THE RIGHTEOUS, the BRAVE, and the RESTLESS the Experiences of Neil "Piffles" Taylor, His Fellow Canadian Pilots, and Prisoners-Of-War in the First World War

THE RIGHTEOUS, THE BRAVE, AND THE RESTLESS The Experiences of Neil "Piffles" Taylor, his Fellow Canadian Pilots, and Prisoners-of-War in the First World War

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements For the Degree of

Master of Arts in History University of Regina

Stephen Paul Hodgson

Regina, Saskatchewan January 2018

UNIVERSITY OF REGINA

FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH

SUPERVISORY AND EXAMINING COMMITTEE

Stephen Paul Hodgson, candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in History, has presented a thesis titled, The Righteous, The Brave, and the Restless: The Experiences of Neil “Piffles” Taylor, his Fellow Canadian Pilots, and Prisoners-of- War in the First World War, in an oral examination held on December 15, 2017. The following committee members have found the thesis acceptable in form and content, and that the candidate demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the subject material.

External Examiner: *Dr. David M. Leeson, Laurentian University

Supervisor: Dr. Ian Germani, Department of History

Committee Member: Dr. Ken Leyton-Brown, Department of History

Committee Member: **Dr. Raymond Blake, Department of History

Chair of Defense: Dr. Sylvain Rheault, La Cité Universitaire Francophone

*Via Tele-conference **Not present at defense

ABSTRACT

The experiences of Canadian airmen who served in the British flying services during the

First World War have received a very focused treatment from historians. The wartime letters and diary of Saskatchewan veteran Neil Taylor, who served in the Royal Flying

Corps, allow for a more complete appreciation of the nature of those experiences.

Taylor’s writings, considered in relation to a variety of other primary and secondary sources, illuminate the experiences of Canadian and British Empire pilots and servicemen in the key areas of: motivation and training, active service, and life as a prisoner-of-war.

Taylor's correspondence illustrates that pilots' motivations for choosing the flying services were complex, ranging from peer pressure and religious idealism to a desire to avoid the dangers of service in the trenches. In the area of active service, Taylor's letters highlight the limitations of past historiography concerning the pilot experience. The fighter pilot experience of being in the air has overshadowed the facts that the majority of pilots were responsible for reconnaissance and artillery spotting, and they spent more of their time on the ground than they did flying missions. Finally, these letters further exemplify that the Canadian and British Empire pilot experience of being a prisoner-of- war has remained muted in the historiography due to the shame associated with being captured and incarcerated by the enemy.

Keywords: Aviation; First World War; Great War; Military History; Royal Flying

Corps; Royal Air Force; Canadian History; Saskatchewan History; Pilots; Royal

Canadian Air Force, Prisoner-of-War, POW.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The culmination of this research project owes a lot to the support of several individuals.

Firstly, I must thank my academic unit, the Department of History at the University of

Regina. My Thesis Advisor, Dr. Ian Germani, has been a constant force that assisted my efforts by providing invaluable academic feedback, and for this I am grateful. I would also like to thank Dr. Raymond Blake and Dr. Philip Charrier for their discussions and support during this period, all of which have garnered a greater understanding of the historical field and the theory therein. I would also like to thank the Taylor Family for taking time to answer some of the unanswerable questions that I had about Neil Taylor’s background, providing great insight into Neil’s home environment. In terms of reference materials, I would like to thank the staff at Archer Library, who tolerated numerous requests for reference materials from across the globe and ensured that I had access to some rare materials. Quick thanks must also be given to the Regina Public Library and the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, both of which assisted this study by providing access to resources from across Saskatchewan, thus facilitating a deeper understanding of the province at the turn of the century.

DEDICATION

For her unwavering support during the research, writing, and submission of this work, I dedicate this study to my spouse Janean Hodgson. Whenever I needed a fresh viewpoint, someone to discuss abstract frameworks with, or even occasionally someone to take me away from my desk, Janean was always there to support me and I am very thankful for this, and her patience.

I would also like to thank my family and friends for always being supportive, and encouraging me to pursue my goals. Completing a thesis can be a long task, and having these people around to keep me motivated made it much more enjoyable.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... ii

DEDICATION...... iii

INTRODUCTION...... 1

MOTIVATION AND TRAINING TO FLY...... 9

ACTIVE SERVICE...... 31

PRISONER-OF-WAR...... 53

CONCLUSION...... 75

APPENDIX...... 81

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 86

VITA...... 92

INTRODUCTION

The First World War was the first time that Canadians were introduced to military aviation. Pilots from across Dominion of Canada served with distinction in the conflict, overcoming unprecedented obstacles and fulfilling newly-defined tasks. This study examines the experiences of pilot Neil "Piffles" Taylor, as recorded in his correspondence and diary, together with existing secondary source material to shed light on three key areas of the Canadian experience of being a pilot:1 motivation and training, active service, and the prisoner-of-war experience. By analysing these areas of the pilot experience, new insights emerge into what it meant to be a Canadian pilot during the First

World War.

Neil Taylor, a Saskatchewanian veteran, provides a good example of the diversity of the Canadian pilot experience that has been largely overlooked as historians have tended to favour the narratives of more dominant fighter pilots. At the end of the 19th

Century, Neil's family was one of thousands that made their way to the prairies to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the new territories. Moving from Collingwood,

Ontario to Yellow Grass, in what was then the Northwest Territories, Neil Taylor and his elder brother Samuel Taylor grew up to become part of that select group of Canadians who would get to see first-hand the potentialities of aviation, the newest mode of transportation.2

1 Neil Joseph Taylor letters [1916-1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), pp. 1-150. 2 Samuel Taylor, File No: 544471, Saskatchewan Department of the Interior Homesteading Records (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan). Neil was a child when his family arrived at their new home in the early 20th Century, and he would spend most of his formative years in what became Saskatchewan, a province which was created by legislation in 1905. These records indicate that Neil and Sam’s father, Samuel J. Taylor, filed for entry on one of his homesteads on May 26, 1900. He received patent or land title to his land on June 5, 1905.

Although they devoted a lot of their time to playing sports, the Taylor brothers were able students.3 After completing their studies in Regina, they continued their academic careers at the University of Toronto.4 When the First World War broke out, the

Taylor brothers were still university students. Neither of them rushed to enlist, but eventually they did so in April, 1916.5 Both brothers spent time in the University of

Toronto Canadian Officers’ Training Company (COTC), before transferring out of the infantry and into the flying services: Neil joined the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), and Sam joined the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Both brothers qualified as pilots in mid-

1917 and served on the Western Front. Neil was shot down by German aircraft and became a prisoner-of-war in September 1917, roughly one month after beginning active duty.6 Sam continued to serve with distinction, flying for the RNAS and Royal Air Force

(RAF) until he was killed in action fighting back the German Spring Offensive on July 7,

1918.7

We are given insight into the wartime lives of these two Canadian pilots by the transcripts of their letters.8 These documents represent an opportunity to re-evaluate the

3 Heather Hodgson (no relation). Neil J. Taylor Fonds. The Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan – Accession Number 2010-271 (unprocessed), Regina, Saskatchewan. Neil and Sam attended the newly founded Central Collegiate school in Regina, showing a penchant for playing sports, most notably lacrosse, hockey, and one of the earlier variants of Canadian Football. This earlier variant of Canadian Football was known as Canadian Rugby Union at the time. 4 Neil began by studying political science with the aim of transferring into law; Sam was studying to pursue a career as an engineer. 5 "Attestation Papers of Taylor, Neil Joseph (490776)” Personnel Records of the First World War, Item Number: 272788, Reference: RG 150, Accession 1992-3/166, Box 9543 – 14, Library and Archives Canada; “Attestation Papers of Taylor, Merrill Samuel (490773)”, Item Number: 272773, Reference: RG 150, Accession 1992-3/166, Box 9542 – 51, Library and Archives Canada. 6 G. Oswald Smith, University of Toronto Roll of Service, 1914-1918 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1921), p. 489. 7 G. Oswald Smith, University of Toronto Roll of Service, 1914-1918 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1921), pp. 136-137. The Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service were combined in April 1918 to create the Royal Air Force. The flying services were no longer an adjunct to the army or navy, but instead their own independent service. 8 Neil Joseph Taylor letters to his Mother [1916-1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), pp. 1-150. This wartime correspondence was transcribed by

diverse nature of the Canadian pilot experience, and gain a better understanding of the wartime experiences of Canadian pilots and prisoners-of-war. By reading these letters, and comparing them to the existing secondary source material, we can expand our understanding of what they and others went through.

The experiences of Neil Taylor embodied in these letters provide a fitting backdrop for the three areas of the pilot experience that this study will focus upon. Yet, these letters raise questions that can only be answered by further research into the

Canadian and British pilot experiences. Why was Taylor’s training so prolonged? What was it like to be a pilot on the ground? Were Taylor’s experiences as a captive of the

Germans representative of all prisoner-of-war experiences? Placing Taylor's correspondence in its historical context will help to answer these questions, providing further insight into the Canadian pilot's experience during the First World War.

The Canadian experience with the motivation and training of pilots has received both a general and a focused treatment in the historiography. Academics have attempted to analyse the motivations for servicemen in the First World War and have done so for each of the armed services. As Taylor, and a number of his contemporary pilots, originally enlisted in the infantry before transferring into the flying services, it was important that this study incorporated the motivations of infantrymen, as well as pilots, to provide an accurate understanding of why pilots had originally signed up and what ultimately motivated some to transfer into the flying services. A number of works focus upon the motivations of the infantry, including Jonathan Vance's Death So Noble, which explores the role that religion played in motivating troops, as well as Thierry Terret and

Neil Taylor's daughter Helen Milliken (née Taylor), and donated to the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan.

James A. Mangan's Militarism and the Great War, which considers the relationship between masculinity and sport in motivation. We are also given a glimpse into the pressures exerted on university students, which exploited students' patriotism, in the work of Harold Averill, Marnee Gamble, Loryl MacDonald, and Mary Chaktsiris.9

In the area of pilot motivation specifically, the subject has been touched upon from a number of different perspectives. Robert Wohl's A Passion for Wings details the fascination that the public had with early flight, and Samuel Hynes's The Unsubstantial

Air focuses on the competitive sporting aspect of pilot motivation.10 Such studies, while helpful, do not represent a complete understanding of the motivations that pilots, specifically, had when choosing to serve as airmen. Neil Taylor's experiences provide a useful avenue through which to explore some of these lesser explored motivations, allowing for a better understanding of the varying ways that motivations interact with one another.

Although excellent studies exist of the implementation of training schools in

North America, beginning in 1917, and their role in contributing to the formation of the

RCAF, they are of little help in casting light on the training of pilots like Neil Taylor, who had to go to Britain to receive their training.11 Works that document the evolution of

British training during the early years of the war are more helpful. These include:

9 Harold Averill and Marnee Gamble and Loryl MacDonald, We Will Do Our Share: The University of Toronto and the Great War (Canada: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Collection, 2014); Mary Georgina Chaktsiris, "The Varsity Man: Manhood, The University of Toronto and the Great War." (unpublished MA thesis: University of Toronto, 2009). 10 Robert Wohl, A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination: 1908-1918 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994); Jonathan F. Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War (Canada: University of British Columbia Press, 1997); Samuel Hynes, The Unsubstantial Air: American Fliers in the First World War (USA: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014). 11 Claude. W. Hunt, Dancing in the Sky: The Royal Flying Corps in Canada (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2009). Peter C. Conrad, Training Aces: Canada’s Air Training During the First World War (Canada: Bookland Press, 2015).

Geoffrey Norris's The Royal Flying Corps: A History, Maryam Philpott's Air and Sea

Power in World War One, and Denis Winter's The First of the Few. Research that focuses upon the period prior to 1917 is important in capturing the entire Canadian experience of training, especially the lessons that were learned early in the war. The Official History of the RCAF by Sydney Wise shows the impact that these early recruits, trained outside of

Canada, had on future Canadian aviation.12 These lessons, as will be illustrated in this study, ensured that, when training practices were introduced in Canada in 1917, those trained subsequently had the best facilities and curriculum available.

Histories of the war in the air have tended to focus disproportionately on fighter pilots, particularly a handful of “aces.”13 Pilots like Neil Taylor who fulfilled more mundane roles as artillery spotters or flying reconnaissance missions have been neglected in favour of high-profile fighter pilots. Contemporary research, such as that of Peter

Mead in The Eye in the Air, Lee Kennett in The First Air War: 1914-1918, and Peter Hart in Bloody April, have called for a new and different approach to studying pilots in the

First World War. They have pointed to the necessity of highlighting the strategic purpose that other pilots fulfilled, and the number of airmen that contributed to fulfilling these roles.14 This thesis will contribute to a broader understanding of the diversity of roles and experiences of Canadian pilots by exploring the experiences of Neil Taylor and some of his contemporaries in greater detail.

12 S. F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, vol. 1 (Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1980) 13 Michael Paris, Winged Warfare: The Literature and Theory of Aerial Warfare in Britain, 1859 1917 (United Kingdom: Manchester University Press, 1992). Most pilot responsibilities in the conflict involved the less dramatic tasks of conducting reconnaissance and artillery spotting. 14 Peter Mead, The Eye in the Air: History of Air Observation and reconnaissance for the Army 1785-1945 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1983); Lee Kennett, The First War in the Air: 1914-1918 (New York: The Free Press, 1991); Peter Hart, Bloody April. (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005).

To offer a counterpoint to the fighter pilot’s experience of combat in the air, my study focuses upon other areas of the active duty pilot experience. One of the areas that is often overlooked in the pilot experience is leisure time: that is, the time that pilots spent on the ground between their duties (flying missions, performing maintenance, etc.). By considering the leisure and social experiences of the pilot we are given valuable insight into the day-to-day lives of these men, their social and private interactions with their environment, and the psychological impacts that active service had upon their well-being.

The final area that will be evaluated in this study is the experience of becoming a prisoner-of-war. Post-war ideals of honour prevented a majority of former prisoners from speaking out about their wartime experiences of being a "kriegsgefangener" (prisoner-of- war). Due to this reticence, the experience of being a prisoner-of-war in the First World

War remains largely unexplored and underappreciated. The infamous treatment of Allied prisoners-of-war by the Axis powers during the Second World War compounded this lack of exposure, as the public and academia focused attention upon more recent brutalities.

However, the prisoner-of-war experience has not been completely absent from historical study. In the 1960s and 1970s, as veterans of the First World War began to feel more comfortable with recounting their experiences of the conflict, the prisoner-of-war experience began to be studied in greater detail. Michael Moynihan's Black Bread and

Barbed Wire was one of the first to re-evaluate these experiences and others followed.15

Building on that research, Desmond Morton and, more recently, Nathan Greenfield, have brought the untold stories of the Canadian prisoner-of-war back into the light of history.16

15 Michael Moynihan, Black Bread and Barbed Wire (United Kingdom: Leo Cooper Ltd., 1978). 16 Desmond Morton, Silent Battle: Canadian Prisoners of War in Germany, 1914-1919 (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1992).; Nathan M. Greenfield, The Reckoning: Canadian Prisoners of War in the First World War (Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., 2016).

Other studies have shown the opportunism of combatant states when it comes to the treatment of prisoners-of-war and their usage as political leverage in international standoffs.17 All this work allows for Taylor's own experiences to be much better contextualised and understood.

Taylor's correspondence provides an interesting example of what it meant to be a prisoner-of-war, and some of the pressures that inmates had to deal with on a daily basis.

By exploring his letters in detail and comparing his experiences to those of other inmates, the struggles of the prisoner-of-war are illuminated. Despite often being taken for granted as protected from the conflict as non-combatants, the true picture of what it was like to survive an indefinite period of confinement in the hands of an enemy, who had no real accountability for your well-being, provides a telling overview of the true hardships that prisoners-of-war faced daily.

By comparing Neil Taylor's experiences with primary and secondary source materials, and evaluating some of the peripheral experiences of pilots in general, this study provides a more comprehensive understanding of what it meant to be a Canadian pilot in the First World War. It also highlights areas in which the Canadian pilot experience needs to be explored further, such as training practices for Canadians in

Britain, and the prisoner-of-war experience. In answering the questions relating to

Taylor's own wartime service, this study has also exemplified the untypical nature of what it meant to be a pilot in the First World War, and how imprecise stereotypes relating to pilots in the war can be. All of these findings are important because they expand our understanding of what it meant to enlist into the flying services, serve as a pilot, and

17 Heather Jones, Violence against Prisoners of War in the First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914-1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Annette Becker, 14-18 Understanding The Great War (New York: Hill and Wang, 2002).

survive as a prisoner-of-war. By investigating the experiences of a single pilot, as well as pilots in general, both of these areas illuminate one another, enhancing our understanding of the nuances of pilots’ experiences in the First World War.

