Notable Calgarians in the war
There was no shortage of First World War heroes, heroines and characters who hailed from southern Alberta. Watch for some of their stories in this weekly feature, June 6 to July 25.
Captain Wilfrid (Wop) May and Captain Arthur Roy Brown, flying aces
The top ace of the First World War wasn’t an Allied fighter pilot; he was on the enemy’s side and his name was Manfred von Richthofen — the Red Baron.
This German fighter pilot accumulated 80 air combat victories, until being shot down on April 21, 1918.
There are conflicting stories about who was responsible for his death. The Royal Australian Artillery was on the ground at the time, shooting at the Red Baron’s plane, and some theorists believe the angle of the bullet that killed von Richthofen could only have entered his body if it was fired from the ground.
For Canadians, however, the more popular theory involves two Canadian aces who took to the air and found themselves intertwined in one of the war’s most notable air victories.
The first ace was Arthur Roy Brown, born in Ontario in 1893. While spending time in Edmonton at school, he met the second ace, Wilfrid Reid ‘Wop’ May, who was three years his junior.
In 1915, Brown enlisted to fight in the First World War. By November of that year, he graduated from a pilot training course at the Royal Naval Service.
Brown’s success as a flying ace, including the Distinguished Service Cross, led to him becoming flight commander of his squadron, which in 1918 welcomed a new pilot to its ranks. That new pilot was Brown’s school friend from Edmonton —— Wop May.
May had enlisted in 1916, with one of his duties teaching soldiers how to shoot. However, he dreamed of becoming a pilot and his application was accepted by the Royal Flying Corps, one of the precursors to the Royal Air Force.
After training, his military path took him to Brown’s squadron and as the group headed for the skies on April 21, 1918, May was flying one of his first few combat patrols. He’d been instructed to fly high and observe any fighting that occurred, rather than engage with the enemy.
May noticed, however, a German plane was doing the same thing he was and he eventually decided his best course of action was to shoot at the enemy craft.
The German plane happened to be flown by the Red Baron’s nephew, Wolfram von Richthofen, and once the Red Baron saw his nephew’s plane being at- tacked, he went on the offensive against May.
Brown saw that May’s plane was in trouble and gave chase to the Red Baron, firing away. Australian ground forces also fired at the German plane.
One bullet hit the Red Baron in the chest. He managed to land his plane before dying.
The Royal Air Force credited Brown with killing the Red Baron, but some military analysts now believe it was the Australians who fired the fatal shot.
Regardless, Brown went on to claim more victories and become a true flying ace of the First Great War.
A flying accident three months later almost killed him, but he survived and left the Royal Air Force a year later. Flying, however, was the pillar around which he developed several businesses back home in Canada. He died at age 50.
May kept on flying for the Allied forces until the war ended. His honours included a Distinguished Flying Cross. He went on to become one of Canada’s best bush pilots and a leader in the development of air search and rescue procedures. Stories about May and his various flight missions became legendary, whether rescuing a desperately ill man from a remote part of northern Canada or helping Edmonton police catch criminals on the run.
The Edmonton-based May was also instrumental in developing the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during the Second World War.
He died June 21, 1952, while on a hiking holiday with his son in Utah. Wilfrid Reid ‘Wop’ May was 56.
Fifty-two years later, one of NASA’s Mars rovers — Opportunity — came across a one-metre rock in the Endurance Crater on the red planet. The rock was named wopmay, in honour of this pilot who can’t be forgotten.