To War Staff College, 3 December 1944 To AFHQ, 6 March 1945 Promoted to Squadron Leader, 1 May 1945 Released 30 October 1945 Died in Kentville, Nova Scotia, 7 March 2005 as per Legion Magazine of November 2005 During his career he suffered slight concussion (2 December 1942) when landing Spitfire VC BR476 at Magrun (He blew a tire and his aircraft went over on its back) Claimed to have flown 172 operational hours with No.92 Squadron |
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Five Canadian Airmen Win Gallantry Awards
Ottawa, Feb. 2, 1943 - (CP) - Five awards to Canadian fliers serving overseas were included in a list of decorations announced tonight by R.C.A.F. headquarters.
The awards:
D.F.C. –
F/O Charles Stanley Wright Proctor, 248 Heath Street West, Toronto
W/O William Donald Ross, Calgary
F/L John Harvey Curry, Dallas, Texas
Acting F/L William Lawrence Chisholm, Kentville, N.S.
P/O Lorne Edward Kropf, Kitchener.
The citations:
F/O Proctor: "This officer has at all times displayed great skill as a navigator bomb aimer. He was engaged throughout the critical period of the enemy advance and succeeded in spotting enemy concentrations in the battle area and scoring many hits on enemy transport. Throughout these operations on a large variety of targets, his technical ability and conduct have inspired confidence in all with whom he had flown.
W/O Ross: "Since February, 1942, W/O Ross has taken part continuously in operations flying. He has participated in 14 bombing raids on Tobruk, pressing home his attacks regardless of opposition. On one occasion he attacked from 10,000 feet despite having a crippled aircraft. In addition, this officer has made several successful raids on enemy's transport in battle area. At all times his devotion to duty has set a fine example to his crew"
F/L Curry: "F/L Curry is an outstanding pilot, who displays the greatest determination to engage the enemy regardless of the opposition encountered. He has destroyed at least seven enemy aircraft and is a source of inspiration to his fellow pilots."
F/L Chisholm: "F/L Chisholm has flown on numerous operational sorties. He has always displayed skill and courage and great determination to engage the enemy. He had destroyed at least five enemy aircraft. This officer's invigorating influence and personal example have greatly contributed toward making his flight a formidable fighting unit."
P/O Kropf was a member of the crew of an aircraft of which he was the only Canadian. The citation, which covers the entire crew, reads: "In various capacities as members of aircraft crew (P/O Kropf) they have displayed great gallantry and determination in attacks against targets in enemy-occupied territory."
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CHISHOLM, F/L William Lawrence (J15044) - Distinguished Flying Cross - No.92 Squadron
Award effective 1 February 1943 as per London Gazette dated 5 February 1943 &
AFRO 373/43 dated 5 March 1943
Since July 1942, Flight Lieutenant Chisholm has flown on numerous operational sorties. He has always displayed skill and courage and great determination to engage the enemy. He has destroyed at least five enemy aircraft. This officer's invigorating influence and personal example have greatly contributed towards making his flight a formidable fighting unit.
NOTE: Public Record Office Air 2/8933 has text from an earlier draft recommendation for a non-immediate award as sent on 21 December 1942 from Headquarters, Royal Air Force, Middle East to Air Ministry:
Pilot Officer Chisholm arrived in the Western Desert with No.92 Squadron at the beginning of July when the squadron was flying Hurricane aircraft of No.80 Squadron. On his first patrol one wheel refused to retract; letting his enthusiasm override his good sense he carried on and when the squadron engaged escorted Stukas he succeeded in badly damaging a Stuka. Since that day, both on Hurricane and later on Spitfires, Pilot Officer Chisholm has flown and fought with great courage and shown great determination to get to grips with the enemy; moreover he has displayed considerable skill as a leader of a flight. He has destroyed five enemy aircraft, shared a further two destroyed, has probably destroyed two more and damaged three others.
He has proved himself a cool and capable leader; his invigorating influence and personal example have gone a long way to make "B" Flight a formidable fighting unit.