SECTION 1

MOTIVATION AND TRAINING TO FLY

For in times of stress, and not only physical stress, the majority of mankind finds guidance and inspiration in the records of war and of warriors. R. H. Kiernan - 193418

When war was declared against Germany in 1914 and the British Expeditionary Force began the process of mobilisation, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) found itself rushing to fulfil the requirements of its perceived operational role. Initially formed to act as an ancillary of the army, the new service barely qualified as a distinct entity. A severe lack of government funding prior to the outbreak of hostilities meant the RFC was still in an embryonic stage of development, without any clear operational niche, standardised equipment and maintenance practices, administrative structures, or even a training program through which novice pilots could perfect their skills.19 As a result, when the

First World War began, the RFC was in no position to offer any legitimate contribution other than reconnaissance, and even in this role the higher military authorities were still coming to grips with the efficacy and implementation of military aviation.20

18 Reginald Hugh Kiernan, The First War in the Air (McGill-Queens University Press, 1934), p. 13. 19 Arch Whitehouse, Decisive Air Battles of the First World War (New York: Dell, Sloan and Pearce, 1963), pp. 30-32. Whitehouse served as a gunner later in the First World War, having transferred to the RFC from the yeomanry. 20 Gary Sheffield, The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army (London: Aurum Press Ltd., 2011), p. 106. Early successful use of aerial reconnaissance in 1914 ensured that it became an important

Despite these limitations, the RFC inspired recruits from across the Empire to join its ranks in the struggle to overcome the Central Powers in the war in the air. The

Dominions, especially Canada, Australia and South Africa, all produced a strong base of recruits, many of whom would become successful pilots. Canada, for its part, would contribute one fifth of the pilots who served in the British Forces during the conflict.21

Neil Taylor was one such recruit. Born on 29 March, 1895 in Collingwood,

Ontario, Neil was raised by a family from central Canada, living in the western prairies during the boom years of the early-20th Century.22 The Taylors owned land near Yellow

Grass, Saskatchewan, and were a comfortably middle-class family. Owning and farming two sections of land (producing grain and livestock), the Taylors were able to amass a financial base that comfortably supported their family’s needs.23 Neil and his brother Sam both attended Regina Central Collegiate, where they partook in many extra-curricular activities, before pursuing post-secondary education at the University of Toronto.24

The Taylor brothers' background matches the archetypal Dominion pilot recruit

consideration in planning assaults. By 1915, despite the protestations of some of his inferiors, the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Forces, Douglas Haig was adamant that aviation had a role to play in future battles. 21 Lee Kennett, The First War in the Air: 1914-1918 (New York: The Free Press, 1991). p. 170. Kennett states that 15% of the RAF pilot cadre was definitively Canadian by the time of the Armistice, but other estimates, including the Wise’s official Canadian history place this number at 25%. This disparity is due to differing metrics, with Canadian identity and time in the war being paramount to the results drawn. For example, most Canadians were recruited during 1918, but did not necessarily see active service. Of the Canadian airmen that did serve, numbering roughly 13,000 (including 1,736 Americans that trained in Canada) during the conflict, slightly more than 10% were killed during the war. 22 J. William Brennan, The History of Canadian Cities: Regina, An Illustrated History (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 1989), pp. 33-97. High grain prices, new machinery to work the fields, and greater access to freight trains all contributed to this boom in the agricultural sector, and farmers flocked to Saskatchewan to take advantage of this new prosperity. 23 Samuel Taylor, File No: 670767, Saskatchewan Department of the Interior Homesteading Records (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan). The Taylors had worked the land since breaking it in 1906, and Neil’s Father, Samuel Taylor, was identifying as ‘Retired Farmer’ by the time that Neil became a prisoner-of-war in late-1917. After 10 years of farming, with no mention of monetary troubles, one would assume that the Taylors either sold up, or leased their land to others. 24 Heather Hodgson (no relation). Neil J. Taylor Fonds. The Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan – Accession Number 2010-271 (unprocessed), Regina, Saskatchewan.

during the conflict; although they were not a part of the British elites, the Taylors certainly were striving to become members of the governing Protestant elites of

Canada.25 Like many other Canadian airmen, the Taylor brothers came from an upwardly mobile class background, with aspirations to achieve white collar, professional careers.

Although Canadian pilots were not a part of the elite class of their British counterparts, a significant proportion of them still hailed from the “university men” class background, and strove to emulate those elites as an imperial ruling class.

Prior to the conflict, few Canadians had seen an airplane, or considered serving in the flying services.26 However, there was a growing public fascination with flight, a fascination that had been kindled by the pre-war works of such authors as Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.27 The young men who piloted the airplanes of the future would also have been familiar with the boys' adventure papers of their youth. These adventure stories, which were very popular with young boys at the turn of the century, reflected and reinforced the militaristic and adventurous intrigue with flight that was present throughout the western world.28 Young men were therefore eager to become pilots when

25 Such individuals, living in exclusive sub-communities throughout western Canada, cultivated a lot of influence in their local neighborhoods. These neighborhoods were usually beholden to the will of the British-descended protestant groups that had sought to replicate the same social and political environments that existed in Britain. 26 Desmond Morton, When Your Number's Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War (Canada: Random House of Canada, 1993), p. 132. 27 Richard P. Hallion, Inventing the Aerial Age from Antiquity Through the First World War (USA: Oxford University Press, 2003). Human kind has been fascinated with flight since the days that the stories of Icarus were written. Hallion goes into detail on ancient concepts of flight from its early origins to the modern day. See Jules Verne's The Clipper of the Clouds (1886) and its sequel The Master of the World (1904), and H. G. Wells' The Argonauts of the Air (1895) and The War in the Air (1907) for four examples of pre-war literature on aviation. 28 Michael Paris, "The Rise of the Airman: The Origins of Air Force Elitism, c. 1890-1918" Journal of Contemporary History Volume 28, Number 1 (1993): 123-141. These boys' adventure stories were published from 1890 onwards. We do not know for sure whether the Taylor Brothers read the boys' adventure papers, but the popularity of these stories at the time leads one to believe that they were more than likely familiar with them.

the opportunity presented itself.29

The early era of flight associated flying with masculinity and danger, and wartime aviation only strengthened that association.30 Competitive masculinity, which was encouraged by the military establishment during the war, was also embodied in competitive sports.31 The thirst for young athletes to be the best that they could be, train hard, and conquer the opposition contributed to raising the number of recruits, and many airmen came from a background in competitive sports as a result.32

Many servicemen, in Canada and elsewhere, were motivated to fight for personal reasons. A prominent motivation for enlisting was having a sense of religious duty. The clergy encouraged the religious fervour that inspired some recruits, throughout Canada and Empire, to enlist. Using the conflict as a platform to extol Christian virtues, and the ongoing religious struggle against barbarism and injustice, the clergy identified the

"German Antichrist" as the enemy to Christian ideals, and championed the righteousness of the Allied cause. As the war progresses, the righteous struggle became an increasingly untenable narrative for the clergy to extol. Following the outcomes of major battles, and the high number of casualties suffered, people began to question the righteousness of the

29 Robert Wohl, A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination: 1908-1918 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 279-282. Reflecting the predispositions of western societies at the time, being a pilot emphasised modernist and masculine ideals. 30 Walter Raleigh and H. A. Jones, The War in the Air: Being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force: Vol. 1 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1922), pp. 420-421. Men were drawn to the dangerous escapade that was aviation, and endeavoured to compete against their fellow man in overcoming these dangers. Raleigh compares this eagerness to take on the dangerous challenges afforded by flight to the 'pioneer' spirit which was responsible for pushing the boundaries of the known world. 31 Thierry Terret and J. A. Mangan, eds., Sport, Militarism and the Great War: Martial Manliness and Armageddon (USA: Routledge Books, 2012), provides a good introduction to the role masculinity played in sport and conflict during the First World War, in various countries. For a study of Canadian recruits and hockey in the infantry, see John J. Wilson's "Skating to Armageddon: Canada, Hockey and the First World War" The International Journal of the History of Sport Volume 22, Number 3 (2005): pp. 315-343. 32 Samuel Hynes, The Unsubstantial Air: American Fliers in the First World War (USA: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), pp. 42-48. The military authorities recognised these similarities, and manipulated the masculine ideals of young men in an attempt to boost recruitment into the armed services.

cause in light of the human cost. Only the identification with the sacrifices of Jesus could sustain the Church's religious narrative for the remainder of the conflict.33

Neil Taylor epitomized several of these characteristics, coming from a sports background, including having played Varsity sports at the University of Toronto, and a

Protestant upbringing. However, to state that his motivations for fighting were solely those resulting from either a competitive nature or religious inclination would be misleading. Like his contemporaries, Taylor's decision to enlist was a personal affair involving many factors, some of which were the result of external manipulation, and others which were intrinsic motivations.

Identifying as a Methodist in his attestation papers, Taylor was heavily influenced by righteous religious rhetoric from early in the conflict. Evidence for this can be found in his wartime letters, in which he discusses his beliefs in the righteousness of the cause, sacrificing for the same reasons that Jesus Christ gave his life, and the perceived need to prevent such a grotesque conflict from ever happening again. Writing to his Mother, Neil states:

I know how you feel about my going over so soon, Mother, but my duty is not relative to what others do. I prayed about it all and am convinced that I am doing what is right. In fact, my conscience would not let me do anything else. If it is right for me to go later with another battalion, it is my duty to go now. You aren't in this world for what you can get out of it, but for the service you can render. The cause for which the Allies are fighting is a righteous one and the principles for which they are fighting are those for which Jesus Christ gave his life. I may not come back, but I think I will, and if I don't my reward will be in proportion to the sacrifice and spirit in which it is made. There has been nothing fool-hardy about my going, but if a cause is worth fighting for it is worth giving your best for. I

33 Jonathan F. Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War (Canada: University of British Columbia Press, 1997), pp. 34-72.

believe that if all those that are staying at home sought Divine guidance that Canada would soon have her 500,000 men.34 Another factor which must not be overlooked in Neil's motivations to enlist is the service in which he initially trained: The Canadian Officers Training Corps (COTC). To aid the war effort, university companies had been set up at institutions across the country and many academics, students, and alumni signed up to bolster Canada's troop numbers abroad.35 Much like the British Army's Officer's Training Corps that contributed towards the recruitment of the New Armies in the United Kingdom, these university companies encouraged recruitment by exploiting the peer pressure of the group identity, patriotic responsibility, and the masculine ideals of the citizen soldier.36

Neil, being aware of the undertakings of his fellow scholars and teammates, would have been a leading candidate for the assimilation techniques that the government and the university were using specifically to target the Protestant middle-classes. The

University of Toronto Campus had become a recruitment hub for the armed forces, and the university administration supported the recruitment drive by constantly evoking the duty of the student populace.37 Taylor was the prime audience for the pressures exerted by the university administration, especially the social obligations that were fostered in the academic climate of the time. By signing up to a university company, he reaffirmed his

34 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Saturday August 19, 1916], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 12. 35Following the example of McGill University (which had established its own officer training program in 1912), universities across the country established their own programs after the war began. The University of Toronto had already been exploring the implementation of its own COTC prior to the First World War, a program that was fast tracked once war was declared. For more on the University of Toronto's wartime training programs, see: Harold Averill and Marnee Gamble and Loryl MacDonald, We Will Do Our Share: The University of Toronto and the Great War (Canada: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Collection, 2014). 36 Chaktsiris, Mary Georgina. "The Varsity Man: Manhood, The University of Toronto and the Great War." (Master's Thesis: University of Toronto, 2009), p. 16. Chaktsiris refers to this ideal as the "perfect citizen soldier". 37 Harold Averill and Marnee Gamble and Loryl MacDonald, We Will Do Our Share: The University of Toronto and the Great War (Canada: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Collection, 2014), p. 7.

loyalty to the group, and committed himself to the adventures and struggles ahead. The full scope of Neil’s motivations for enlisting are unknown, but his background in varsity sports, Methodist upbringing, and appreciation of the university's overtures to duty and doing "your bit", could only have served to accentuate his sense of the validity of the cause. Any lingering doubts in Neil's mind as to whether to enlist into an infantry training unit were set aside following the training developments of early-1916, and the decision of his brother Sam to enlist.38 Neil enlisted two days later.39

After spending time in the COTC militia, as male students at the University of

Toronto were required to do, Neil and Sam enlisted into the Overseas Training Corps

(OTC) in the spring of 1916.40 Unlike the COTC, the OTC was a training unit that allowed men to transfer to other services after arriving in the UK, should they be accepted for a commission.41 To join the RFC from the OTC men would have to spend a period in another service before being accepted as cadets. After completing his training,

Neil enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles upon arrival in Britain, before transferring into the

RFC.42 This dual training requirement, requiring aspiring pilots to train as infantrymen first, and then pilots, exemplifies the complicated state of RFC pilot recruitment at the

38 “Attestation Papers of Taylor, Merrill Samuel (490773)”, Item Number: 272773, Reference: RG 150, Accession 1992-3/166, Box 9542 – 51, Library and Archives Canada. 39 “Attestation Papers of Taylor, Neil Joseph (490776)” Personnel Records of the First World War, Item Number: 272788, Reference: RG 150, Accession 1992-3/166, Box 9543 – 14, Library and Archives Canada. 40 Mary Chaktsiris, “”Not Unless Necessary”: Student Responses to War Work at the University of Toronto, 1914-1918,” Social History, Volume 47, Number 94, June (2014): 293-310. Participation in military maneuvers was one example of the increasingly martial climate that overtook the University of Toronto, and other higher education institutions during the First World War. 41 Harold Averill and Marnee Gamble and Loryl MacDonald, We Will Do Our Share: The University of Toronto and the Great War (Canada: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Collection, 2014), pp. 39-40. The OTC was created in the spring of 1916, so Neil and Sam were two of the earliest recruits. 42 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Father [Saturday September 16, 1916], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 14.

time.43 A straightforward, simple avenue to becoming a pilot would not exist until mid-

1917, when Canadian recruits could more easily enlist directly into the service.

One of the most dominant themes of the literature relating to pilots is the belief that they held a special personal stature above all other servicemen. This “cut above the rest” understanding of airmen developed prior to the conflict in science fiction novels, which represented aviators as superior beings who had conquered and unravelled the mysteries of the skies. This representation was exacerbated by the press, that continued in the tradition of representing early aviators as uniquely intrepid and brave individuals.44

Early recruitment into the flying services also fostered the creation of class stereotypes, which strengthened the association between being a pilot and being in a privileged position. In the first year of the conflict the flying services were largely the preserve of the Edwardian elites of Britain, and the public continued to identify pilots as such far beyond this period, even though the services became increasingly socially diverse as the war progressed.45

There are two main reasons why the initial cadre of the RFC was so socially exclusive. Firstly, the only people who had the necessary experience of aviation prior to the conflict were the upper classes and the wealthy. Furthermore, all would-be RFC pilots were required to obtain the Royal Aero Club (RAC) aviator’s license – at their own expense – to be accepted for training. Acquiring the licence involved a short course, followed by a rudimentary flying test. However, at a price of C$400, the course cost a

43 There were locations in North America where individuals could train towards the Royal Aero Club License, which would have allowed them to join the Royal Flying Corps directly, but these facilities were very expensive and could only accommodate the training needs of a tiny number of aviators. 44 Michael Paris, "The Rise of the Airman: The Origins of Air Force Elitism, c. 1890-1918" Journal of Contemporary History Volume 28, Number 1 (1993): 130-131. 45 Edward Bujak, Reckless Fellows: The Gentlemen of the Royal Flying Corps (London: I. B. Tauris, 2015).

considerable sum for the average Canadian production worker.46 Since all trainee aviators had to pay for their own RAC licenses upfront before they were reimbursed by the flying services, this limited recruitment to the social and economic elites with the disposable income to fund their "hobbies".47

Wilbert H. Gilroy, an Ontarian who enlisted in Winnipeg in 1914, witnessed some of the affluence of this cadre of pilots firsthand:

Now that I have been here for some time and know the bunch better, it is much more interesting. They are certainly a great bunch of fellows. Not like Canadians in many ways. Some are Sirs, I mean bold Knighthoods or Baronetcies and most are quite wealthy. Many own cars, some, not many, Rolls Royces, and various makes of real good cars. In fact most of them are independent in that way. I have met many 1st rate fellows, and also some who are not so nice. Quite a number of the boys are soldiers by profession, some own their own aeroplanes and make flying a hobby in civil life. Altogether they are a most interesting outfit.48 Due to an increase in casualty rates, beginning in late 1916 a good number of airmen were recruited as transfers from the infantry.49 Infantrymen who enlisted into the flying

46 To offer some perspective on the cost of this course, we can look at two statistical resources. Firstly, we can adjust the cost of the RAC license to modern day inflation standards. At the time of Neil Taylor's enlistment in 1916, C$400 was the equivalent of C$7981.54 (2017). This figure was calculated using the Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator, which utilizes the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to show changes in a fixed "basket" of consumer purchases. A more meaningful way to calculate C$400 in modern value is to compare the cost of the RAC course to that of the average wages at the time. According to Statistics Canada, the average production worker in Canada in 1917 was earning C$760, with supervisory and office workers earning $1317. $400 was over half a year of pay for those further down the economic pyramid, and not an easily accessible sum of money. 47 Reginald Hugh Kiernan, The First War in the Air (McGill-Queens University Press, 1934), pp.21-22. Class exclusivity was also present in the German Air Service, with the incidence of upper-class Germans increasingly substantially after the war of movement had come to an end. A significant number of German aviators, frustrated by the unfolding war of attrition, had joined the air force due to the boredom, and the unfilled glories, of the cavalry. 48 Wilfred H. Gilroy to Em [October 23, 1916]. The Canadian Letters and Images Project - World War One Collection (http://www.canadianletters.ca/collections/all/collection/20501). Wilbert Gilroy was a dentist by profession, and had moved to Winnipeg to take over a practice. He spent the first two years of the war in the Canadian Dental Corps, before transferring into the RFC. This quote was taken from Gilroy's time in training as a cadet in October, 1916. 49 The incidence of infantry transfers into the air services increased for combatants on both sides of the conflict. Once it had become clear that being in the army was a struggle for survival at best, and that an airman occupied a position of comfort in comparison, the perceived romance and adventure of the air appeared to be too tempting for infantrymen not at least to try and become military aviators. A good

services first had to obtain permission from their commanding officers.50 These obstacles did not deter those with a genuine interest in flying from trying to join the RFC, but during the first year of the conflict the service was still predominantly the domain of the

British public school elites.51

As combat aviation developed, in late-1915 and early-1916, pilot mortality rates on both sides began to climb. Consequently, it became increasingly clear that an exclusively public school recruitment pool would not sustain the RFC going forward. To accommodate losses in manpower and recruitment shortages, the RFC was forced to become more welcoming to transfers from other services and classes, and also began to recruit heavily in the Dominions.52 When pilot demand began to significantly outstrip recruitment numbers in late-1915, the “university men” of the Dominions presented an acceptable recruitment alternative to the British public school talent pool.

