Raymond Collishaw

[Pips]

Found this post on The Great War Forum, dealing with Collishaw. It was made by MikeW waaay back in January, 2004.

I find it very interesting on several levels.

First off, like many of the great aces (and no doubt the not so great), Collishaw was first and foremost a human being. And as such had as many failings as strengths......ego, ambition, personal aggrandisement. There are many such aces (on both sides on the Lines) who come to mind with these characteristics. To me it's what makes these men so fascinating.

I was surprised to read that bit about Collishaw's tactics, or lack thereof. I don't know why, but I had always thought of him as rather cold and clinical. Like McCudden or Richthofen; but it seems he was more along the lines of Ball and Guynemer.

And it was news to me that the 'Black' label was applied by Collishaw to more than just the famous Black Triplane flight. Perhaps he may have been superstitious - and found the black label a powerful amulet.


"at the risk of offending Canadian members, Collishaw was a very effective self-publicist, in modern parlance he could "talk the talk" and "walk the walk".

An intensely egotistical man he was a good leader, but was regarded as personally reckless - in his own fights he would simply charge straight in, usually head-on. This resulted in his being shot down twice during his spell with Naval 10, he was obviously very lucky to survive one of these incidents! In his memoirs, his CO reported that Collishaw usually returned from each fight with his machine badly shot about.

His auto-biography "Air Command" is a very unreliable source, having him score victories on days when he wasn't flying - a bit like his log-book in that respect! Stories of the exploits of Collishaw and the Black Flight have appeared in many books and journals including Cross & Cockade USA - unfortunately most of these "stories" are also hyped up to the eyeballs! I have made an extensive study of Naval 10 for a forthcoming book to be published by Schiffers (hopefully this year), which I believe presents a much more dispassionate view of the exploits of the Black Flight - one thing you have to remember, if all the aces were in one flight, what effect did that have on the other two flights? Think about it!

The Naval 10 Black Flight was not the first (or the last). Collishaw flew in Robin Mack's flight in Naval 3, the Sopwith Pup aircraft being named Black Tulip, Black Arrow, Black Bess, Black Prince and (of course) Black Maria. After Naval 10, Collishaw spent a short time at the Seaplane Defence Squadron, the Camels known from photographs being Black Maria and Black Prince.

Collishaw then moved on to be CO of 203 Squadron RAF, and tended to ignore the "suggestion" that Commanding officers remain deskbound. claiming another 19 victories.

As if that wasn't enough, he led 47 squadron RAF in the Russian intervention claiming at least one more."

MikeW