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CHISHOLM, F/L William Lawrence (J15044) - Bar to Distinguished Flying Cross - No.92 Squadron
Award effective 23 February 1943 as per London Gazette dated 23 February 1943 &
AFRO 513/43 dated 26 March 1943.
This officer has taken part in the squadron's activities since its arrival in the Western Desert. Throughout he has displayed gallant leadership and outstanding keenness. On one occasion he led the squadron in an attack on a force of enemy fighters and in the ensuing engagement two of them were destroyed without loss. Flight Lieutenant Chisholm, who has destroyed six enemy aircraft, has invariably displayed great courage and devotion to duty.
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Daring Canadian Flyers Go After Huge Axis Force
Two Men Attack Twenty Messerschmitts Without Hesitation
London, 11 March 1943 - (CP) - F/L W. L. (Red) Chisholm, D.F.C. and bar, of Kentville, N.S.. who is serving with the R.A.F. in North Africa, has a score of six enemy aircraft destroyed, three probably destroyed and five damaged, but it isn't any experience encountered in achieving this record that stands out most vividly in his mind.
It is an experience encountered on a day when he didn't even chalk up a "damaged." A Jerry almost got him. He doesn't like to talk about it, but his admiring squadron mates are not so reticent.
Red and his English commander were flying over Berg el Arab just before the big 8th Army push, when they saw what appeared to be 20 ME109's. Actually there were more above, a total of about 60.
Tackle Big Force "Well, how do you feel about it?" the flight commander asked Chisholm over the radio telephone. The 26-year-old former railway brakeman simply answered, "Let's go."
"So those two blokes, all alone, attacked the 20 ME109's and were at once jumped by a dozen more from above," a fellow-officer related. "They held their own and fought off the great mass of Jerries until Red's engine failed and he was chased down, unhurt."
The episode was just part of a fighting record so good that it brought Chisholm the D.F.C. and a bar to it in less than a month. A lanky veteran with 30 months' service in the R.C.A.F., he now is a flight commander in an R.A.F. Spitfire squadron. He has had more than 170 hours of operational flying.
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Hamilton Flier Notable In 8th Army's Advance
An Airfield Beyond Gabes, North Africa, 20 April 1943 - (CP) - Three Canadian members of a front-line fighter squadron distinguished themselves during the 8th Army's advance, with an impressive record of low-level attacks on enemy tanks, armored vehicles and motor transport.
Flying with a specially-assigned squadron, F/O James Carswell, of Turleford, Sask., F/O Kenneth Bendall of Hamilton, Ont., and P/O John Wilcox of Cobalt, Ont., braved intense ground fire in attacks which set tanks aflame and disrupted armored forces trying to stem Gen. Montgomery's spectacular advance.
Riddled repeatedly with machine-gun bullets and fragments of flak, their aircraft never failed on any mission they undertook. Bendall and Carswell both had their engines hit, but managed to coax their machines home. Carswell on one occasion had a bullet hole through the hood of his cockpit.
The impressive score of a Canadian pilot with another Spitfire squadron, F/L Lawrence (Red) Chisholm, D.F.C. and Bar, former railway brakeman of Kentville, N.S., who is one of the most brilliant R.C.A.F. fighter pilots in the Middle East, continued to grow as the African campaign neared its climax. He destroyed an ME109 and probably destroyed a Macchi 202 in mid-April to raise his score to seven destroyed, with many more probables and damaged.
In one scrap, he led Sgt. Michael Askey, son of a Winnipeg army padre, and a third pilot who was English, against a strong formation of enemy fighters. Chisholm and Askey each got one. Their squadron, led by a famous Battle of Britain pilot, got five that day. Another who added to his score was W/O E. A. Ker of Fenwick, Ont. He destroyed a Macchi 202 over Mareth and an ME109 over the Mediterranean. He has shot down a total of three enemy aircraft and has many probables and damaged to his credit.
