A federal government agency is funding a high-tech housing project on the site of a controversial large-scale marijuana grow-op in the Haudenosaunee community of Six Nations, Ontario.  

• Canada’s auditor general says the feds are moving too slow to process First Nations status applications, leaving many without access to housing, education funding, and health benefits.

• Over the past five years, Canada’s fisheries agency aimed to integrate Indigenous knowledge with Western science, but a new study found only 1 of nearly 80 policy documents fully integrated Indigenous approaches.

Across Canada 

• Prime Minister Mark Carney announced $1.5M in federal funding to help make 2SLGBTQ+ parades safer amid a rise in hate crimes.

• Toronto Pride says this month’s events will proceed as planned despite a $900,000 funding gap after several corporate sponsors backed out — a move tied to U.S. companies distancing themselves from DEI efforts amid Trump’s influence.

• We’re cooked: Gen Z Canadian graduates are facing the highest unemployment rate the country has seen since the 90s.

• A new report says Ottawa’s plan to prepare Canada for climate change is falling short.

• A B.C. man tried to get his money back because the movers he hired took breaks. Now the moving company is hauling him to court.

• Flin Flon, recently evacuated due to wildfires, is now the target of a scam: a fake website claims a single mom’s clothing warehouse burned down and she’s selling off the remains. (The warehouse doesn’t even exist.)

More Dystopian Hellscape

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• A Kentucky man was recently arrested for releasing a raccoon inside a bar, just months after being arrested for trying to escape police while riding a mule… no word yet on whether he plans to run for president. #Mule2028

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