Considering the size of the Dominion of Canada, the ratio of RFC recruitment was abnormally large. Many theories exist that try to elucidate the reasons for this recruitment disparity. Ralph Barker maintained that Canadians were viewed favourably as raw frontiersmen, having a certain element of untamed "wildness" about them that

number of the most notable pilots of the war, Albert Ball, Billy Bishop, William Barker, Andrew McKeever, to name a few, began their military careers in the infantry before finding success in aviation. 50 Lee Kennett, The First War in the Air: 1914-1918 (New York: The Free Press, 1991), pp. 112-115. One might think that such a requirement of recommendation would result in only the crème de la crème of the infantry being approved for transfer. However, as Kennett points out, it would often result in the opposite; a "troublemaker" or a "malingerer" had a better chance of being accepted for transfer than a dutiful and hardworking infantryman. 51 Denis Winter, First of the Few: Fighter Pilots of the First World War (UK: Allen Lane Press, 1982), pp. 18-40. 52 Recruitment in the Dominions was also aided by the removal of the pilot’s license requirement briefly in late-1915, and entirely so in the autumn of 1916. Recruitment figures showed a marked increase as a result of this change in recruitment requirements. S. F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War, pp. 35, 38. By mid-1916, Douglas Haig wanted to expand the role of the RFC and was requesting the expansion of the force, even at the expense of other units. Walter Raleigh and H. A. Jones, The War in the Air: Being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force: Vol. 1 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1922), pp. 405-451.

made them uniquely suitable to flying; however, as is made clear by the figures collected for the official Canadian history, this perception, however widely accepted, had little substance in reality as most Canadian recruits came from urban centres.53 Denis Winter identifies two main reasons for the over-representation of Canadian pilots: the initiative of Canadian industrialists to lobby for Canada’s own pilot training facilities, and a

Canadian society largely free of social preconceptions. Both these reasons combined created a larger talent pool, which focused primarily on the quality of the recruit, as opposed to the quality of the recruit's class background.54

The Canadian government was reluctant to fund any major investment in aviation that would result in financial losses after the war. Despite this reluctance, the Imperial

General Staff, with encouragement from Canadian industrialists, eventually recognised that transporting Canadian recruits thousands of miles before beginning training was a significant waste of time and resources.55 To remedy these issues, in late-1916 it was decided that, beginning in the spring of 1917, training facilities would be constructed in

Canada. This new branch of the RFC training program would be titled RFC Canada.56

The decision to introduce RFC training to the North American continent, and to take advantage of the proximity and exposure of aviation to major Canadian cities, was

53 Ralph Barker, A Brief History of the Royal Flying Corps in World War 1 (London: Constable & Robinson, 1995), p. 165; S. F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, vol. 1 (Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1980), pp. 638-639. Although Wise rejects the “wild colonial boy” stereotype that is so often used to portray Canadian airmen in the First World War, he does make a point to note that those pilots who identified as coming from a rural background did make up a significant minority of recruits. Kennett also identifies the urban-to-rural recruit numbers at 3:1. 54 Denis Winter, First of the Few: Fighter Pilots of the First World War (UK: Allen Lane Press, 1982), pp. 20-24. 55 S. F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, vol. 1 (Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1980), pp. 46-75. 56 S. F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, vol. 1 (Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1980), pp. 64. This designation designed to give the impression of local hierarchical independence, in order to quell any public concerns about a British military training facility being setup on Canadian soil.

very successful in increasing the volume of pilots that were trained for active service in

France. It took some time, but by 1917 RFC Canada had fifteen training facilities of its own, ready for the training of Canadian recruits.57 These advances in pilot training were increasingly fruitful to the Allies, and Canadian pilot numbers continued to climb for the remainder of the conflict. By contrast, the pilot training capacity in Germany weakened as the war progressed. The continued blockade of German ports, by restricting access to raw materials, restricted the production of training aircraft.58 As a result, training methods in the German Air Service became increasingly rushed and complacent in comparison to that of the Allies, whose training programs went from strength to strength.59

Unfortunately for Taylor, advances in Canadian-based pilot training would not come into existence until 1917, the year after he had enlisted. Therefore, in order to become a pilot in the RFC, Taylor had first to obtain a transfer from the Canadian

Expeditionary Force. After transferring into the RFC, recruits had to complete at least six to eight months of training before qualifying as pilots with the rank of second- lieutenant.60 This intermediary infantry training period was a frustrating time for those recruits, like Taylor, who were eager to defend their country against German aggression.

57 Lee Kennett, The First War in the Air: 1914-1918 (New York: The Free Press, 1991), p. 119. There had only been two official pilot training schools in Canada prior to this, one in Ontario and the other in British Columbia. However, in actuality, there was only really one training school (the school in Ontario), as the school in British Columbia did not produce a significant number of recruits. 58 John H. Morrow Jr. The Great War in the Air: Military Aviation from 1909 to 1921 (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993), pp. 301-307. Material labour, and food shortages, meant that by 1918 the only strategic option remaining for Germany was to transfer existing production to newer and technologically superior air craft. Expanding the production of these planes was no longer an option. 59 Richard P. Hallion, Rise of the Fighter Aircraft 1914-1918 (Maryland, USA: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1984), pp. 63-65. The Germans had to cut corners on aviation materials, such as the use of wood to replace the use of rubber. As the demand and mortality rates for German pilots increased, towards the end of the war, German recruits were rushed through training to meet demand. These haphazard training conditions only increased pilot mortality rates, creating a cycle of pilot inferiority as the war dragged on. 60 C. W. Hunt, Dancing in the Sky: The Royal Flying Corps in Canada (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2009), p. 27.

This requirement to initially enlist as an infantryman also represented another example of the inefficiencies in the process of recruiting and training pilots, prolonging the amount of time it took motivated Canadian recruits to become pilots.

Part of the reason for these inefficient training practices was the fact that military aviation prior to the outbreak of the First World War was in a perpetual state of infancy, still trying to determine the role it would play in future conflicts. Military aviation was still being perfected. Great strides had been taken in aeronautical theory, construction, and materials, but aviation as a military weapon was still being conceptualised to fulfil the operational needs of the army. Due to the reticence of some in the British Army hierarchy to recognise the advantages of military aviation in its own right, and a lack of political will to invest in civilian aviation, training for flight remained a very rudimentary undertaking that was hampered by unsuitable training materials and inefficient training practices.61

Despite the initial misgivings of the army, military aviation saw a flourish of operational activity once the war started, and pilots were in increasing demand once they were recognised as a strategic necessity.62 With the assistance of the French, who were

61 This reticence to invest in aviation, and to take advantage of some of the opportunities of aviation for reconnaissance purposes, supports the popular post-war notion that strict adherence to traditional forms of combat stalled military development. However, contemporary work in this area has shown that this notion is not representative of everyone in the military hierarchy. In fact, pre-war military games made the strategic advantages of military aviation abundantly clear to those who would occupy positions of power in the First World War. In the 1912 British military games, Douglas Haig, the future commander of the British Forces in France, was outmanoeuvred by his opponent James Grierson who took full advantage of this new form of reconnaissance. Haig learned from this, and early war triumphs of aerial reconnaissance, and supported the expansion of military aviation during the conflict. Details of these pre-war manoeuvres can be found in Walter Raleigh and H. A. Jones, The War in the Air: Being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force: Vol. 1 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1922), pp. 243-245. 62 The important role that aerial reconnaissance would come to embody during the First World War was exemplified early in the conflict when the reconnaissance work of the Royal Flying Corps identified an exposed flank of the advancing German army, with the resulting Battle of the Marne halting the German advance. Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force at the time, recognised this new

the leading authorities in aviation at the time, the RFC grew rapidly. As the conflict changed from a dramatic war of movement to one of attrition and stagnation, with trench warfare taking hold, the qualitative experiences of being a pilot began to be perceived as far superior to those of an infantryman. To its contemporary services, the RFC began to be understood as a service in which the brutalities of frontline infantry action could be avoided, with a perceived better chance of survival.63 Onlookers from the infantry, in particular, compared their own hardships, such as being under orders to remain in the line of constant shell fire, with the freedom of the airmen they could see from their positions in the lines. Understood in this context, pilot freedom in fulfilling service demands was often interpreted as being a far safer and more dynamic predicament than that of their non-pilot contemporaries. Whilst it might be true that pilot mortality rates were lower than those of infantrymen in certain battles this perception does not accurately reflect the war in its entirety. In fact, the standard infantryman in the British Forces had roughly a 1- in-8 chance of being killed in action, compared to 1-in-6 in the RFC.64

Neil Taylor enlisted into the OTC in April, 1916, at a time when the public impression of the conflict was changing. The Canadian forces had been on active service at the Front for over a year. Despite operational disappointments in the Ypres sector, recruitment levels were still running high, and support for the war was strong, as the

strategic value in despatches shortly after the battle. See Field Marshall Sir John French's Third Despatch [October 8, 1914]. 63 Max Hastings, "Diary." London Review of Books, Volume 37, Number 4, (2015), pp.38-39. Hastings Great-Uncle, who died during the Battle of Loos, was desperately pursuing a transfer to the RFC because he believed that the flying services represented a less ‘perilous alternative to infantry service’. 64 Jay M. Winter, "Britain’s “Lost Generation” of the First World War" Population Studies Volume 31, Number 3 (1977): 449-466. However, these pilot mortality rates do not represent the whole pilot experience, as a significant number of pilots were killed in training, and combat deaths varied significantly over the course of the war.

totalisation of the conflict was becoming increasingly apparent for all.65 By the time that

Neil's training unit arrived in England in September 1916, things had changed dramatically. During this interim period, the public impression of the conflict had transformed significantly. The casualties of the ongoing Battles of the Somme and

Verdun had resulted in the public better appreciating the human demands of the conflict, and the dangers of the infantry became one of the major deterrents for enlisting into the army.

Shortly after arriving in Britain, and having heard stories from those who had seen the conditions at the Front, Neil made a conscious decision not to enlist in the infantry.

After meeting with a few of his university friends who had chosen the RFC, Neil began to investigate if he could too. Writing to his brother Sam shortly after arriving at the infantry training grounds at Romford, Neil discusses his opportunities:

[The Training Company] give you recruit drill for two weeks before they admit you to a company. After you get in a company you wait till your turn comes to go into their school, that is if you are going to take an infantry commission. There are about 1200 in the battalion and about 400 in the school. This is not a fighting unit but merely a C. T. C. [Cadet Training Centre?] We hope to get out of here in November as we have been advised. Everybody here considers you very fortunate in getting in the R. F. C. I met Geo. Rowand, a Regina Law student, who has been wounded and he says the infantry is rotten. So does Charlie Otton and all the returned officers.66 Neil had known since he enlisted into the OTC that he did not want to serve in the conflict as a Private, which was part of the OTC allure as it allowed men to seek commissions into different services. However, considering the developments in the

65 Chaktsiris, Mary Georgina. "The Varsity Man: Manhood, The University of Toronto and the Great War." (Master's Thesis: University of Toronto, 2009). 66 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his brother Sam [Saturday September 16, 1916], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 13.

infantry war, and having heard about the RFC, Neil investigated this avenue, and sought out the experiences of other fliers:

...all the boys whom I have seen say [the RFC] is much better than the infantry and just as safe since this drive has commenced. I have been talking to several aviators who have been to the front and they say it is not very dangerous and much less gruesome than infantry. If I go into [the RFC] I won't get to the front nearly so quickly. I shall be here at Romford till November at any rate.67 Firm in the knowledge that he wanted to seek a commission, in line with the sense of elitism which he shared with his university-educated contemporaries and knowing that the infantry was an increasingly dangerous position for the officer classes, Taylor was drawn to the possibilities offered by the RFC. This position was strengthened by the enrolment of his close friends and brother (Sam served as a pilot in the Royal Naval Air

Service) into the flying services, which further emphasises Neil's commitment to the team mentality and, perhaps, his susceptibility to peer pressure. Once the idea set in, the desire to be an airman grew quickly until there was no other path to be desired. Neil received his pilot cadet acceptance letter in September, 1916, and was ordered to report at Denham flight training camp on October 8, 1916.68

Despite having the facilities, the British had been extremely slow in the development of a regimented pilot training curriculum.69 Improvements to ensure consistency in pilot training and abilities began to be introduced into the RFC in mid-

1917. Taking the timeline of these changes into account, it is likely that Neil Taylor was a member of the transition cadre of recruits, which probably goes some way in explaining

67 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Father [Saturday September 16, 1916], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 14. 68 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his brother Sam [Saturday September 25, 1916], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 13. 69 Lee Kennett, The First War in the Air: 1914-1918 (New York: The Free Press, 1991), pp. 121-125. The reasons for this are rather contrived. For example, one of the reasons given was that there were concerns regarding the stifling of instructors' initiative.

the surprising length of his training.70 In fact, during his time in a training unit in Dover,

Neil's letters attest to this transition as he expresses his frustration at being delayed in becoming a qualified pilot due to this very reason: “They have instituted a new scheme of training and, with that and the fact that we have very few machines, it looks as if I were going to be here another two months. I feel very much annoyed as I have been so long training.”71 Canadian recruits began their training by being initiated in the military tradition of discipline, in the form of regular army duties and hard foot drill.72 This vetting process pushed recruits to their limits to assess their character, and identify whether they had what it takes to become a pilot.73 Those who were successful would move into pilot training, where they would be taught the science of flight, the mechanics of their aircraft, and the rudiments of how to fly.

The type of flight training that pilots received once they were accepted as cadets was largely dependent upon when they entered the RFC. Early in the conflict, there were no requirements for a pilot to go above and beyond the necessities of operations flying, and therefore they were only taught how to take off, turn, and land, safely. This simplistic approach was justified early in the conflict, as the operational role of pilots was limited to unimpeded reconnaissance. War games which had been carried out prior to the First

70 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his brother Sam [Saturday September 25, 1916], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), pp. 13-89. Having arrived in the UK for pilot training in September 1916, Taylor would not begin active duty in France until late August 1917. 71 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Father [Wednesday June 6, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 74. 72 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Father [Saturday September 16, 1916], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 14. Before transferring into the RFC, whilst still training as an infantryman in Canada, Taylor had begun foot drill, and continued undergoing regular drilling after arriving in Britain, a change in intensity which was so profound that he was inclined to describe drilling back in Canada as “child's play” by comparison. 73 Ian Beckett, Timothy Bowman, and Mark Connelly, The British Army and the First World War (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp.77-78. The Officer Training Battalion Course to serve in the RFC was an eight month course, double the usual time requirements to become an officer. Attempts to decrease the required amount of time by removing the drill and ceremonial requirements were met with stiff resistance from senior military officials.

World War had solidified this reconnaissance role, and the training and design practices of the time reflected this perceived “solitary” operational requirement. However, this strategically limited understanding of military aviation failed to consider technological military escalation. In 1914 a basic approach to training was acceptable for fulfilling the operational needs of the RFC, but this would not remain the case for long into the war.74

As the war progressed, and the operational functions of airplanes and airmen expanded, the relative safety of reconnaissance operations quickly became a thing of the past. At the end of 1915, strategists from both sides came to the realisation that for reconnaissance to be successful the pilot's duties must now be twofold. Firstly, pilots must gather reconnaissance of the enemy, and report their findings back to headquarters.

Secondly, airmen must prevent enemy aircraft from acquiring reconnaissance of their own lines wherever possible, and prevent them from reporting this information to their superiors.75 The realisation of both needs required airplanes to have combative capabilities, to attack and disable enemy aircraft, and kill enemy pilots in the process.

Aerial photography and artillery spotting, and the protection of these undertakings, became a deadly game. What began as enemy pilots throwing half-bricks at one another, progressed through rifle fire, and eventually the use of on-board machine guns to disable enemy aircraft. The basic rudiments of flying were no longer sufficient to operate as an effective pilot, and training practices had to be developed in order to meet these new operational demands. The pre-war lack of investment and military foresight

74 The first and second generation planes, as Richard Hallion categorises them in Rise of the Fighter Aircraft 1914-1918, were only designed to conduct reconnaissance effectively, and designed using short term mind-sets. Planes capable of fulfilling the operational needs of the combat environment (third generation) would not become available until late-1916, and even these were outdated by the end of 1917. Only the fourth and fifth generation planes, the latter of which only applied to two planes by the end of the war, would function effectively at the Front for sustained periods of time. 75 Peter Mead, The Eye in the Air: History of Air Observation and reconnaissance for the Army 1785-1945 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1983), pp. 62-63.

had a devastating impact during this transition period, and these shortcomings were undoubtedly responsible for a good number of casualties in the ensuing years, especially during periods of German ascendancy in the air.76 The whole training scheme of the RFC needed an overhaul fast if the British flying services were to continue conducting aerial operations for the remainder of the war; failure to do so would have grave consequences for pilots and the war effort.