Ker is a member of a crack R.A.F. squadron which piled up a combined score of 20 destroyed in March and added another seven before the middle of April.
The English squadron commander has a personal score of 20, the highest number of enemy aircraft destroyed by any fighter pilot entirely in the Middle East.
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Son Of Padre In Army Gets Three Italian Planes In One Day In N. Africa
Canucks Win 36 D.F.C.s and Five Bars and 2.1 D.F.M.s - About 260 Killed and Missing
London, July 7, 1943 — Wherever British fighters fought and bombers bombed in North Africa, there were Canadians there as members of Royal Air Force crew.
Into the two massive aerial arms Britain conceived to crush the Axis — the western desert and the Northwest Africa air forces — the Dominion poured her aviators in liberal supply. Official figures place their number in the vicinity of 2,000.
The toll Canada paid has not been finally computed, but 132 were reported killed and missing in the western desert force and the figure in the Northwest Africa group again would probably coincide roughly.
Only one RCAF fighter squadron operated as an entity but few RAF squadrons were without Canadian representation and in some fighter squadrons as high as six of the 12 operational pilots were Canadian
In the air, Dominion crew members fought from El Alamein to Tunis. They scourged the retreating enemy, bombed his bases, joined battle with his bases, carried the war out to sea and harassed his shipping.
They flew the Spitfire, Wellington, Boston, Whitley, Mitchell and Hudson.
From their ranks emerged the inevitable greats, two of them to mature into leaders of RAF Spitfire squadrons in the Tunisian fighting.
These were S/Ls Jimmie Walker, 24-year-old Edmonton bank clerk, and George Hill, from Pictou, N.S., two youngsters who learned how to fly in the Commonwealth Air Training Scheme and now hold the D.F.C. & Bar.
Walker went to Africa with two planes to his credit & shot down 8½ more. Hill had 9½ when Africa fell.
HOCKEYIST STARS
A 26-year-old Listowel athlete who went to Britain in peacetime to play hockey fought the campaign as W/C J. H. Thompson of a Boston bomber squadron.
Supporting the 8th Army, the one RCAF squadron to see action was the City of Windsor squadron under S/L F. B. Foster, of Montreal, which finished the campaign in a crack, front-line fighter wing.
In this western desert force, too, were F/L James Francis Edwards, D.F.C., D.F.M., of North Battleford, who ran his score of destroyed aircraft to ten, and F/L William Lawrence "Red" Chisholm, D.F.C., of Kentville, N.S., who has eight.
GOT THREE IN DAY
In their wake came many another exploit. F/S Michael Askey, of Winnipeg, son of an army padre, ran wild one day and shot down three Italian Macchis. F/O Frank Regan, of Vancouver, destroyed the German ace, Kurt Helmann.
Canadians in this western desert force, exclusive of those in the RAF proper, won 36 D.F.C.s, five Bars and 21 D.F.M.S. At the climax of the fight, about 1,000 Canadians were in the air.
Across the thousands of desert miles, the "Erks" labored at their obscure tasks, at times within artillery range of the Germans, maintaining aircraft that might be flown by Scot, Rhodesian, Canadian or South African.
To a one-time mounted policeman, F/L G. W. Slee, was entrusted maintenance of wireless communication in the Tunisian theatre of operations. He enlisted at Winnipeg.
RCAF wireless air gunners turned up in U.S. and South African Air Force bombers.
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Victories Include :
| 4 July 1942 24 July 1942 1 Aug 1942 19 Aug 1942 30 Aug 1942 1 Sept 1942 7 Oct 1942 9 Oct 1942 27 Oct 1942 8 Jan 1943 7 Mar 1943 |
one Ju87 one Me109 1/2 Me109 one Me109 one Me109 1.5 Me109s one Me109 one Me109 one Me109 one Me109 one Me109 one MC202 one MC202 one Me109 one MC202 |
probable damaged destroyed destroyed & probable destroyed destroyed & damaged destroyed damaged destroyed probable destroyed probable damaged |
7 / 4 / 4
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The Great Chase
The Chronical-Herald & The Mail-Star, 9 November 1985 - I arrived in Egypt a couple of months before the Battle of El Alamein, in early 1942, and Rommel's Afrika Korps was chasing the British back towards Egypt.
