William Avery Bishop was born in Owen Sound, Ontario, on 8 February 1894. After a lacklustre career at the Royal Military College, he enlisted in the cavalry, transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, and arrived in France in March 1917 with No. 60 Squadron. He was a natural predator. Flying a Nieuport 17 with a blue-painted spinner, he shot down three Germans over Vimy Ridge in April 1917 and won the Military Cross. By the end of May he had twenty-two victories. On the morning of 2 June 1917 he flew alone to a German airfield near Cambrai, attacked seven aircraft on the ground, and claimed three destroyed before escaping under four enemy scouts. For this he received the Victoria Cross—the first awarded to a Canadian airman. After a spell in England and a posting to Washington, he returned to France in June 1918 to command No. 85 Squadron, flying the S.E.5a. In twelve days he added twenty-five victories, bringing his confirmed total to seventy-two and making him the British Empire’s highest-scoring surviving ace. On his final day, 19 June 1918, he shot down five Germans in twelve minutes. Bishop survived the war, helped forge the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in the Second World War, and died in Florida on 11 September 1956. Controversy has since surrounded some claims, but there is no doubt that he was a superb marksman and an instinctive hunter of extraordinary courage.