The overhaul of the pilot training curriculum that the RFC so desperately required did not happen until early-1917 with the implementation of the Robert Smith-Barry model of pilot training that had been trialled in 1916. Despite large strides in military aviation over the first five years of its existence, the RFC was still lacking a training regimen with which to train pilots effectively.77 Unlike his contemporaries, whose ideas focused upon basic flight requirements, Smith-Barry's approach dealt directly with the dangers of flight and how to escape them. By being taught how to exit such harrowing circumstances, pilots were not only safer but instilled with more confidence. Under

Smith-Barry's command, pilots were also taught on the standard dual-controlled Avro

504 machine which allowed for instructor demonstration and correction in the air.

Instructors were assigned specialized training and roles, unlike the pre-existing system whereby pilots on leave, often struggling with strained nerves themselves, were

76 Geoffrey Norris, The Royal Flying Corps: A History (London: Frederick Muller Limited, 1965), p. 15. This has not prevented some scholars from unsympathetically arguing that the decision to hold back investment was warranted, given aviation’s lack of a significant strategic value. For example: Peter Mead, The Eye in the Air (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1983), p. 35. 77 Walter Raleigh and H. A. Jones, The War in the Air: Being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force: Vol. 1 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1922), p. 239. This shortcoming, which dated back to prior to the RFCs formation in 1912, was responsible for a large loss of pilot lives in training and active service.

designated as instructors.78 The success of the Smith-Barry pilot curriculum resulted in its implementation throughout the flying services from May 1917 onwards.79

These training developments coincided with an increased demand for pilots. As military reconnaissance, now recognised as a strategic necessity, was becoming an increasingly perilous undertaking, the existing pilot training infrastructure was struggling to keep up with the demand for replacement pilots.80 In response to this increased demand for airmen, the training brigade of the RFC was decentralised to include bases in

York, London, and Salisbury, and mandatory flight hours were increased. There would now be 6 cadet wings, and special schools around the British Isles for gunnery, artillery, infantry cooperation, equipment, and bombing.81 The previously ambiguous strategic purposes of the RFC would now be clearly defined in military operations, and fulfilled by specialised units within the Corps.

Neil Taylor completed his pilot training in the last week of June, 1917.82 It would be almost two months before he saw active duty, as he had to complete a "short course" before becoming eligible to fly, in his case as a reconnaissance pilot. By this period in the war, we know that Taylor was completing his service squadron tenure, the completion of

78 Michael Paris, Winged Warfare: The Literature and Theory of Aerial Warfare in Britain, 1859-1917 (United Kingdom: Manchester University Press, 1992), pp. 218-221. Ian Mackersley, No Empty Chairs: The Short and Heroic Lives of the Young Aviators that Fought and Died in the First World War (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2012), p. 67-78. 79 F. D. Tredrey, Pioneer Pilot: The Great Smith-Barry Who Taught the World How to Fly (London: Peter Davies Ltd., 1976), pp. 56-72. This training curriculum would change very little over the course of the next 20 years, with the core principles it established being in use in pilot instruction to this day. 80 Sir Robert Thompson, The Royal Flying Corps: Per Ardua Ad Astra (Great Britain: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1968), p.111. The increasing dangers of being a pilot are exemplified in the average lifespan of a pilot in the RFC, which fell from 295 hours in August, 1916, to 92 hours in March, 1917. These figures represent the average pilot's flight time, the number of hours they spent on active duty in the air before being killed, wounded, or becoming a prisoner-of-war. 81 Sir Robert Thompson, The Royal Flying Corps: Per Ardua Ad Astra (Great Britain: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1968), pp. 106-111. 82 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Friday June 29, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 76.

which would ultimately result in him gaining his wings; this aligns with the new training regimen that was being implemented at the time.83 Taylor was irritated at the delay these newly-introduced training requirements represented, but their completion meant that he was finally a qualified pilot.84 Despite its importance to the strategic war effort, being a reconnaissance pilot involved many risks and limited personal rewards.85

Neil Taylor joined the RFC for a multitude of reasons, a few examples being: devout patriotism, religious fervour, group loyalty, and yearning for adventure. Having enlisted and served prior to mid-1916 he found himself in a flying service that was still trying to fulfil its evolving role in the conflict. Despite the press-generated glamour surrounding pilots, being a pilot remained a dangerous undertaking. Due to a lack in strategic direction, training, and equipment, recruits found themselves lacking the necessary skills to survive at the Front. Unfortunately for Taylor, he was one of the last recruits to experience these antiquated methods of pilot training. As part of the transitionary cadre of airmen, between the old training methods of trial and error and the new Smith-Barry Curriculum, Taylor's training was not as comprehensive as that of those who were trained later in the conflict.

By the end of 1917, military planning, training curricula, and aviation technology,

83 Edgar Middleton, The Great War in the Air: Vol. 3 (London: The Waverley Co. Ltd., 1920), p. 67. 84 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Friday June 29, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 89. Having completed his training, Taylor no longer expressed guilt at the contributions and losses of his compatriots, as he now entered the fray of combat to make his own contribution to the war effort. 85 Walter Raleigh and H. A. Jones, The War in the Air: Being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force: Vol. 1 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1922), p. 6. Peter Mead, The Eye in the Air: History of Air Observation and reconnaissance for the Army 1785-1945 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1983), p. 42. Although fellow pilots recognised the central importance of reconnaissance pilots’ contributions, these contributions to the conflict have been largely overlooked by the post-war nostalgia of the period. This is due, in large part, to the hero worship afforded to the fighter pilots (more accurately the "scout" pilots) of the time. The public found it a lot easier to identify with the tactical victories of air combat, such as shooting down an enemy, as opposed to the strategic gains that were being won through reconnaissance.

had advanced to levels that would allow the RFC to operate as a separate entity from the army. The decision to recruit in the Dominions, specifically the creation of RFC Canada, combined with a regimented flight training scheme, reduced the time lost in the bureaucracy, transportation, and training, of recruits and cadets in Britain. Canadian recruits into the RFC would now have adequate training to prepare them for what awaited them on active duty. The success of these developments is undeniable and, by the end of

1917, 200 trained Canadian pilots were being sent monthly from Canada to fight for the

British Flying Services.86 Unfortunately, Neil Taylor's pilot training tenure came before the majority of the RFC training deficiencies had been overcome, and as a result he did not benefit from the higher standards of training that later recruits into the RFC received.

86 Sir Robert Thompson, The Royal Flying Corps: Per Ardua Ad Astra (Great Britain: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1968), p. 108.

SECTION 2

ACTIVE SERVICE

Flying is the most natural thing in the world - the world which is itself flying in space. Fighting in the air is the most natural thing in a world in which war endures. From air fighting the conception of air power necessarily emerges. Both flying and its consequence, the appearance of air power, are phenomena of our generation, and momentous phenomena. James M. Spaight - 192787

Neil Taylor arrived at the Front in late August 1917.88 Despite all of his training and preparation, Taylor's time there was brief; a month into his active service, while conducting reconnaissance over enemy territory, Taylor and his observer were shot down and became prisoners-of-war. The brevity of Taylor's time on active duty ensured that little trace remained of his tenure as a pilot. Yet, Taylor's experience provides an opportunity to consider whether or not his time on active duty was representative of the pilot experience. The experiences of ordinary pilots like Taylor’s have been overshadowed by the dominant myths of the war in the air; this section will examine the reasons for such oversight, and evaluate the circumstances that impacted a pilot's life on active service.

The cultural remembrance of the First World War has become shrouded in narratives that dominate the representation of certain experiences. These include, for

87 James M. Spaight, The Beginnings of Organised Air Power: A Historical Study (New York: Green and Co. Ltd., 1927), p. 1. 88 Neil Joseph Taylor to his brother Sam [Saturday September 16, 1916], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 12.

example, the overwhelmingly bleak nature of the trench warfare experience, the unfulfilled glories of the naval experience, and the impact of shell shock witnessed by the medical corps. With the active service experiences of pilots there is another overarching narrative: one that tells the story of the heroic exploits of individual fighter pilots. The fighter pilot experience is, and continues to be, the most renowned and overstated aspect of First World War aviation.

Despite the dominance of such representations, the fighter "ace" narrative, and the literary devotion it has received, misrepresents the overall pilot experience.89 In fact, the day-to-day operations of reconnaissance pilots and their observers were responsible for the bulk of the pilot experience in the First World War, with various other flight activities such as artillery ranging, trench strafing, and bombing missions, also making sizeable contributions. It is only by bringing these experiences to light that the wartime service of most airmen, such as Taylor, becomes apparent. These experiences are much more representative of pilot experiences during the conflict than the dominant myths of the war suggest. This section explores a range of experiences of pilots on active service to provide the necessary context to understand Neil Taylor's war service. Although the equipment and environment that pilots operated in changed over the course of the conflict, the roles that they played remained relative consistent once they had been defined.

Having attained their wings, Taylor and his fellow pilots became eligible for

89 S. F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, vol. 1 (Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1980), pp. 573-574. This is made more surprising when one considers the fact that, according to official figures, one third of all claims to have been an "Ace" must have been false and unfounded. This is true for pilots on both sides of the conflict.

active duty.90 After months of training in various fields of aviation (theoretical, technical, gunnery, and piloting of various aircraft), Taylor and his contemporaries were at different levels of mental preparedness. As pilots, they had committed themselves to serving in this new method of warfare above the lines, and now had to come to terms with the macabre ramifications of the commitment they had made.

A variety of factors impacted the quality of active service that these pilots experienced. Among them were a pilot's initial arrival and social interactions at the front, the technological status quo at the time of service, and the operational role that pilots were assigned. Each impacted how individual pilots experienced the conflict, and by comparing the interaction of these areas we gain a greater understanding of overarching themes. Compartmentalising the experiences of all pilots is not possible, but light can be shed on several areas to allow for a greater appreciation of the transient factors that impacted the pilot experience. By evaluating the thoughts, feelings, and realities of what it meant to be an airman on active duty in the First World War, alongside the dominant historical tropes and realities, the aim here is to give some sense of what it was like for

Neil Taylor and his peers to work and live as pilots.

Neil Taylor was assigned to serve with 11 Squadron RFC, which had initially arrived in France as the first two-seater fighter-bomber unit, a designation that incorporated a broad range of aerial duties including aerial reconnaissance, trench strafing, and light bombing raids.91 During Taylor’s tenure with 11 Squadron, he was

90 It is important to note here that Empire pilots were not limited to operations on the Western Front. During the First World War, military aviation played a role in all theatres of the conflict and pilots were assigned where their services were required. Examples of these theatres include: the Western Front, Italy, and the Middle East. 91 Peter Lewis, Squadron Histories: R. F. C, R. N. A. S. and R. A. F. since 1912, 2nd ed. (London: Putnam & Company, 1968), p. 15. Renowned British fighter pilot Albert Ball was the most notable pilot to serve in 11 Squadron, between May and August, 1916, and it was here that he honed his skills as a pilot.

primarily responsible for conducting reconnaissance and photographic work over the

Arras-Lens area of the Front, but his operations did vary. The Battle for Hill 70 was still ongoing at the time, during the early stages of the Third Battle of Ypres, and there was intense aerial activity throughout the region. The critical technological, strategic, operational, and tactical challenges of this phase of the war determined his fate.

Upon arrival in France, a pilot made his way to his squadron's airfield, where he was assigned accommodation for the duration of his active duty at the Front. The initial interactions pilots had with their contemporaries, and the way of life they would be leading, could potentially set the tone for the remainder of their time on active duty.

Despite all the training that aviators underwent prior to their arrival in France, few of these training activities could prepare them for the social realities of becoming part of a battle-worn group, and the psychological hardships that they would have to overcome.92

Pilots began to appreciate the dissonance between training and service once they had experienced life on active duty. They now found themselves in an environment that demanded total concentration in a recurring state of peril. It was one thing for a trainee to practice in a pressure-free setting behind the front lines, but it was something else entirely when their mistakes could result in their own and their comrades' lives being lost.

Misjudgement over enemy lines, especially when piloting a plane inferior to the enemy’s, could cost them and their squadrons dearly, and pilots had to live or die with the consequences of their decisions. Even a mistake outside of combat, such as a pilot error while attempting to land, could prove deadly.

There were numerous concerns that weighed on pilots’ minds as their appreciation for the gravity of the situation began to materialize. After hours of training,

92 Lee Kennett, The First War in the Air: 1914-1918 (New York: The Free Press, 1991), pp. 140-143.

pilots would now have to put their skills to the ultimate test against an enemy that was expected to do the same. Hugh B. Monaghan, a Canadian bomber pilot in the RFC, recounts his own feelings shortly before leaving for the Front:

My leave wasn't as carefree as the others had been. I had matured and the knowledge that I would soon be facing the enemy had become serious. During my training a new and fascinating world had opened up and I had enjoyed every minute of it. Now the chips were down and the stakes were high. My worry was how I would measure up when the test came. Only time would tell. One thing at least, I would not be returning to Canada from behind a desk.93 Monaghan exemplifies the environmental shock that some pilots felt as they entered the combat zone. Of course, there was also a significant number of pilots who experienced a feeling of anticipation for what lay ahead of them. Arthur Gould Lee, a British pilot, recorded in his diary: "... to tell you the truth, apart from the thrill of just being here, I don't have any unusual emotions at all, except of anticipation of what I shall see on my first trip tomorrow."94 These experiences illustrate the varied emotions that pilots felt when faced with the prospect of active service, and the Canadian experience in this regard was no different from that of other Empire pilots.

Another factor that would impact the pilot experience was technology, and ascendancy in this area would prove pivotal to the experiences of a significant number of pilots on both sides throughout the conflict. During the first eighteen months of the conflict, the RFC was technologically inferior to the flying services of other major powers, and it relied heavily upon the benevolence of their French allies.95 Prior to the outbreak of hostilities, the French were undoubtedly the world power in the field of

93 Hugh B. Monaghan, The Big Bombers of World War 1 (Indiana: JaaRE Publishing 1985), p. 76. 94 Arthur Gould Lee, No Parachute: A Fighter Pilot in World War 1 (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1970). Diary extract, May 22nd, 1917, p. 13. 95 L. E. O. Charlton, War from the Air: Past, Present, Future (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1935), pp. 35-37.

heavier-than-air aviation (a distinction which was applied to differentiate airplanes from lighter-than-air dirigible airships) and without their initial support it would have been next to impossible for the RFC to function past the first few weeks of the war.96

The battle for technological ascendancy in the air fluctuated over the course of the war. With respect to aviation armaments and tactics, at least, Germany held the initiative over the Allies. Due to the pre-war hesitancy of the British military establishment to invest funds in the air services, with the primary allocation of funds being given to the sea and ground forces, the RFC would be at a technological disadvantage to the Germans for most of the war. Attempts to gain or exploit technological ascendancy over the

German air service were also undermined by several cases of imprudence with the application of new and prototype technologies.97

The introduction of the German interrupter gear machine gun in mid-1915, allowing pilots to fire forward through their propeller, marked the beginning of the real war in the air. The RFC would not gain the ascendancy until the Battles of the Somme a year later. However, this dominance was short-lived as the Germans took control once more in autumn 1916 for a period lasting until spring 1917. For the remainder of the war this dominance eroded as the Allies went from strength to strength, with more advanced planes, and consistent pilot recruitment and training practices throughout the service; because of these improvements, for the remainder of the war the Germans would only be

96 Reginald Hugh Kiernan, The First War in the Air (McGill-Queens University Press, 1934), p. 15. 97 Richard P. Hallion, Rise of the Fighter Aircraft 1914-1918 (Maryland, USA: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1984), p. 34. The most notable example of this imprudence is Roland Garros being caught with the prototype of the first interrupter gear behind enemy lines. However, subsequent research has indicated that Fokker was most likely already in the process of creating his own interrupter gear, using a design stolen from a pre-war patent. The inter-air service rivalry that existed between the army and the navy, which fostered competition over aircraft, also detracted from the quality of machines that reached the Western Front.

able to control small sectors of the front for short periods of time.98

Neil Taylor's active service began during a major battle, the Third Battle of Ypres, a dangerous time for all pilots as operational demands increased in frequency and intensity.99 As the Allies mounted numerous assaults, pilot casualties mounted as both sides met in the air. Matched for weaponry, with the operational capacity and safety of airplanes vastly improved, the dangers of being a pilot also increased on both sides as evidenced in the increased number of pilot casualties.100 Thus, tactical discipline (a skill that required many active service hours to refine) became paramount, and pilots selecting combat based on advantageous situations became an integral part of surviving the dehumanizing war of aerial attrition.101 With the increased intensity of aerial operations, the mortality rates of new and inexperienced pilots soared. During periods of lower operational demands, new pilots would often be given some time to acclimatize to their new environment. Unfortunately, those inexperienced pilots that began their active service during a battle were not afforded this allowance; as such, new pilots were more frequently brought down by experienced enemy pilots during major battles. The perilous state of air combat in the first half of the Third Battles of Ypres is illustrated by the RFC

