Barker VC

I just finished reading a new book on William Barker the Canadian ace, by Wayne Ralph. It was pretty good, but a little dry for my tastes. The research, which must have been tough, is top notch, but you don't really get a sense of the man. Has any one else read this? The classic tale of his fight with 60 alleged aircraft is spelled out. Its interesting to read how responsible the media was for that tall tale.

"Pretty good, but a little dry for my tastes. The research, which must have been tough, is top notch, but you don't really get a sense of the man." So what do you want ? Facts or recycled mythology ?

[Barrett]

I've written 3 volumes of aviation biography and if that's any qualification, "Barker VC" is excellent.
BTW, watch this fall/winter for "Black Sheep One", the Pappy Boyington story from Bruce Gamble who produced a fine VMF-214 history. I just read the galleys and give "BS 1" two thumbs up.

[stevedrew]

Dereck,
I have read "Barker, VC" by Wayne Ralph. I was so impressed with the work that I emailed Wayne to tell him that I thought it was probably the best researched and well written WW1 pilot biography I had read.
I even went to the effort of asking him if he would be so kind as to autograph my copy. He emailed me in return, and consented. When he received the book, he was amazed that I had sent it from Australia to Canada. He autographed the book for me, and sent a lot of newsclippings etc, relating to Barker that post-dated his book. He was both kind and generous, and thanked me for my praise. A nice guy, to boot!

Steve Drew

The 'alleged fight with 60 aircraft' a 'tall tale'. What actually happened with Barker that day? I've not seen this book and perhaps I'll look it up, but I'd be interested to know the truth behind the legend. Apologies if this is a strand I've missed before, which I'm sure it is.

What I'd like is something beyond flight logs and contact reports. For example, the author raises the question that the competition Barker faced on the Italian front wasn't as good as the Western Front, but he never answerers his own question.

The truth of the "60 enemy plane story" seems to be that Barker wrangled a roving commission for 10 days on the Western Front before they were going to send him home. He lost several days to bad weather. On his last flight he went up by himself, got into trouble and from Wayne Ralphs description, his shot up plane may have decended through several flights of German planes. But the number was nowhere near 60. He recieved the VC and several serious wounds, but never corrected the newspaper reports.

I have read a number of different versions of his VC flight, but they all seem to argee that there was not 60 German planes, this is not to say he wasn't outnumbered (the books i've read put the figure between 30-45). However these were in three different flights at three different heights (about 3000 feet apart) so no he didn't fight them all at once however at anyone time he would have fought off about 15-20 planes, due to the top flight following him down.

May not have been sixty planes but he still did damn well that day!

As for the Italian front, i'm not too clear on the details but weren't there a number of German jastas fighting on the Italian front that weren't withdrawn until the big push in 1918? You would need to look at his claims.

Mark T

I agree with Steve and Barrett; really liked this book.

I liked the book a lot, and thought that it gave a fairly good appraisal of the man, warts and all. He came across as a dedicated fighter pilot, leader, and innovator in air tactics and one who had a lot of trouble adapting to post-war life.

One aspect that the book did fall down in was the quality of the photos. I was rather dissappointed in them. Col. Drew's book from 1932 (?) had much better photos produced in it.