The Royal Air Force were very short of pilots, and there were Canadians, Rhodesians, South Africans, New Zealanders, Australians, Americans, British — all sorts of people on squadrons. It was very interesting in the messes talking to all these fliers.
We were in Cairo at that time, with no aircraft. Our fighters had been sunk during transit, and we were there in Cairo when the British stopped the Germans at El Alamein, and then built up for Montgomery's counter-thrust.
We started flying out of a strip about 50 or 75 miles from Alexandria, escorting fighter-bombers and medium bombers with our Spitfire Mark Vs. We would also go on patrols, and try to shoot down anything we could get our sights on.
After the main Battle of El Alamein, when the British broke through the German lines and headed west, we took part in the great chase across North Africa all the way to Tunis.
Once we were on the move, we had to leapfrog from one crude airstrip to the next, staying just behind the advancing British Eighth Army. All our supplies and tents and so on had to come by road, and the roads were very bad after two years of war.
The Germans poisoned all the wells as they retreated ....
After five or six weeks, we got a three or four-day release, and went on leave in Cairo. We had to take three baths to get the dirt off, layer by layer, it seemed, and then we went out and got big steaks and saw some of the night life.
The weather was so good over North Africa [that] we flew seven days a week. The only time we were grounded was during the sand storms, when you couldn't see ten feet in front of your nose. Those were incredible sand storms.
The people in the Arab villages along the shore of the Mediterranean, and the Bedouin tribesmen inland, seemed to ignore the war completely. Unfortunately, some of the Bedouins got caught up in it when they took their camel trains through minefields. We used to trade tea for fresh eggs, and we could even trade used tea leaves for eggs; the war had messed their economy up too and there were no tea boats coming in on the Mediterranean.
We'd move every couple of days, keeping up with the Desert Rats, and we did this for more than 1,000 miles. We'd shoot up, or strafe, German ground transport, keep Stuka dive-bombers from attacking our troops, escort bombers. There was very good co-operation in the desert war between the army and the air force.
I finished my 200-hour combat flying tour just before Tunis, and went to Egypt to train Turkish pilots, then to the United Kingdom and back to Canada to train Commonwealth pilots.
When I was with 92 Squadron in North Africa, I was credited with eight victories over German and Italian aircraft. 92 Squadron was one of the higher-scoring squadrons in the RAF, and we flew the best fighter aircraft in World War II.
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Fine Line Between Panic & Heroism Says Air Ace
THE ADVERTISER, Kentville, N.S., Friday, November 8. 1996, by Brent Fox - It is only "a fine line between" bravery and fatal panic, says Kentville Second World War air ace W.L. "Red" Chisholm. The former fighter pilot also remembers the good times of his wartime service as well as the bad.
Chisholm joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940. He took his elementary training in London, Ontario and his flight training at Borden. He later served as a Hurricane and Spitfire pilot with Royal Air Force squadrons in North Africa, where he attained a score of six enemy aircraft shot down, two others shared, four probables and four damaged. He received two Distinguished Flying Crosses for his actions. The citation for his first DFC noted Chisholm's "gallant leadership, courage and great determination to engage the enemy."
Chisholm told The Advertiser, however, that "I'm not a hero. I was scared to death most of the time I was over there and so was everyone else."
As for his abilities to survive and to attain such a high score of enemy aircraft, Chisholm attributes it to "luck, in a big way." As well, he had been posted as a target-towing pilot at an air training facility in England for a year prior to going to North Africa. "I became a better pilot as a result of all the extra (flying) time. When most of us got over there we were pretty green."
He explained that the "difference between a good fighter pilot and a dead one was the panic button. If you panicked, you were gone. There is a fine line between bravery and panic."