98 Richard P. Hallion, Rise of the Fighter Aircraft 1914-1918 (Maryland, USA: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1984), pp. 63-65. Raw material shortages caused by the British blockade forced the German air services to standardize equipment types and cut corners on construction materials. Increased demand for pilots also put increasing strictures on mandatory flight hours, which only increased for the British flying services as the war continued. As the pressures exerted by the Allied naval blockade continued to worsen, production and training shortcomings, that had plagued the RFC early in the conflict, increasingly became the modus operandi of the German Air Service. 99 Taylor's letters do not reveal where he was stationed at this time of writing, most likely due to the strictures of wartime censorship. Peter Lewis, Squadron Histories: R. F. C., R. N. A. S. and R. A. F. since 1912, 2nd ed. (London: Putnam & Company, 1968), pp. 15-16. According to Lewis's book, Taylor's 11 Squadron was stationed at La Bellevue Aerodrome, on the Arras sector of the Front, from June 1917 until October 1918. 100 S. F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, vol. 1 (Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1980), p. 356. 101 John H. Morrow Jr. The Great War in the Air: Military Aviation from 1909 to 1921 (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993), p. 197-280.

losses at the time. In the 50 days ranging from 31 July 1917 to 19 September 1917, the

RFC lost 434 pilots, with the average pilot life being three-and-a-half months. In the 60 days from 20 September 1917 to 20 November 1917, by comparison, the RFC only lost

247 pilots.102 In Neil Taylor's squadron alone, 14 pilots died in August and September,

1917.103

One of the key areas of military history discussion regarding technological ascendancy is "the little better, the little more" principle, as James M. Spaight, the noted aviation historian, termed it. This is the discussion of the importance of a skilled pilot versus the quality of his aircraft in a situation of peril. Spaight himself held that the pilot was insignificant if beholden to inferior or insufficient equipment, emphasising the necessity of having a competitive airplane in a combat situation.104 However, romanticism during and after the war created a pilot personality obsession in the public which, when combined with the masculine ideals of the time, cemented the idea that only the most superior aviator would triumph in a head-to-head contest; before long some came to reject "the little better, the little more" principle in favour of the superior flyer theory.105

This misunderstanding of the particulars of aviation, and adherence to the "cult of personality" contributed to the misinformation and mythologizing of First World War

102 John H. Morrow Jr. The Great War in the Air: Military Aviation from 1909 to 1921 (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993), p. 236. 103 Chris Hobson, Airmen Died in the Great War 1914-1918 (Suffolk: J. B. Hayward & Sons, 1995), pp. 330-331. In the two and a half years since its official formation in mid-1916, August 1917 represented the joint-third worst month of deaths for 11 Squadron. The worst two months for casualties in 11 Squadron were October 1918 (17 deaths) and September 1916 (10 deaths). 104 James M. Spaight, The Beginnings of Organised Air Power: A Historical Study (New York: Green and Co. Ltd., 1927), p. 13. Cecil Lewis also ascribed to this viewpoint 'A machine with better speed and climbing power must always have the advantage.' Sagittarius Rising (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), pp. 124-125. 105 Geoffrey Norris, The Royal Flying Corps: A History (London: Frederick Muller Limited, 1965), pp. 240-241. Norris, a prominent aviation historian, is a notable example of a scholar that believed in the superior flyer theory, a view which does not hold up to the operational reality of being a pilot.

aviation.106 Ultimately, without disregarding the importance of having a capable pilot, we must give the main emphasis for success in aerial combat to the quality of the machines at hand. After all, only when machines are qualitatively matched do the skills of the pilots become the deciding aspect of combat.107

In terms of technology, Neil Taylor's squadron was one of the best equipped

British squadrons. The month of Taylor's arrival, 11 Squadron RFC became one of the first to be equipped with the newly available Bristol F2 (known as the Bristol Fighter) airplane.108 The introduction of the Bristol Fighter marked the dawning of a sustained period of Allied dominance of the air; this plane became one of the most respected and iconic planes of the war. 109 However, somewhat in line with the superior flyer view of the "little better little more" debate, the Bristol Fighter would only achieve its full potential in the hands of a pilot willing to embrace its manoeuvrability.110 This fact is exemplified in the experiences of two RFC pilots, both of whom became famous for their

106 Jonathan F. Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War (Canada: University of British Columbia Press, 1997), pp. 3-4. Michael Paris, Winged Warfare: The Literature and Theory of Aerial Warfare in Britain, 1859-1917 (United Kingdom: Manchester University Press, 1992), pp. 2-6. Paris lays a lot of the responsibility for creating this narrative on the official history of aviation in the First World War, The War in the Air (1922), the first volume of which was written by Sir Walter Raleigh, and the remaining 5 being completed by Henry Albert Jones by 1937. Pressured by Trenchard, among others, Raleigh presented the conflict as a resounding success marred by only the occasion difficulty. Coming from a literary background, Raleigh's work fell short of a truly objective and analytical history, instead favouring a glorious literary narrative. 107 Richard P. Hallion, Rise of the Fighter Aircraft 1914-1918 (Maryland, USA: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1984), pp. 149-164. Hallion emphasises this point by showing that there is no substitute for a well-designed fighter plane. Only with access to the best available equipment can a pilot operate their full potential. 108 The Bristol F2 was an improvement on an earlier design which had seen action, and performed rather poorly, at the Battle of Arras. 109 J. A. Chamier, The Birth of the Royal Air Force: The Early History and Experiences of the Flying Services (London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1943), p. 123. The Royal Aircraft Factory S. E. 5 biplane and the Sopwith Camel, which were also released in 1917, also contributed to this period of aerial dominance. The Bristol Fighter continued to be used by the RAF into the 1930s, testament to the trust military authorities placed in it. 110 Although it doesn't fall into the highest category of First World War planes, due the materials used to make the plane, the Bristol Fighter is easily one of the best wooden planes of the war due to its manoeuvrability and armament. For further reading on aircraft classifications and summations of their operational limits, see Richard Hallion's Rise of the Fighter Aircraft 1914-1918.

exploits during the conflict.

William Leefe Robinson VC, a British pilot famed for being the first to shoot down a zeppelin during the war, was the first to test pilot the Bristol Fighter over enemy lines in April, 1917. 111 Despite his credentials, when attacked by enemy planes

Robinson and his formation stuck with the fundamental flying skills that aligned with the inadequate training practices prior to 1917. Thus, several Bristol Fighters were shot down on their maiden mission.112 As a counterpoint to Robinson’s experiences, we have the operational experiences of Canadian Andrew McKeever.113 In the hands of McKeever, the Bristol Fighter, which was designed to be a two-seater reconnaissance aircraft, proved deadly for 31 enemy aircraft.114 McKeever utilized a modern range of manoeuvres, combining these with close range firing to outmanoeuvre and overcome his opponents.

These two examples show the direct impact that training practices and tactical awareness can have on the outcome of a combat.115

The quality of Neil Taylor's training is brought into question by the acknowledgment that he was flying a more than capable aircraft. It is highly likely that

111 According to his diaries [August, 1916 - September 1916] which were written whilst in confinement, Neil was in London on the night that William Leefe Robinson downed the zeppelin, and saw the '... streak of fire which at once became an immense conflagration lighting up the whole firmament with its flames of dark crimson.' 112 Walter Raleigh and H. A. Jones, The War in the Air: Being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force: Vol. 3 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1931), p. 335-337. Robinson himself was forced to land behind enemy lines, and became a prisoner-of-war. Curiously, Jones identifies a lack of trust in the Bristol Fighter’s structural integrity as the reason for Robinson being shot down. If this were the case, one wonders why so many of the six pilots, four in total, were shot down. However, the later successes of the Bristol Fighter, operating successfully in several functions, dos support this claim. It must also be taken into consideration that this mission took place during the worst month for pilot casualties that the Allies had suffered to that point. 113 Andrew McKeever also served in 11 Squadron RFC, the same squadron as Albert Ball and Neil Taylor. 114 Christopher Shores, Norman Franks, and Russell Guest, Above the Trenches: A Complete Record of the Fighter Aces and Units of the British Empire Air Forces 1915-1920 (London: Grub Street, 1990), pp. 275- 276. 115 This is yet another example of Smith-Barry’s influence on the Allied experience of the conflict in the air, with his training principles providing pilots with the necessary skills to succeed, or at least compete with enemy aviators.

Neil missed out on the advantages of the Smith-Barry training curriculum by joining the

RFC before the curriculum was fully implemented. This possibility is supported by the fact that training practices were not implemented quickly throughout the RFC. However, in assessing the reasons for Neil being shot down we must not diminish the importance of circumstance. Writing to Sam, shortly after becoming a prisoner-of-war, Neil explained how he was shot down:

Mumford, my observer, got bullets in the leg and in the arm and could not fight. I did my best to the last and had to land when my eyes filled with blood, which I did without crashing. Write my C. O. and tell him I was sorry to let him down. Seven dived out of the sun and cut me off. I scrapped 15 minutes and the machine was riddled with bullets. It was half shot away; wires and all. How we escaped I know not.116 This extract highlights two factors that were decisive in Neil's being shot down. Firstly, he was outnumbered, which might suggest that he had lost sight of his patrol unit.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, his assailants attacked him from "out of the sun". This kind of assault, whereby the enemy aircraft attack their foe from above, and at the same side as the sun relative to the foe to blind their target, became one of the core tactical practices of fighter aircraft during the conflict. Initially favoured by German aviators, airmen in the British air services were continuously warned of the dangers of the

"Hun in the sun," and to beware of attacks from this angle.117 Although this information does not provide concrete evidence of the circumstances of Neil's being shot down, the odds are that, even with the benefit of a competitive aircraft and the right training, Neil had fallen victim to circumstances associated with a lack of experience at the Front,

116 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Brother Sam [September 22, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 113. 117 Richard P. Hallion, Rise of the Fighter Aircraft 1914-1918 (Maryland, USA: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1984), pp. 18-19.

rather than inferior pilot capabilities.

Another element of the pilot experience that needs to be examined is the mythic

"chivalry of the air" understanding of First World War aviators, a belief held by some at the time; this interpretation presents all pilots as chivalrous aviators doing their duty, affording their foe all the courtesies that a "sporting gentleman" would. Neil Taylor, in reassuring his Mother of the safety and good fortune of an acquaintance who was taken as a prisoner-of-war in the RFC, indulges her in this belief:

There seems to have grown up a spirit of chivalry and sympathy between the enemy flying corps that is wholly absent in the other branches. I know that when a British Airman falls behind the lines a German Airman flies over the British lines and drops a report and the fellow's belongings, and the British do the same. When the famous German aviator Boelcke (sic) was killed a couple weeks ago the British carried over a wreath and the British aviator prisoners in Germany were given permission to send a delegation to the funeral.118 Whilst it is true that this kind of treatment was afforded to enemy aviators on both sides of the conflict, what Taylor fails to appreciate is the fact that this kind of specialty treatment was reserved for notable pilots who had been deemed worthy by their killing record.119 In fact, Taylor's letter highlights the shortcomings of this belief: chivalrous recognition of a defeated foe is quite different from affording "sporting" treatment during battle, when each pilot is trying to overcome the other.120 Any belief that pilots were chivalrous in their attempts to overcome and kill their enemy is a romanticism, a

118 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [November 30, 1916], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 31. 119 Interestingly, Boelcke owed his own death to a collision with another German pilot whilst pursuing a Canadian pilot, Eddie McKay. McKay himself came from a very similar background to Taylor, and served with distinction before his death on active service. For further reading on McKay, see One in a Thousand, written by Graham Broad. 120 Samuel Hynes, The Unsubstantial Air: American Fliers in the First World War (USA: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), pp. 234-235. In death pilots were afforded military honours by the enemy air forces. However, even here the distinction of "worthiness" can also be felt. This distinction is evident for U. S. A. airmen in the First World War, with the notable pilot casualties being given the full military occasion, and the less notable receiving the bare essentials. The demands of war (specifically, the killing of enemy combatants) came to determine the value of some of the dead.

depiction that does not reflect the reality that developed once machines were equipped with weaponry and instructed to disable one another.

It is possible that this chivalric ethos originated prior to the outbreak of the war, during the experimental phase of aviation. The atmosphere at pre-war air shows certainly exhibits parallels to the medieval tourney: international champions risking their lives in competition, the use of separate hangars, and distinct banners that adorned each of the competitor’s areas, certainly adds substance to this theory.121Another possibility is that the chivalry concept was brought into the RFC by those recruits who traditionally would have served as cavalrymen.122 The notion of chivalry has existed within the cavalry for many centuries, and resonated with potential recruits. Both of these things contributed to the chivalric ethos that came to define the war in the air for some.

Notions of chivalry were jettisoned in 1915-1916 as planes became quicker and more heavily armed.123 Active service on the western front was no longer a game played with barely adequate planes and weapons in the skies over France. Military aviation had evolved into a perilous undertaking, and every enemy machine had the potential to send a pilot down in flames. As John H. Morrow accurately summarises the state of military aviation from late-1915 onwards, "the birds of warfare" were no longer playful things of beauty, they had now grown deadly talons, and the sky became a deadly arena of combat as a result.124

Despite this reality, the chivalry myth has outlasted the airmen who fought in the

121 Robert Wohl, A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination: 1908-1918 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). 122 Once the war of movement came to an end, and the use of cavalry became less glamorous than it had been in previous conflicts, a significant number of cavalrymen transferred into the air services seeking the excitement and "glory" that could no longer be found on horseback. 123 Reginald Hugh Kiernan, The First War in the Air (McGill-Queens University Press, 1934), p. 81. 124 John H. Morrow Jr., The Great War in the Air: Military Aviation from 1909 to 1921 (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993), p. 87.

First World War. Joanna Bourke identifies chivalry as an important element of the combat ethos propagated by the military hierarchy to induce pilots to comfortably perform their duties: "Chivalry was evoked to stifle fears of senseless violence; intimacy was substituted for confusing anonymity; skilfulness was imposed to dispel numbing monotony."125 Evidence of such psychological manipulation can be found in the conflicted nature that pilots felt about their activities in the air. After completing an operation, pilots would often be overcome with the resurgence of their peacetime humanity coming into conflict with their duties, despite being trained to reject such feelings. An example of this is found in Lee's diary:

Last night, lying awake in the still small hours, I kept thinking about the Hun observer I hit, and wondering if I killed him. If I did he's the first man I've ever killed. Being so close when I fired, and seeing him collapse, made him another human being, not just a target in an aeroplane.126 Such attempts at fostering a chivalric frame of mind, and a disassociation from the act of killing, did not protect pilots from the ravages of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Flying long hours in a hazardous environment, witnessing harrowing actions, and aware of their own peril, pilots were overwhelmed by their situation. Although there was no official diagnosis that pilots would have been familiar with at the time, except perhaps the misattribution of neurasthenia, letters and diaries frequently refer to attacks of the

"nerves" unsettling pilots, and sometimes preventing them from completing their duties.

A notable victim of PTSD in the RFC was British pilot Mick Mannock VC.

Credited as the father of tactical flying in the RFC, Mannock was a leader ahead of his time that advocated flying in formation, action as a unit, and never taking unnecessary

125 Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-face Killing in Twentieth Century Warfare (Great Britain: Granta Books, 1999), p. 56. 126 Arthur Gould Lee, No Parachute: A Fighter Pilot in World War 1 (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1970). Diary extract May 30th, 1917, p. 36.

risks. After numerous sustained periods of active service, and killing numerous enemy pilots, Mannock became increasingly obsessed with his own death, particularly the possibility of going down in flames. After shooting down a foe in flames Mannock would feel physically sick, and he carried a loaded pistol with him should the situation ever arise where his own plane caught fire.127 Prominent French flyer, Georges Guynemer also fell victim to the same strains of combat. After numerous early kills, he developed an obsession with long hours of solo missions at the expense of his health, ignoring tactical developments that had evolved past the efficacy of the lone wolf.128 On one such mission he disappeared, and was last seen taking on an enemy plane. His subsequent fate remains unknown and his body was never recovered.

Neil Taylor's experiences of active service only occupy a small percentage of his letters. There was one essential reason for the small number of letters: the fact that he was shot down very shortly after arriving in France. Regardless of the volume of these letters, this section of Taylor's correspondence offers a glimpse into some of his concerns at the time, concerns which can only be understood considering the circumstances outlined above. Some of the early letters detail the trivialities of life at the Front: experiences of furnishing accommodation and other things of this nature are outlined to family back home, no doubt to ease any worries that relatives might have had about Taylor's wellbeing and state of mind.129 As time passed, these trivialities were quickly replaced by much more serious reflections and concerns.

127 Frederick Oughton, The Personal Diary of Major Edward "Mick" Mannock (London: Neville Spearman Ltd., 1966), pp. 165-166. September 5, 1917, felt sick at the sight of a burning enemy, pp. 139-147. The fear of the flames was a common dread among aviators, friend and foe. Reginald Hugh Kiernan, The First War in the Air (McGill-Queens University Press, 1934), p. 82. 128 Alan Clark, Aces High: The War in the Air Over the Western Front 1914-1918 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1973), pp. 63-64. 129 Neil Joseph Taylor letters [August 22, 1917 to September 9, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), pp. 89-98.

