Billy Barker VC

<<Thanks for your input Tom. Top athletic condition would only add a couple of minutes of conciousness.>>

I don't mean spending time in the weight room, I mean a natural physical advantage, from birth--like Yeager's famous 20/10 vision. If Barker was able to fly at 21,000 feet without oxygen then he had physical gifts that cross-training can't give you. His very active career as a pilot argues for a great deal of toughness and resiliance. Look up Jeff Ethell's description of flying the old planes from a modern pilot's viewpoint--ten minutes and he was drained.

<<If the biography is the same one I'm thinking of, the writer states that the men on the ground saw no enemy aircraft.>>

Andrew McNaughton said at the time and afterwards that he witnessed the fight from the ground--ten miles away in a clear sky. Wayne Ralph thinks it's possible.

FYI... Last May we visited Barker's actual fuselage in Ottawa. It is in the storage section of their National War Museum, known if I remember correctly, as the Vimy House. (Actually it is the old City of Ottawa trolley barn!) I wrote a letter to the powers-to-be about it and was assured that they know the importance of what they have and are waiting for a new (and much larger) musuem to be opened out near their National Air Museum. The Vimy House (?) is open to the general public (I believe) on Saturdays only. As near as I could tell it appeared to be in very good condition and indentical to the picture of WB sitting in it in the Spring of 1919 (when it was first brought to Canada), as seen in the very good WR book of WB. It would be my guess that the fuselage perhaps might have been recovered before coming to Canada as there did not appear to be any battle damage. I hope for a revisit this August. For us of this forum, Ottawa is a great place to visit, and if not of this forum, is still a great place to visit. And speaking of visits, we visited the Rhinebeck Aerodrome yesterday for their first airshow of the '01 season. The highlight of the show was the flying return of the Jenny. Very nice!
Happy motoring,
Ed Lorenz

Firstly on condition. Remember that Barker said he was caught napping, or the equivalent there of. Above 12,000 feet the human body starts starving for oxygen. Human reaction times slow; vision becomes affected. In those days they didn't know that and the pilots assumed they were at fault. So it shouldn't be any wonder that Barker got jumped. Secondly, Ralphs book states that McNaughton was fifteen miles away. But even if he was directly under the action, why was he the only one to see it? Put it another way, assume Barker remained concious for eight minutes (which that type of wound does't normally allow), the following events occur. He knows he needs help fast. He spots an observation balloon unit heads for it and lands. Obviously this bunch of trained observers cannot be very far from where the action took place, yet they don't see a single enemy airplane let alone 15 or 60. Lets throw this into the pot as well; weren't german observation aircraft being escorted, especially that late in the war. Ralphs book states that the two seater was secure in its altitude, however thats the kind of assumption the german air service had stopped making very early in the war. Wouldn't it be logical to say that the pilot that got Barker was one of the escorts that was supposed to be guarding the two seater? If this is so, how many planes would have normally escorted that type of mission? As far as the pilots being physically tougher in those days; they weren't. The pilots from all sides went up above 12,000 feet without oxygen and suffered together. It was a zero sum game since all their reactions slowed, all their vision tunnelled, and the all made mistakes related to oxygen loss.

[Barrett]

Though the need for oxygen at high altitude was known and even provided in some cases, not all Great War pilots understood where the effects became apparent. Today we take for granted the need for oxygen above 10-12k ft (it varies among organizations), and we know that 18k is the altitude with 50% of the oxygen at sealevel.
However, such distinctions apparently weren't widely recognized in '18. Two of the WW I guys I knew best said they'd return from a 2-hour patrol at 15k or so, "Feeling just great." Anoxia was a cheap "high!" (hee!)

Tony: McNaughton wasn't the only one to see it. He is quoted as follows: "The hoarse shout, or rather the prolonged roar, which greeted the triumph of the British fighter, and which echoed across the battlefield, was never matched in Rome, nor do I think anywhere else....". I doubt that the infantry watching the fight would have gone into a "prolonged roar" over the spectacle of Barker landing his plane beside some kite balloonists. On the other hand, McNaughton could have made the whole thing up - but it's pretty aggressive to make up a story about something being viewed by 15000 or so persons, because you're in danger of being contradicted 15000 times. Also nothing I've ever read about McNaughton (an honourable and incredibly talented artillery general) would indicate he was capable of inventing a story like this.

[Craig]

While I am of the opinion that a large portion of what passes as "history" is actually self-congratulatory propaganda, written by the victors, for the victors, etc., I think this story is, in its essence, true. But I'm also sure somebody, somewhere put some hair on it.

Kory: It has always been fashionable to think that our heroes of yesteryear were cut from better stuff. I say that had there been no war, these guys might've been as average as you or me. War brings out not only the worst in homo sapiens, but the best, as well.

"THe hoarse shout..." line smacks of writers hyperbole. The point is not one of the 15,000 stepped forward and said yes. The people you would expect to confirm the fight are missing. Does the similarity between Barkers attitude towards this combat, whenever anyone asked about it, and the attitude of Roy Brown, when asked about his famous combat, strike anyone as being more than a little bit similar?

Au Contre mon Frere' , In those days people WORKED for a living, yea with hands and their MUSCLES. Even outside of war, they didn't sit at desks lamenting times of yesteryear they plowed fields with their hands or MADE things with their hands. The sedentary lifestyle was much more rare than it is now.

I workout nearly every day and I honestly don't think i'm in as good shape as the average joe in "good health" was as a soldier or an airman in WWI.

It's good to see that you awknowledge that the Barker VC incident happened though Craig, your more open minded than I thought.

You gotta be kidding me Tony, the Barker last flight is nearly the most certain of the air VC incidents, to have happened.

[Craig]

I still don't think it's so cut-and-dried. People today are more health conscious than they were 100 years ago. Though this doesn't compensate for the sedentary workplace, or the Cult of the Infernal TV, the better nutrition and medical care does. We are larger and stronger than we were 100 years ago. I read recently that the average German male has gained 5 inches in height since 1900. And athletic records are substantially better now.

BTW, one can be open-minded AND a skeptic. Being open-minded has more to do with lack of bias than with low standards of proof. I remain skeptical of most of the legends that made their way into the history books - especially those written by the victors. Kinda like sitting around the fire and telling tall tales of battle.

As an exercise in open-mindedness, let's discuss Tony's comparison between Brown's and Barker's "almost embarrassed" reactions to acclaim received for their Main Course Heroics. Try not to let your preconception that Barker's fight was either fictionalized or reported faithfully get in the way. A good place to start would be: is it in charcter for these men to be so eyes-down-hush-hush about their exploits?

Let's go!