Chisholm and his comrades sailed for the Middle East in February, 1942. Because the
Mediterranean was largely held by German and Italian forces at this time, convoys had to take the long route all the way around Africa.
When the convoy reached West Africa, however, the need for pilots was so immediate that the RAF had Chisholm and the other airmen flown across the continent to Cairo, where they arrived in March, 1942.
This was fine, except that the squadron's aircraft were still on the ships, Chisholm explained. So the pilots had an opportunity to enjoy Cairo for a time. "But that ended pretty quickly." They then went to replace pilots in RAF 80 Squadron flying Hurricane fighters.
Chisholm got his first enemy aircraft on July 3, 1942, his first day of operations while attached to RAF 80 Squadron. "I was scared cross-eyed," but got a German Junkers 87 (Stuka) probable. "We were badly outnumbered at that time." He got a confirmed Mel09 on his last day of flying with 80 Sqn.
"The RAF was pretty strict on confirmations," Chisholm explained. A downed enemy aircraft "had to be confirmed by someone else from the squadron. If an action occurred over our own lines, the army would report it."
Chisholm started flying a Spitfire with his own unit, RAF 92 Squadron, in August, 1942. "I liked the Hurricane, but the Spitfire was a lot better."
Chisholm was promoted to flight lieutenant (equivalent to the current rank of captain) in December, 1942, but almost missed the promotion. He had been in a severe crashlanding and wound up in hospital, but got back to his unit in the nick of time.
Most of Chisholm's enemy aircraft were German Me109s, with three Italian MC202's.
Chisholm recalled that "the
Italian pilots were more inclined to stay and fight even if outnumbered, where as if the German pilots were outnumbered, they would likely just dive away and we couldn't catch them."
He said that the Italian MC202s were good aircraft. "Thank (heavens) they didn't have many of them. They fought well."
Following his service with the fighter squadrons, Chisholm was posted to an occupational training unit in North Africa. "I was teaching Polish pilots to fly British aircraft. I got more grey hair during that" tour than the others, he quipped.
Living conditions for the desert pilots during the campaign were austere to say the least, Chisholm explained. "Living conditions were pretty lousy - hot, dusty, flies.
"The food was terrible, mostly (canned) bully beef. Water was extremely rationed and sometimes we would go a month without a shower or a bath." At times, weather permitting, the pilots could get to the Mediterranean for a swim or leave in Cairo. "But even then you had to take two baths. One to get the first layer off, and a second to get the second layer" of dirt.
The lack of water could be so acute that "for weeks we couldn't even shave," he said. With the movement of the Allied and Axis armies back and forth across the desert, it was not long before all the wells had been poisoned. "We used to dream of a drink of cold, sparkling water.
"You can get used to anything," Chisholm said; "bad food, dust, flies, heat."
There were, however, some good times, Chisholm explained. "Most of us who flew with the RCAF preferred the RAF." This was because "there was such a mixture - Canadians, British, Australians, New Zealanders, a Kenyan and a Trinidadian - from all over the world."
Pilots could be in the mess at night and hear stories from all over, he said. "We all got along just fine. There was never any argument or fusses."
In recalling his wartime service, Chisholm said that "it was a fantastic adventure," but a person tends to "forget all the scary times like the fighting and hard conditions."
He returned to Canada in July, 1943 and was involved in recruiting. He recalled the large welcome he received in Kentville when he visited home after his return.
Chisholm subsequently went into business, raised a family and is retired in Kentville with his wife.
As for the toll of the war in Canadian lives, air crew casualties were the highest per capita of the Canadian armed services, with more 13,000 of the RCAF's 17,100 fatalities.
Chisholm magnanimously gave full credit to bomber aircrew, who suffered by far the highest fatality rate during the bombing of Germany during the war.
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Related Sites :
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Thanks go out to
Jane & the Chisholm family for the help & info !
On these pages I use Hugh Halliday's extensive research which includes info from numerous sources; newspaper articles via the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation (CMCC); the Google News Archives; the London Gazette Archives and other sources both published and private.
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