After the death of two close friends, one of whom was serving in his squadron,

Taylor found himself coming to grips with the burden of loss, a challenge which has come to embody a significant part of the literary portrayal of early aviators and infantrymen alike.130 Although the loss of comrades might have been expected to test his belief in the validity of the cause for which he fought, Taylor was resolute in reaffirming his commitment to the task at hand, a duty which he hopes would ensure that the ensuing peace will be "a lasting one."131 This element of historical reckoning is not as prevalent in the writings of other pilots, but the need to overcome the "dastardly Hun" (a desire that is expressed in many pilot accounts) certainly mirrors Taylor’s outlook on the conflict and his commitment to winning the war.132

Another psychological strain that pilots had to deal with was the burden of taking a life, which weighed heavily on the minds of most aviators. Huge advances in weaponry for military aircraft meant that aviators were no longer solely responsible for conducting reconnaissance of enemy operations; they were now responsible for killing enemy aviators. The responsibility to use lethal weaponry when the moment came was now a question faced by all pilots. In their peacetime civilian lives, pilots came from predominantly Judeo-Christian societies which accepted that in normal circumstances to kill another human being was a sin, an abomination, and a criminal act worthy of eternal damnation. Now that pilots were faced with the enemy, especially in one-on-one combat situations, they had to accept this “act of damnation” as one of the day-to-day realities of

130 Chris Hobson, Airmen Died in the Great War 1914-1918 (Suffolk: J. B. Hayward & Sons, 1995), p. 46. 131 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [September 5, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 89. The friend in question, Frank James Foster, was also a law student who was born on the east coast and spent time in Regina, Saskatchewan. Neil appears to have been very close to him, and this is evidenced by his keeping hold of the newspaper obituaries of Frank's life. 132 Maryam Philpott, Air and Sea Power in World War One: Combat and Experience in the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Navy (London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2013), p.62.

being a pilot.

To combat this burden of responsibility, pilots of the RFC, in keeping with their contemporaries in other fields of combat, circumvented their natural tendencies towards empathy by choosing not to dwell on the circumstances of enemy aviators that were killed. Pilots writing during the conflict, or composing their memoirs after its conclusion, tried to detract from these conflicted human tendencies by accentuating their surroundings, focusing on the task at hand, or perhaps by employing humour regarding the situation.133 The emphases on the beauty of flight, and the tranquil settings for confrontations, were often used to overshadow the actual action of killing the enemy.

This juxtaposition of the beautiful and the horrific, the one-on-one "just" struggle in the pale blue sky, alongside the bullet-riddled and burning fallen enemy aviator, was essential in providing the soldier-in-the-air with the mental faculties to cope with taking the life of an enemy. These rites of combat, that had proven incongruous in the context of trench warfare, were nonetheless perpetuated in the war in the air to ensure that aviators were able to cope with their duties.134

One area in which the pilot experience on active service remained relatively consistent, throughout the First World War, was that of time spent on the ground between missions.135 Although pilots were prepared for the possibility of flying operations, being on duty for many months in succession, a good proportion of their time was spent

133 Maryam Philpott, Air and Sea Power in World War One: Combat and Experience in the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Navy (London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2013), pp.62-67. 134 Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-face Killing in Twentieth Century Warfare (Great Britain: Granta Books, 1999), pp. 30-31, p. 36. Bourke refers to these rites as being "carnivaleque" in the sense that they are used to sanitize the act of killing, and instead focus attention upon more acceptable aspects of the conflict. By treating acts of killing in this way, pilots were able to disassociate themselves from the distasteful act of taking the life of another human being. 135 Samuel Hynes, The Unsubstantial Air: American Fliers in the First World War (USA: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), pp. 5-6.

between scheduled patrols waiting for the right weather conditions for flying. As

Torontonian airman Gordon Budd Irving lamented in a letter home over the winter, bad weather meant: "Spend[ing] our spare time fiddling around our buses, chopping wood, playing football, writing letters, walking into town and so on."136 This kind of experience is echoed in Taylor's letters during his time at the Front. Writing a week after arriving,

Taylor is content to accept the fact that he has only been required to fly one mission in

France due to the incessant rain:

It has been raining like hurrah to-day. An ideal day for the R.F.C. It has been raining almost continually ever since I came out so I have little to do. I have only been across the lines once and saw nothing. The Huns are scarce here about, and are somewhat scarcer when they see any Bristol Fighter machines about - that is the type we are flying. I have done nothing but read and write letters. This is a fine spot and they have a good supply of books and magazines. We also have a piano and a phonograph.137 Utilising the only aircraft at their disposal, which were fabricated using wooden frames with canvas coverings, powered by temperamental castor oil lubricated engines, pilots were extremely limited in their operational capacities when it came to the weather and would often be unable to perform their duties in anything more than a light rain.138

Consequently, missions flown during the conflict were at the mercy of the elements, and the RFC was recognised as being a “fairweather air force” that could only conduct operational flights in amicable flying conditions.139 These restrictions kept the RFC on

136 Gordon Budd Irving to his Father [February 24, 1918]. The Canadian Letters and Images Project - World War One Collection (http://www.canadianletters.ca/collections/war/468/collection/20700). Accessed: December 16, 2016. 137 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his sister Elsie [August 29, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), pp. 91. 138 Unlike contemporary military aviation, where machines are built with composite materials, powered by synthetic fuels, and equipped with safety equipment that allows pilots to fly in all weather conditions, planes in the First World War were extremely limited. 139 Geoffrey Norris, The Royal Flying Corps: A History (London: Frederick Muller Limited, 1965), p. 41. Sir Robert Thompson, The Royal Flying Corps: Per Ardua Ad Astra (Great Britain: Hamish Hamilton Ltd.,

the ground for a large proportion of the conflict, and for almost the entirety of the winter months. As such, pilots spent the majority of their active service on the ground. By focusing on these experiences, we substantially improve our understanding of pilot service experiences, better appreciate the pressures that were being exerted on pilots, and understand how these pressures impacted pilot wellbeing.140

A pilot's leisure time consisted of many pastimes that were also common during peacetime. Pilots often visited neighbouring towns and cities to take in the nightlife, enjoy a show, or visit with some of the locals.141 These kinds of trips allowed officers to take time away from the psychological stresses of active service, often involving a large volume of alcohol being consumed, dancing, and other aspects of companionship.142

Other activities such as going to the movies, competing in sports, visiting friends, and exploring the countryside, were also common within the flying services.143 Gavin Baird

Gibson, from Toronto, Ontario, wrote about his own leisure time. While out horse riding with his observer, Gibson had lost control of his horse, that had been startled by an aircraft being started. Despite the dangerous nature of this event, Gibson recalled fondly:

1968), p. 42. Night time flying, a standard practice in modern aviation, was also next to impossible until the last year of the war. 140 Desmond Morton, When Your Number's Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War (Canada: Random House of Canada, 1993). Although pilots are not the sole topic in Morton's work, the personal experiences of Canadian airmen are touched upon alongside other Canadian servicemen in the First World War. By exploring these personal experiences, historians elevate servicemen beyond solely being means to accomplish military aims. 141 Estaminets, small French cafes that serve alcoholic beverages, were a popular attraction for aviators that visited local towns. 142 Graham Broad, One in a Thousand: The Life and Death of Captain Eddie McKay, Royal Flying Corps (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), p. 43. The legal brothel was a cultural intrigue indulged in by numerous airmen and other servicemen in France. For Canadians in particular, the frequent use of such establishments resulted in the highest rate of venereal disease among the combatant nations. 143 Frederick Oughton, The Personal Diary of Major Edward 'Mick' Mannock (London: Neville Spearman Ltd., 1966), p. 31, 93-97 and 107-113. Mannock details trips to the movies, playing tennis, and visiting nearby aerodromes and towns. In almost every pilot diary or series of letters you will find stories of joviality, and explorations along the Front to visit friends in other unites and services. Pilots had a lot of spare time, living a lifestyle not too dissimilar to that of pre-war Public School Boys, an identity many of them shared.

"These were the little experiences that made life worth living in France, as we figured that flying was more or less an everyday affair and you had to do it anyway."144 The dynamics that existed in being part of these activities differed greatly from those that had existed in peacetime. Living in a country that speaks a foreign language, constantly interacting with a similar cadre of men, and being a representative for the actions of your entire nation, certainly changed the way officers were reasonably able to conduct themselves. There were numerous opportunities for entertainment whilst on active service, but the spectre of the ongoing conflict was always there to be felt.

In their leisure time, pilots also played sports against other units and services.

This competitive and recreational environment provided a reprieve from the psychological stresses that were built up from the realities and responsibilities of the war.

Occasionally, sports days were organised to keep the troops motivated. More often, services would organise games between themselves, such as football or rugby matches, and sometimes, especially among Canadians and American troops, once they entered the war, baseball games would be played to promote Allied camaraderie and cohesion. As

Baird relates:

Baseball games used to be very much appreciated, particularly by the Canadian boys in the squadron, and of course you had to get in a section where some of the Canadian divisions were stationed. You would not expect to see an English Regiment indulging in the game of baseball, although you might see them playing cricket. The same with the Australians - they played cricket and not baseball... We used to have ball games with other squadrons too, and used to arrange for games, flying to the other aerodrome.145

144 Gavin Gibson Baird to his Nephew [November 25, 1929]. The Canadian Letters and Images Project - World War One Collection (http://www.canadianletters.ca/collections/all/collection/20672). Accessed: April 21, 2017. 145 Gavin Gibson Baird to his Nephew [December 13, 1929]. The Canadian Letters and Images Project - World War One Collection (http://www.canadianletters.ca/collections/all/collection/20672). Accessed: April 21, 2017.

Neil Taylor's leisure time presents an interesting comparison to his contemporaries in the flying services. Having embraced the sporting aspect of the pilot experience while training in Britain, playing rugby and other sports against various teams throughout

England,146 Neil discontinued his participation after gaining his wings.147 The reasons for this are open to speculation. Perhaps his mind was preoccupied with the first strains of hazardous patrols, or the morbid aspects of dealing with the loss of fellow pilots, and thus his own mortality. Whatever the reason, Taylor did not entirely shy away from the social aspects of pilot downtime, however, interacting with his contemporaries and making time to continue his reading whilst alone.148

Ultimately, the Canadian pilot experiences of the First World War varied immensely depending on when they served in the conflict, and what role they served in as a pilot. Having arrived at the Front their experiences and chances of survival depended heavily on circumstances outside of their control, namely where they served and what kinds of machines they flew. As the war progressed, the danger involved in being a pilot increased in line with the military escalation which was prevalent throughout the armed services. The psychological strains attached to these escalations took their toll on all pilots, and the incidence of PTSD rose accordingly. Pilots did their best to cope under these hardships by making the most of their downtime, embracing the local culture, playing sports, and espousing mythic concepts of chivalry.

Approximately 13,000 intrepid Canadians flew during the conflict, with 1,647

146 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [August 22, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 14. 147 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [August 22, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), pp. 89-98. 148 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his sister Elsie [August 29, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), pp. 91-92.

making the ultimate sacrifice, and we are given insight into their experiences by their letters, diaries, and other artefacts, that remain. Neil Taylor's four weeks at the Front embody the experiences of a large number of pilots that served during the First World

War. Eager to "do his bit" and take on the enemy, he was shot down during a particularly unsafe time for pilots on both sides of the conflict. Despite the prevalence of certain dominant First World War narratives, the whole pilot experience deserves to be re- examined by scholars, as the emphasis on "aces" continues to misrepresent the experiences of most Canadian pilots. It is important that we recognize these neglected aspects of the pilot experience so that these one-dimensional narratives do not remain as prevalent in the future.

SECTION 3

PRISONER-OF-WAR

In the general romance woven by the popular imagination around the

subject of war, there is no more pathetic and appealing figure than

that of the prisoner in the hands of the enemy.

Daniel J. McCarthy - 1917149

Neil Taylor’s operational experiences exemplify those of many early pilots. In the first few weeks of active service, while still finding comfort with his newfound duties, he and his observer were shot down by hostile aircraft behind enemy lines, whereupon they became prisoners-of-war. In conventional accounts, this event would be recognised as neatly bringing an end to a serviceman's experiences in a conflict. However, to conclude

Taylor’s experiences of the war at this point would be a disservice to him and all servicemen who suffered similar fates. Taylor’s service did not end the day he was brought down by enemy fire. In fact, his experience as a prisoner-of-war represented a new, and often unsavoury, continuation of his wartime struggle. Incarceration would have a lasting impact on the physical and mental health of Taylor and his fellow prisoners-of- war.

149 Daniel J. McCarthy, The Prisoner of War in Germany: The Care and Treatment of the Prisoners of War with a History of the Development of the Principle of Neutral Inspection and Control (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1917), p. 10.

Taylor, wounded but still alive, landed his aircraft successfully behind enemy lines, and became a prisoner-of-war. Being a prisoner-of-war in the First World War was an experience with insidious ramifications for those who were captured; international protections for prisoners-of-war were only in their infancy, and developed with a very distinct series of growing pains. Compared to their fighting comrades, the experiences of prisoners-of-war appear to be relatively safe and easy. This interpretation, however, is too simplistic, and was certainly not always the case. Despite being non-combatants, prisoners-of-war were not removed from the totalising processes that dominated the conflict, and the psychological and physical strains that came with these.150 As the major powers focused their entire citizenry and economic capacity towards the attainment of victory in the war, appeals for the humane treatment of enemy prisoners fell on deaf ears.

Of the 13,000 Canadian pilots that served in the First World War, 377 became prisoners- of-war,151 and the subsequent struggle for survival would leave a lasting impression on them physically, emotionally, and psychologically.152

Most prisoner-of-war memoirs and diaries only relate to the experiences and

150 Heather Jones, "Prisoners of War" in Cambridge History of the First World War, ed. Jay Winter (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014) p. 280. Desmond Morton and Nathan Greenfield have also highlighted the strains upon prisoners of war but unlike Jones their work relates to the social and societal stigma associated with being a prisoner-of-war. 151 William D. Mathieson, My Grandfather's War: Canadians Remember the First World War, 1914-1918 (Toronto: MacMillan of Canada, 1981), p. 225. Desmond Morton, Silent Battle: Canadian Prisoners of War in Germany, 1914-1919 (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1992), p. 24. The unconfirmed nature of this number further highlights the difficulties of defining nationalities when it comes to servicemen, and the inconsistent nature of the records that have survived. Although Mathieson and Morton agree on Canadian airmen prisoners-of-war, the total number of Canadian Officers that became prisoners-of-war is not consistent throughout the literature. Jonathan Vance, Objects of Concern: Canadian Prisoners of War Through the Twentieth Century (Canada: University of British Columbia Press, 1994), pp. 253-254. Jonathan Vance places the number of Canadian officers in prisoner camps at 132. At least 2084 men from the Canadian Expeditionary Force became prisoners-of-war. 152 William H. Wiley "Canadian Prisoners of War in the Great War" Review of Silent Battle, by Desmond Morton. Canadian Military History, Volume 3, Issue 1 (1994): 142-144. In this article, Wiley touches upon the 862 Canadians who filed complaints of maltreatment as prisoners-of-war in German hands. The reparations commissioner, Errol M. McDoughall, was mostly unsympathetic to these claimants, perhaps due to the fiscal constraints of the Great Depression.

adventure of escape and not much else. There are numerous examples of these kinds of work in the interwar years, with exaggerated titles that evoke the danger and excitement of escape, such as: Out of the Jaws of Hunland, Escaped! Adventures in German

Captivity, and The Escape of a Princess Pat.153 There were probably several reasons for this narrow subject focus, including publisher preference for such works.154 Primary sources that present a comprehensive prisoner-of-war experience have been overshadowed by these adventure stories, which made it increasingly difficult for these typical prisoner-of-war stories to be recounted.

Despite the significant number of Allied pilots who became prisoners-of-war, the details surrounding their capture are usually only briefly recounted in essential details such as where they were shot down, how they were captured, and what injuries they might have sustained. There continued to be an element of shame associated with being captured by the enemy, one that was only overcome late in life for many veterans of the conflict. To add to this, officer prisoners-of-war were aware of the cruelties that were afforded their non-officer compatriots – the "poor Tommies" – and the criticism they would receive if they were to profit following preferential treatment. Ordinary servicemen and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) who became prisoners-of-war did not receive any of the luxuries that officers enjoyed and typically encountered rougher

153 Fred Mullen and Jack Evans, Out of the Jaws of Hunland (Toronto: William Briggs, 1918); Wallace Ellison, Escaped! Adventures in German Captivity (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1918); George Pearson, The Escape of a Princess Pat (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1918). 154 Neil Joseph Taylor letters to his Family and Friends and Diary [September, 1917 - February, 1919], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), pp. 99-184. A number of former prisoners-of-war may also have been ashamed of their internment, feeling that they had let their comrades down, and deciding to keep their wartime internment private. Neil was not as reticent to describe his experiences as some of his contemporaries, but he did his best to protect his family from some of the worst aspects of his life as a prisoner-of-war during captivity, such as the fact that he lost an eye during capture. Once the war has ended, he doesn't waste any time in recounting some of the harsh realities of being in captivity. Both censorship and affection for those back home played a role in this reticence to divulge prisoner-of-war hardships.

handling and far from kind treatment after their initial capture.155

This initial moment of capture was the most dangerous moment for any prisoner- of-war. The circumstances surrounding capture determined whether a combatant ultimately became a prisoner-of-war and survived to the end of the war. The potential conditions for capture by the enemy depended heavily upon the benevolence and military conditioning of the captor. If a captor doubted the sincerity of a surrender during the heat of battle, the chances of the prisoner-of-war making it into captivity alive were slim.

Whereas, a combatant that surrendered himself following an enemy advance was likely to fare rather better.

