bout de papier, Vol. 14, No. 3 (1997) — Fall 1997 // Automne 1997, pp. 44–45
ALL THE FINE YOUNG EAGLES by David L.
Bashow, Stoddart Publishing Company,
Toronto, 1996, 384 pp., $32.00
Reviewed by Louis A. Delvoie
A quiet stroll through any book shop in Canada will reveal a super abundance of works about the Second World War. Indeed, the sheer volume of writings about that War suggests a mini-industry rather than a literary or historical endeavour. Much of this literature extols the exploits or castigates the failures of the Americans, the British, the Germans and the Japanese, and much of it falls into the category of second rate potboilers. Still relatively rare, however, are good books illuminating Canada’s involvement in the war. Colonel David Bashow’s All the Fine Young Eagles falls into this latter category.
The subject matter of the book is well captured in its subtitle: “In the cockpit with Canada’s Second World War fighter pilots.” Based largely on interviews and correspondence with those who made the history it recounts, the book conveys a sense of immediacy and action as it moves with the Canadian pilots from one theatre of operations to another: from Britain and France to the Middle East and North Africa, from Malta and Italy to India and Burma. While the author focusses on the lives and activities of the fighter pilots, he always provides just enough general history of the war to put them in context. And he explains some of the finer points of air combat tactics in a manner thoroughly comprehensible to the layman. This in itself is no mean feat.
Whether serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) or with Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF), Canadian fighter pilots made an outstanding contribution to the Allied war effort from the earliest months of the war until the final victory. Given their numbers, the toll they took of German fighters and bombers was quite extraordinary, and a testimonial to their professional skills. But there was more to it than that. The aircraft they flew (Kittyhawks, Hurricanes, Spitfires etc.) were admirable machines, but were technologically unsophisticated when compared to their modern counterparts, and relied more heavily for their effective use on the basic human qualities of the pilots: sheer physical endurance, mental alertness and raw courage. The fact that the Canadian pilots possessed these qualities in generous measure comes across in page after page of this fine account.
The nature of the challenges faced, the odds overcome and the successes achieved can be cleaned from this terse account of one tour of duty served by Henry Wallace McLeod of Regina: “During his short stay in the Mediterranean, Wally was shot down twice, shot up and damaged five times, managed to shoot down a German bomber when he had only one cannon still firing and shot down six Huns in five days. Over the same period, he also lost twenty-five pounds in weight!”. McLeod went on to become the most successful RCAF fighter pilot of the war, with a confirmed record of twenty-one enemy aircraft destroyed.
But the young men who people these pages are not solemn cardboard heroes. They are also fun-loving youngsters who often tend to spend a bit too long at the bar and are ever in search of female companionship, in the pursuit of which they display considerable ingenuity. And their language in the air was apparently quite colourful, to the point that one British woman officer responsible for recording radio conversations between aircraft was prompted to ask a Canadian pilot, “When you Canadians are in the air in your bloody Spitfires, do you know any words that don’t start with the letter F?”
The darker side of the story is, of course, that the successes achieved by the Canadian pilots were bought at the cost of many lives. Several hundred fighter pilots were numbered among the more than 14,500 members of the RCAF killed in the Second World War. For Canada, it represented the sacrifice of many of the best and brightest of its youth.
This book represents popular history at its best. Well documented and balanced in its judgements, it nevertheless manages to convey a sense of action and adventure. It is a good read.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 14, No. 3 (1997) — Fall 1997 // Automne 1997, pp. 44–45. Read the rest of this issue →
