RCAF 100th anniversary
Billy Bishop with his 72 enemy planes shot down during WWI became one of the greatest “aces” of all time. The same with Raymond Collishaw who managed to take down 60 enemy craft. Perhaps the best of them all was William Barker. Barker became the most decorated serviceman in Canadian history. Among the accolades awarded to this young pilot were the Victoria Cross, the Military Cross with two bars, the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Medal for Military Valour.
It wasn’t until the war that followed “the war to end all wars” that the RCAF finally came into its own. From 1939 to 1945, 232,000 men and 17,000 women enlisted in the service. Canada supplied the allies with 86 squadrons, 47 of which served over seas, in the fight against Germany, Italy and Japan.
As in WWI, the fighting in WWII produced a legion of Air Force heroes. All across the country young men from every walk of life lined up at recruitment centres with one dream; to become a pilot. The Eastern Townships was no exception. It was also the home of one of the best pilots to ever serve in the RCAF: John Colton.
Born in Burntisland, Scotland in 1923, Colton moved with his family to Sherbrooke, Quebec at an early age. He had, as he put it, “. . . the good luck to graduate from Sherbrooke High just after the start of WWII.” A few months later, in September of 1941, he received a telegram requesting he report to the Montreal recruiting centre for the RCAF.
Colton was aware that the RCAF operated two basic training centres, one in Ontario and the other in Windsor Mills, about eight miles from his home. Being eighteen years old Colton had, in his own words, the “wander lust” so he was disappointed when he learned he’d been posted to Windsor Mills.
Being familiar with the area did have one advantage. When he eventually began his solo flight training he had a good idea of the local geography, or so he thought. On one particular training flight when he was practicing “loops, rolls, stall turns, etc.” he suddenly realized his fuel tank was running low; time to return to base. This was when he also realized, with all the changes in direction, he didn’t recognize anything down below.
Finally, with his tank almost empty he landed in a farmer’s field just outside of Danville where he spent the night keeping watch over his plane until help arrived the next morning.
Colton arrived in Britain in 1943. Although the worst of the Battle of Britain and the day and night bombing were over, the Island was still “just hanging on.” Colton now found himself the pilot of a fighter, rocket-bomber, single engine, Hawker Typhoon. After several training incidents that could have taken his life, Colton compared the Typhoon to “a super powerful, bucking, bronco” much like the ones in the Calgary Stampede.
Life in the RCAF consisted of attempting to intercept German bombers and their fighter escorts before they could do any damage. They also found themselves increasingly involved in raids of their own that took them to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and eventually, into Germany itself. Whether these raids took place at night or in broad daylight it was, in Colton’s words, “just plain Hell.” Planes flew through anti-aircraft fire that filled the sky with flack while, at the same time, they dodged German fighters. Each time a squadron of planes flew into battle planes were lost and pilots and crews died. In total, 17,397 Canadian airmen were killed.
The estimated number of ‘sorties’ or actions that a pilot would undertake before either being seriously wounded or killed was around 30 and it is here that John Colton stood out from the rest. From 1943 to 1945, Colton flew no less than 104 sorties and lived to talk about it. When asked how he managed to do it, Colton put it down simply to “good reflexes and dumb luck.”
In later life, John Colton was honoured by the Federal and Provincial governments, the City of Sherbrooke and the RCAF. Through it all, he never forgot his comrades, many of whom had died, and always insisted that he was just one of the thousands who did their duty.
Much of the material for this article was taken from John Colton’s autobiography of his war service, which he donated to the Army Navy Air Force Unit 318 museum, and from many private conversations.