Another element in this "captor's dilemma," was whether or not the enemy was considered to deserve retaliation for his previous conduct. Any perceived indiscretions or excesses could serve as validation for future cruelties against prisoners-of-war, in the escalating cycle of violent acts.156 This survival conundrum was especially prevalent for those who fought in the army, as the conditions for capture typically involved a group standoff of some kind. As for pilots, where the academic research remains limited, there is evidence that the moment of capture could be perilous, dependent upon circumstance.157

Captured pilots had fallen victim to one of two fates: either they were forced

155 Michael Moynihan, Black Bread and Barbed Wire (London: Leo Cooper Ltd., 1978), p. x. 156 Roger Noble. "Raising the White Flag: The Surrender of Australian Soldiers on the Western Front," Revue Internationale d'Histoire Militaire, no. 72 (1990): 48-79. pp. 74-79. 157 Reginald Hugh Kiernan, The First War in the Air (McGill-Queens University Press, 1934), p. 83. Kiernan maintains that newly downed pilots were briefly held captive by enemy airmen to prevent the 'first bitterness of capture' that pilots might be victims of in the hands of a vengeful infantry; Frederick Oughton, The Personal Diary of Major Edward 'Mick' Mannock (London: Neville Spearman Ltd., 1966), pp. 170- 171. The heat of capture was experienced by pilots on both sides of the lines; even Mick Mannock, the renowned British pilot, had to defend a downed German airman from Canadian infantrymen (who were brandishing bayonets toward their captive) and insist that the rules of war be followed.

down by enemy action, or their aircraft malfunctioned, preventing their return.158 Having been brought down, a pilot's initial reception from the men in the ranks was often hostile, followed by a much more cordial reception from German officers; this mirrors the experiences of officers in the ground forces taken prisoner. The cordiality of German officers was usually with the aim of coaxing tactical information from the captive.159

Norman Insoll, a British Pilot, juxtaposed his initial capture with the reception that followed:

[After being shot down on a bombing mission] ... it was rather like stirring up a hornets' nest, and a lot of troops gathered around. I should think there were a couple of hundred or more. They came all around the aeroplane, but I'd climbed out by then. One chap, who spoke a bit of English, got into the cockpit and pointed a Very light pistol at me - which I knew was empty, because I'd used it, so that didn't worry me. After a time, a very young German officer of about my own age came along. and the whole crowd disappeared. He took me to the adjutant’s office, where I remained all day. Various people came to see me - including one gentleman, who I think was a general, and who spoke perfect English. He told me that his brother was headmaster of one of our public schools. He was very pleasant, and chatted. They were very good to me there. They gave me sardines on toast and some cognac.160 Such experiences highlight the special treatment which pilots received upon capture.

Unlike their infantry counterparts, pilots often became prisoners-of-war outside of the heat of battle, thus exempting them from the initial bloodlust following face-to-face

158 L. E. O. Charlton, War from the Air: Past, Present, Future (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1935), pp. 48-58. The likelihood of a damaged British plane resulting in a pilot becoming a prisoner-of-war was significantly inflated by the offensive tactics championed by Hugh Trenchard, commanding officer of the RFC. As almost all RFC operations were conducted over or behind the German front lines, combined with a prevailing westerly wind that could impede return, the number of Allied pilots that became prisoners-of-war was significantly higher than the number of Central Powers pilots who became internees. 159 Desmond Morton, Silent Battle: Canadian Prisoners of War in Germany, 1914-1919 (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1992), p. 35. This was especially true in the case of pilots, some of whom were invited to inspect aircraft in the hope that they might unknowingly reveal some new technological advances in military aviation. 160 Richard Garrett, P. O. W. (London: David & Charles, 1981), p. 115. Insoll had been forced to land due to his fuel tank being punctured by enemy fire.

combat with an enemy. However, the timing of a pilot's capture could result in heightened hostility. The fact that pilots were supposed to operate in the air did not protect them from the initial bitterness fostered by the situations unfolding on the ground below them.

Neil Taylor was aware of the possibility of becoming prisoner-of-war in the RFC.

In fact, an acquaintance of his, Jack Gray had been confirmed as a RFC prisoner-of-war shortly after Taylor had begun training as a cadet in late 1916. Writing home to his

Mother, Taylor did not express any worry at the treatment that his friend would receive.

In fact, he was content in knowing that Jack would be treated well: "[Jack] is fortunate to be in the R.F.C, as prisoners in this branch receive much better treatment than in other branches of the Service. You hear of examples of this every day."161 Although Taylor was not misled in terms of the kinder treatment offered to pilots, this special treatment was not because they were airmen but because they were officers.

Following capture, and having been interviewed by enemy officers,162 the experience of being a prisoner-of-war depended heavily upon rank. After treatment for wounds, and registration with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), officers and men were separated and sent to different camps. The men and Non-

Commissioned Officers (NCOs) would typically be transported by rail in cattle trucks.163

161 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Sunday October 22, 1916], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), pp. 26-27. 162 It is worth noting here that the experience of being interviewed by an enemy officer was relatively consistent throughout the capture experience for all services. Airmen and infantrymen alike would both be asked what unit and country they served (in line with the international restrictions), before engaging in some unofficial conversation about their lives before the war. The number of times that the interviewing officer had previously resided in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, or Canada, was astonishingly consistent. 163 Nathan M. Greenfield, The Reckoning: Canadian Prisoners of War in the First World War (Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., 2016), pp.34-35. The experiences of the non-officer classes represented a continuation of the peril of the front lines. Statistics compiled for the 736 known Canadians taken as non-

Officers, on the other hand, were transported in passenger class trains. Due to the strictures of the 1907 Hague Convention, officers, and all ranks down to corporal, were exempt from being employed as labourers whilst they were interned, protecting them to a certain degree. Private soldiers could be used as labour, but could not be employed in any activity that directly aided, or was connected, with the operations of the war.164 Since all airmen were of the officer class, this meant that their experiences of confinement did not involve labour camps and were much less physically demanding than those of their non- commissioned compatriots.

Taylor, who was a second-lieutenant when he became a prisoner-of-war, certainly had a less rigorous experience when compared with that of privates and NCOs in labour camps, as evidenced in the lack of any reference to forced labour in his letters. However, the physical punishment afforded by working camps was not the sole hardship experienced by prisoners-of-war, as there were other subtler struggles taking place.

Although officers were exempt from manual labour, they were still subject to vindictive

German military discipline, and the compounding effects of psychological strain from forced internment. Time spent in solitary confinement, known as the "jug", was also a possibility for officers who did not behave exactly as their captors desired.165 The chances of this happening were high as officers were duty-bound to attempt to escape

officer prisoners-of-war during from August 1917 to November 1918 show that 76 (10.3%) died while in captivity. A substantial number of these deaths would undoubtedly have been from wounds sustained before or during capture, but it is still a comparative number to the 8.3% death rate that impacted Canadian front line troops. 164 Richard Garrett, P. O. W. (London: David & Charles, 1981), p. 107. 165 J, C. Thorn, Three Years A Prisoner of War: The Story of Major J. C. Thorn A First Canadian Contingent Officer (Vancouver: Cowan & Bookhouse, 1919); T. V. Scudamore, Lighter Episodes in the Life of a Prisoner of War (United Kingdom: Gale & Polden, 1933). Thorn and Scudamore are two examples of the officers that attempted to escape on a regular basis. During the war and the interwar years these tales of attempted escape caught the imagination of the public back home. The excitement of getting one over on the "Hun" created a substantial audience for the reading public.

captivity, and return to continue the fight.166

After convalescing in Belgium for wounds to his face, and eye (which was removed and replaced with a glass eye) Neil Taylor spent time in three officer prisoner- of-war camps: Karlsruhe, Saarbrücken, and Holzminden.167 There is no evidence in his letters to suggest that he was involved in any escape attempts during his time in captivity, but he does refer to his participation in other subversive activities. Writing shortly after the armistice, whilst still awaiting repatriation at Holzminden camp, Taylor describes some of the routine practices of obtaining contraband from prisoners' private packages.

Often, guards could be bribed to smuggle newspapers and other contraband through the inspection process.168 Such practices appear to have been commonplace in the officer prisoner-of-war camps as John Harvey Douglas, a Toronto native, and his fellow officers routinely obtained contraband such as beer and other items by bribing their guards.169

There were other ways that prisoners passively protested, even if their captors were unaware of such activities. On numerous occasions Neil Taylor denigrated his

German captors in his letters. Several times he referred to “Uncle Jerry” in his letters, highlighting and discussing the deterioration of this individual’s health but never expressing any sadness at the fact. It is obvious that these are in fact references to the

German war effort designed to get around the censorship imposed by the camp. In July,

166 Nathan M. Greenfield, The Reckoning: Canadian Prisoners of War in the First World War (Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., 2016), p. 18. 167 Richard Garrett, P. O. W. (London: David & Charles, 1981), p. 102. Being held at numerous camps was typical for prisoners-of-war during the First World War, as prisoners were moved around frequently. 168 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Started: Monday December 2, 1918, Finished: Tuesday, December 17, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 143. 169 J. Harvey Douglas, Captured: 16 Months as a Prisoner of War (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1917), pp. 109-110. These kinds of arrangements became easier to facilitate late in the conflict as the impacts of the Allied blockade began to be felt critically by the Central Powers.

shortly after the 1918 Spring Offensives, as it was becoming clear that the German attempt to end the war had not paid off, he wrote to Sam:

I hear that poor old Jerry is getting groggy. They thought if he could get to the sea-side this summer that he would pull through, but this seems impossible. I understand that Assie [Austria], his brother, is even in a worse condition.170 By undermining camp authorities in these subversive ways, prisoners-of-war enjoyed some of the freedoms that they had previously taken for granted, such as alcohol, news from the Front and home, and free speech. Although these actions did not injure the

German war effort to any great degree, they allowed prisoners to continue the united struggle against the enemy in their own way.171

Another key theme in most prisoner-of-war letters, diaries, and memoirs was food, and their lack of nutrition. Although the 1907 Hague Conventions had outlined that prisoners-of-war were to be treated in the same manner as the host nation's own military, the Central Powers chose to provide prisoners-of-war with a diet deficient in comparison to that of their own troops.172 Allied inmates were provided with a mediocre ration of food of insufficient nutritional value, especially towards the end of the conflict. Ersatz, or substitute, products were often used to replace food and beverage items which were unavailable due to the Allied maritime blockade. Ersatz coffee and black bread were

170 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Brother Sam [Tuesday July 9, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 13. 171 Linda Colley, “Britishness and Otherness: An Argument,” Journal of British Studies Volume 31, Number 4 (1992): 309-329. This identification of their German captors as the "other" kept the Allied prisoners-of-war united in their struggle against the enemy. Officers from across Empire came together, identifying their German captors’ duties as the target of their disruptive efforts. German appeals to Irish nationalism later in the war, were an unsuccessful attempt to undermine this unity of cause against the German enemy. 172 Susan R. Grayzel, The First World War: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford / St. Martin's, 2013), pp.43-49. Under the 1907 Hague Conventions that highlighted the rules to govern future hostilities between major powers, belligerents were to be treated the same as the host nation would treat its equivalent ranked troops. Unfortunately, brutal and rigid German discipline meant that Allied non-officers were treated in a manner unbefitting a modern humane society.

staple parts of prisoners' diets, with watery soups and other items making up the rest of a substandard caloric intake.173 Major John Charles Thorn of Vancouver attested to the fact that due to the inadequate food "... hardly anyone ate the food provided by the Germans, but [instead] lived on the contents of their own parcels."174 Thus, prisoners-of-war became reliant upon packages of food sent from home in order to survive.175

Writing to Sam shortly after being taken prisoner, Neil stressed the importance of his being sent food, telling Sam to send as much as possible.176 Neil was aware of the situation that awaited him in the main officer camps, as stories of prisoner-of-war malnutrition were commonplace in the British press, and his contemporaries had confirmed the stories of the existence to come; also, he was already subject to the food rationing that would underpin his incarceration whilst convalescing in an army hospital in

Belgium.177 Once he arrived at his first prisoner-of-war officer camp, Taylor received confirmation of the stories he had read and heard.

To overcome malnutrition, officers would bond together and create a “mess”. A

173 Neil Hanson, Escape from Germany: The Greatest POW Break-out of the First World War (United Kingdom: Corgi, 2012), pp. 72-75. 174 John Charles Thorn, Three Years a Prisoner in Germany: The Story of Major J. C. Thorn A First Canadian Contingent Officer (Vancouver: Conan & Brookhouse, 1919), p. 32. Thorn was born in Britain and moved to Vancouver before the war. 175 Although it is clear that the Central Powers' decision to provide a substandard caloric diet was intentional, it is not as clear whether this decision was motivated by the knowledge that the International Committee of the Red Cross would subsidise the prisoner-of-war diet. Early in the conflict, the substandard caloric intake of Allied prisoners-of-war was as a result of a German lack of foresight. Anticipating a quick victory over the Allied nations, the physical and administrative structures for housing and feeding prisoners-of-war did not exist to acceptable levels until the war of movement had come to a close. As the Allied naval blockade began to restrict German resources, including food supplies, the Central Powers ensured that prisoners-of-war felt the burden to the same degree as the German people. 176 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Brother Sam [Friday October 5, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 112. 177 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Parents [Monday October 8, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 114. Later in his letters, Neil also discusses the state of the hospital wards that he was in before his recovery. These places do not seem overly clean, and if sanitation and cleanliness were not priorities for enemy combatants it is hard to imagine that army hospitals had much of a stock of food for prisoners-of-war. At one of the three hospitals in which Taylor recuperated , he satirically referred to his diet as consisting of "two sucks at a thermometer daily."

mess was a grouping of officers that pooled their food parcels to create a stockpile. Thus, should one officer not receive a parcel on any given occasion, he remained comfortable in the knowledge that his mess-mates would have food to see him through until his parcel arrived. Taylor was part of a four-person mess at Saarbrücken in late 1917, alongside two other Canadian officers and a British officer. A mess usually consisted of a group of close and trusted acquaintances; such groups could be as low as two people but typically consisted of between four and six men. This system demonstrates the survivalist camaraderie that continued to exist between officers who served in the conflict, and bonded them together even after they were no longer on the front lines.

Being accepted into a mess was an important part of survival for a prisoner-of- war. The first nutritionally substantial meal that new prisoners received was because of mess-mates’ kindness. Harvey Douglas, a lieutenant with the Canadian Mounted Rifles, enjoyed a bountiful meal because of the consideration of his fellow inmates:

We had lamb chops and fried country sausage with green peas cooked in butter. For dessert there was a mixture of tinned peaches and pears covered with very thick cream. All of this was miraculously produced from tins which Mody and Gray [his mess mates] received in parcels from home...178 This kind of meal did not represent the typical prisoner-of-war experience. For most prisoners, the struggle to have enough nutrition was ongoing throughout their incarceration, Evidence for this can be found in Taylor's correspondence, and the fact that food was never far from the content of his letters. In mid-December 1917, for instance,

Taylor begins to worry about the shortage of food. Thankfully, by the turn of the year he is in a much-improved mood as his mess has managed to save 50 loaves of bread – "a

178 J. Harvey Douglas, Captured: 16 Months as a Prisoner of War (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1917), p.69. Captain C. S. Moodie of the Black Watch Battalion and Lieutenant K. W. Gray of the Royal Flying Corps ensured that J. Harvey Douglas was well fed during his first few weeks of confinement, until his own food parcels arrived.

comforting fact"179 – and by the end of January, 1918, Taylor writes "We [the mess] are living off the fat of the land now."180 By March, 1918, Taylor's parcels had dried up once more, and his guilt at not contributing to his compatriots’ mess is tangible: "I have been living well, but mostly off my mess-mates. I used to think that I would rather starve than sponge, but not so now." The shame at being locked in a state of co-dependence continued, and the struggle to find sustenance and survive never ceased; the prisoner-of- war experience was as much a function of the totalisation of the conflict as that of active combatants at the Front.

Despite the official legal protections of prisoners-of-war, prisoner security and quality of existence depended on several factors outside of their control. Recent scholarship regarding the prisoner-of-war experience has highlighted the corruptibility of the two countervailing forces that might have been expected to moderate the treatment of the prisoner-of-war: the concern of host nations for their international reputations and the fear of reprisal against one's own incarcerated troops.181 Although it might be assumed that these considerations would have ensured that the protections of The Hague

Conference Agreements of 1899 and 1907 were upheld through exposure to international pressure, instead the wellbeing of prisoners-of-war was often instrumentalized by host nations as a weapon of war. Actual or potential reprisals against prisoners-of-war, used as political currency to coerce the enemy into making one's own captured servicemen more comfortable, paradoxically contributed to an escalating cycle of violence. Despite the

179 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Brother Sam [Undated, presumed to be late December 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 123. 180 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Brother Sam [Sunday January 27, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 124. 181 Heather Jones, Violence Against Prisoners of War in the First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914-1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

best intentions of the nations present at the the Hague Conferences, the treatment of prisoners-of-war was reduced to an item of political leverage.182

Many efforts were made by both sides, however, to ensure the humane treatment of their captured servicemen. The intermediary work of the ICRC facilitated these efforts by ensuring that prisoners were fed and kept in the best possible conditions. Neutral countries were assigned by the ICRC and their home nations to investigate prisoner conditions in enemy territory. These camp inspectors did their best to evaluate the conditions of prisoners-of-war, but their powers were limited and their inspections were usually announced, allowing for many German wrongdoings to go unpunished, unnoticed, or both.183

In the conflict of reprisals the international press was the means through which the combatant nations fought for international sympathy. Unfortunately, the outrage that became the media normative towards the cruel treatment of prisoners-of-war invariably resulted in the occasional misrepresentation of the facts, and pilots could find themselves caught in international standoffs.184 On one occasion, British pilots were threatened with

182 Percy R. C. Groves, Behind the Smokescreen (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1934), p.297. This issue is explored in more depth in Sibylle Scheipers (ed.), Prisoners of War (United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2010). Like other international agreements, the terms settled upon were disregarded as soon as they were deemed inconvenient to the national interest. These same issues regarding the welfare of prisoners-of-war, and their usage as political capital, remain unresolved in modern day conflicts. 183 James W. Gerard, My Four Years in Germany (New York: Grossert & Dunlap, 1917), p. 121. Until its entry into the conflict, the United States of America (USA) was assigned to investigate the conditions of Allied prisoners-of-war in Germany and the Central Powers. James Gerard, the USA ambassador to Germany, was chosen to conduct inspections of German camps. He wrote about these experiences after the USA entered the conflict, to highlight the gravity of the impending struggle. Camp inspectors were required to give "reasonable notice, which was to be twenty-four hours where possible," and had the right to speak to prisoners in sight, but out of hearing, of German camp officials. 184 Edgar Middleton, The Great War in the Air: Vol. 1 (London: The Waverley Co. Ltd., 1920), pp. 65-67. Sergeant-Commander Edward Briggs, a Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) pilot, found himself at the centre of a controversy regarding his own capture. Having been downed behind enemy lines, it was reported that Briggs was the victim of enemy flogging. Upon hearing of this, Briggs leapt to the defence of his captors, explaining that he had in fact received a rifle blow to the back of his head, whereupon he was rescued from further harm by the interjection of a German officer.

court martial by the German military hierarchy if caught dropping propaganda leaflets.

This quickly ended under threat of reprisals against German aviator POWs.185

The first officer prisoner-of-war camp in which Taylor was incarcerated was

Karlsruhe, located in south-west Germany. Karlsruhe officer camp was primarily used as a temporary camp for newly arrived prisoners-of-war, and Taylor only spent one month there before being transferred to Saarbrücken, 150 kilometres further west.186 Neither of these camps had a significantly bad reputation and, minus the scarcity of food, Taylor had few complaints. All of this changed after the German Spring Offensives began in 1918, and we appreciate this more when provided with hidden context. Writing to Sam, Neil starts to refer to "Dade" and his struggles with the "scoundrels" for whom he works:

Dade doesn't like his new job at all, although he is having a good time. He says the firm he is working for is the meanest most despicable and the most contemptible he has ever known. They are cheats and liars according to him, and he would like to go back to his last job.187 Although such a discussion might seem odd for a prisoner-of-war, this represents another example of coded criticism of Taylor's prison camp. "Dade" is the childhood nickname of

Taylor, and the "firm" represents Saarbrücken's prison guards. His "last job" refers to his previous prisoner-of-war camp, Karlsruhe. The passage expresses Taylor's outrage at the inhumane treatment he was receiving at the time, which he believed to be motivated by perceived German military successes in the Spring Offensives of 1918; the extreme deprivation the German people were experiencing at the time due to the ongoing naval

185 Sir Robert Thompson, The Royal Flying Corps: Per Ardua Ad Astra (Great Britain: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1968), p. 119. 186 Una Birch Pope-Hennessy, Map of the Main Prison Camps in Germany and Austria (London: Nisbet & Co. Ltd., 1920). 187 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Brother Sam [Sunday March 24, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), pp. 1236-7

blockade must also be factored into this heavy handed treatment. Eleven days after writing this letter, Taylor was transferred to Holzminden officer prisoner-of-war camp, one of the most notorious camps of the First World War, where he would spend the remainder of his incarceration.

Neil Taylor's time at Holzminden highlights the corruptibility of prisoner-of-war protections. As camps were operated by their military region, Commandants' actions were often unaccountable to higher German military authorities; Holzminden was the epitome of this shortcoming.188 The commandant of Holzminden camp was Karl

Niemeyer, a self-deluded narcissist who demanded strict German military discipline in camp.189 Following a successful prisoner escape, Niemeyer instituted reprisals against the officers who remained in the camp, attempting to restore his reputation through heavy- handed discipline.190 Neil Taylor recalled these events:

Officers were put in the cells for days for offences they never committed, and even without being charged with an offense. For two or three days we were chased about at the point of the bayonet by a mob of sentries. One officer was actually kicked downstairs by a German Under-officer. An enquiry was held by the authorities, but the under-officer was excused. "Milwaukee Bill", our beloved German-American

188 Daniel J. McCarthy, The Prisoner of War in Germany: The Care and Treatment of the Prisoners of War with a History of the Development of the Principle of Neutral Inspection and Control (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1917), pp. 12-20. 189 Michael Moynihan, Black Bread and Barbed Wire (United Kingdom: Leo Cooper, 1978), pp. 109. Holzminden camp consisted of 500 officers, and 100 orderlies (non-officers serving as officer servants). Karl Niemeyer had spent some time in the USA before the war, and his accented American-accented English earned him the nickname 'Milwaukee Bill' among the officers. His brother Heinrich was an equally unsavoury commandant at Clausthal POW camp. Richard Garrett, P. O. W. (London: David & Charles, 1981), p. 119. Lieutenant E. H. Garland (RFC) described Niemeyer as "That notorious Hun bully. His vanity was colossal, and was only equalled by his uncouth manners, crass stupidity and ignorance with the men and officers." 190 Jonathan Vance, Objects of Concern: Canadian Prisoners of War Through the Twentieth Century (Canada: University of British Columbia Press, 1994), pp. 56-57.. On July 24, 1918, 29 prisoners-of-war escaped from Holzminden, with 6 officers successfully making it to safe territory. This was the largest prisoner-of-war escape of the First World War. Although there is naturally no mention of the Holzminden escape in Taylor's letters, since all correspondence was read by the Germans, the escape was the idea of a fellow Canadian, Major Colquhoun. Compared to the Second World War, escaping from prisoner-of-war camps was relatively common in the First World War. Canadian POWs on their own accounted for 100 escapes during the First World War, but relatively few escaped during the Second World War

commandant, was rushing about from morning till night like a mad-man. He would have murdered us had he dared.191 Outside developments in the war, or perceived indiscretions in camp, also resulted in the inhumane treatment of prisoners-of-war, with no accountability for these actions. During times of German success on the western front, German guards became bullies, cheating and stealing from POWs' rations and parcels.192 Although the legal protections afforded to prisoners-of-war were successful in ensuring the survival of captured servicemen, these instances highlight the shortcomings of these protections, and their susceptibility to circumstantial abuses.

Despite problematic legal protections, the worst part of captivity, for a significant number of prisoners-of-war, was the indeterminate length of their internment.193 Officers were never taught what to do in the event that they became prisoners-of-war, and consequently never considered the possibility of spending time in enemy captivity. As

Daniel J. McCarthy, a professor of medical jurisprudence that assisted the United States of America ICRC monitoring team, noted:

The soldier may picture to himself the discomforts of trench life, the possibility of being wounded, of loss of limb or eyesight; he may have discounted the possibility of death in battle; but... one rarely comes across in the prison camps a prisoner who had ever considered the possibility of being taken captive.194

191 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Monday December 2, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 145. Taylor was not aware of that this was the biggest escape of the conflict at the time, but he knew from the heavy-handed reactions of the guards that it had been a huge success in undermining the prestige of the commandant and the camp. 192 These and other instances of cruelty highlight the vengeful nature of the German captors and prison guards, who were more than willing to disregard international law to suit their own convictions. Towards the end of the conflict, German prison guards were much more cordial to their prisoners, no doubt in the knowledge that they might soon be held accountable for their actions. 193 Richard Garrett, P. O. W. (London: David & Charles, 1981), p. 116. 194 Daniel J. McCarthy, The Prisoner of War in Germany: The Care and Treatment of the Prisoners of War with a History of the Development of the Principle of Neutral Inspection and Control (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1917), p. 47.

The Edwardian ideals of the time certainly contributed to this absence of consideration, as many people considered surrender as a disaster second only to death. There was a section of the British Officer handbook that dealt with the rights of prisoners-of-war, but this did not detail how to cope with the enforced idleness and monotony of imprisonment.195

Officers had to make the most of the time they had, with the resources they had access to. In Neil Taylor's case, he started learning German and French, and going for walks in the local countryside surrounding the camp.196 Camp authorities allowed officers to take these countryside walks, so long as the officer in question swore not to attempt escape during these excursions.197 Taylor also made recurring requests to his family to send him the second-year law workbooks, so that his time would not be wasted. Wasted time was an idea that hurt Taylor, and in his letters you can hear his frustrations at having taken his freedom for granted. Writing home to Sam in December, 1917, Neil explored his post-war plans:

One thing about being a prisoner of war is that you feel justified in making plans for the future. I should have some money in the bank when I get back, especially if I get compensation for my eye, and if my remaining eye holds good I am going back to Varsity for one or maybe two years. I think you should too, if you have as good luck as I have had. I would certainly make better use of my time than I did in the past.198 These kinds of plans are common in prisoner-of-war recollections of their experiences.

This perception of lost time reinvigorated prisoners' desire to make the most of their time

195 Jonathan Vance, Objects of Concern: Canadian Prisoners of War Through the Twentieth Century (Canada: University of British Columbia Press, 1994), pp. 9-24. Many Canadian servicemen overlooked the Hague Conventions which were printed in their service pocket books because the text was in such small font. 196 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Brother Sam [Wednesday November 21, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 115. 197 Richard Garrett, P. O. W. (London: David & Charles, 1981), p. 112. 198 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Brother Sam [Saturday December 15, 1917], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 120.

after the war, and plans were made for everything from education to what meal they were going to enjoy once they were again free men.

There were also opportunities for officers to exercise during incarceration.

Football fields, tennis courts, and many other activities such as performing theatricals and playing cards were available in camp.199 Canadian officers also attempted to introduce baseball to the camps where they were held.200 Ultimately, time proved to be a prisoner’s main opponent if they had no plan of escaping from the camp. In keeping themselves active mentally and physically, they managed to ward off depression and more extreme forms of mental illness.201 Camaraderie among friends helped to subdue symptoms that inmates developed while they were interned, and men would work together to keep each other occupied.

Officers knew the war would come to an end one day, and that they must come to grips with this indeterminate period of time. Prisoners-of-war dreaded the possibility of being forgotten, feelings summarized by Harvey Douglas:

The horrible monotony of the existence, the fact that no one around you cares whether you live or die, and that you have nothing to look forward to but the end of the war, make the life of a prisoner almost unbearable.202 To combat this despondency, prisoners-of-war took great solace in their correspondence with friends and loved ones. They were only allowed to write two letters and two postcards per-month, but could receive an unlimited amount of mail. The little instances of joviality, and the banality of home life, expressed in received correspondence, helped

199 Michael Moynihan, Black Bread and Barbed Wire (United Kingdom: Leo Cooper, 1978), pp. 10-11. 200 John Lewis-Stempel, The War Behind the Wire (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014), p. 149. 201 Desmond Morton, Silent Battle: Canadian Prisoners of War in Germany, 1914-1919 (Canada: Key Porter Books, 1992), pp. 61-62. 202 John Harvey Douglas, Captured: 16 Months as a Prisoner of War (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1917), p. 95.

to lift the spirits of inmates by reminding them that they were loved, and that they were not alone.

When the war came to an end, it took some time but most prisoners-of-war were repatriated home by mid-1919. It was not a straightforward return to civilian life, but the former inmates were intent upon getting started.203 After everything they had experienced they were eager to put the past behind them, and seizing every opportunity put before them. Neil Taylor remained at Holzminden until mid-December 1918.204 After arriving home in February 1919, he returned to the University of Toronto to finish his law degree.

Taylor's former prisoner-of-war compatriots continued their lives in much the same way.

Their experiences as prisoners-of-war would go unheard for nearly fifty years, until a new generation began to ask questions of their fathers in the Second World War.

Veterans from the First World War would finally have an acceptable avenue to explore their own experiences, free from the societal prejudices that had prevented them from doing so in the interwar years.

Although internees from the First World War did not tell their stories to the scale that their successors in the Second World War would, this did not mean that these stories were never told to those closest to them. In fact, following the armistice, Neil Taylor wrote a letter to his Mother that is perhaps the most informative and striking of his entire wartime correspondence collection.205 In this letter, Taylor divulges all of the hardships

203 Hugh B/ Monaghan, , The Big Bombers of World War 1 (Indiana: JaaRE Publishing 1985), pp.123-125. 204 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Monday December 2, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 143-150. Neil was repatriated to the British Isles (London via Hull) on December 14, 1918. Taylor arrived home on February 27, 1919 [Telegram: February 25, 1919], p. 142. 205 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Started: Monday December 2, 1918, Finished: Tuesday, December 17, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 143-150. This letter is written in two parts, the first of which was written two months after the

that impacted him during internment in one long cathartic exposé of his time as a prisoner-of-war. After expressing his gratitude for all of the parcels that he had received during internment, and a humorous anecdote about coded messages, Taylor explains the true nature of his time as a prisoner-of-war. He begins by exploring the validity of the conflict:

Has it [the war] been worth while? The sorrows, the sacrifices and the suffering? I know that no one seriously doubts it, but if any one does, they should ask any prisoner of war. No one is more competent to speak on the subject than the "gefangenen" [prisoners]. We have been in an excellent position to judge whether all the stories of Prussian Militarism are true, and I am forced to say that they are far too true.206 He continues his account of confinement by explaining that despite having been treated badly as an officer, he was treated much better than his non-officer contemporaries - a group he refers to as the "Tommies" - who were subject to treatment that was tantamount to being "cruelly murdered" by their German captors. Taylor continues:

The condition of the chaps from the working parties is indescribable. I used to have my wounds dressed at the same time as the Tommies, and the sights I saw were sickening. I didn't think that men could get into such a state and live. Their bodies were a mass of running sores and horribly emaciated. Having seen them I was willing to believe their stories which were all similar. The Huns [Germans] had worked them day in and day out, rain or shine, very often under our own shell fire; gave them very little food, no change of clothes and no over-coats; moved them about continually so that they received no food from the Red Cross; and abused them generally.207

war had ended (while Taylor was still at Holzminden) and a second which was completed once Taylor had been repatriated to Britain. 206 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Started: Monday December 2, 1918, Finished: Tuesday, December 17, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 145. If there is any confusion about the numbering of these pages, it must be stated that pages 143-150 of this archival resource are out of order, and one of the pages is duplicated (p. 148). In the interests of accuracy, I have referenced the page number that information appears on, regardless of ordering mistakes. 207 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Started: Monday December 2, 1918, Finished: Tuesday, December 17, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 144. Taylor also draws attention to the plight of the Russian soldiers who, even after the Treaty of

The experiences of privates had a profound effect on the way Taylor recalled his time as a prisoner-of-war, offering perspective on how fortunate he was in being an officer.208 As it became clear that the treatment of ordinary soldiers was consistently worse than his own, Taylor, like other officers, was disinclined to bemoan his own experiences after the war: "All of this had one good effect on me: It made me satisfied with my lot in captivity.

It has not, however, made me love the Germans."209

Taylor was thankful for one thing during his time as a prisoner: the good work that German doctors did in replacing his eye. Despite the insanitary nature of some of the

German hospital facilities, and the substandard dietary provisions, Taylor was content with his glass eye. In fact, he refers to the "small sensation" that his glass eye caused when it came out of its socket one time while playing baseball in camp. Although other prisoner-of-war memoirs draw attention to the desultory way in which German physicians treated them upon capture, Taylor's injuries had been treated well, ensuring that Taylor's eye was replaced properly.210

Pilots and officers in the First World War did not suffer the brutalities that their non-officer compatriots experienced. However, they were never free from the harsh realities of what it meant to be a part of an escalating conflict of attrition, where men

Brest-Litovsk, were still suffering in Germany without a functioning government in their home country to stand up for them. 208 In particular, Taylor highlights the benefit of having an avenue through which to complain about treatment, through the Dutch embassy. 209 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Started: Monday December 2, 1918, Finished: Tuesday, December 17, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 144-46. He does not blame all of the Germans for what happened to him during the conflict, but he has no sympathy for those who propagated the doctrine of "Might is Right" which fostered Prussian Militaristic "kultur." Although he expresses no sympathy for the men, Taylor does feel sorry for the innocent women and children that got caught up this Prussian indoctrination. 210 Neil Joseph Taylor letter to his Mother [Started: Monday December 2, 1918, Finished: Tuesday, December 17, 1918], The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers (Regina: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 1983), p. 146-149. Taylor's treatment was not perfect, as one of his wounds developed blood poisoning as a result of treatment, or lack thereof.

were reduced to political assets. Forced to see out the war under the watchful eye of

German discipline, officers made the most of their situation by looking after one another and doing their best to remain engaged with the world around them. Even if they weren't plotting to escape on a regular basis, they were part of a daily struggle to survive and feel a part of the ongoing struggle. The experiences of men like Neil Taylor represented the first true test for the international protections that were signed almost a decade before, and, for the most part, these protections held true in ensuring that prisoners were fed – regardless of their captors' benevolence – and not completely isolated from the outside world. Confronted with the hardships of total war, Taylor and his fellow officers conducted themselves with resourcefulness. Malnutrition, heavy-handed discipline, and political reprisals, all had a role to play in the life of a prisoner-of-war, and officers proved resilient and innovative in adapting to this environment.

CONCLUSION

During the First World War, Canadian pilots like Neil Taylor played an important role in pioneering early military aviation. Despite the uncertainty regarding the role that aviation would play in the conflict and the rudimentary nature of the planes at the time, men from every Canadian province volunteered to fly, and served with distinction in all theatres of the war. 211 Their experiences of training, on active duty, and as prisoners-of-war have often been overshadowed by dominant historical tropes. The correspondence of Neil

Taylor provides valuable insight into all three of these dimensions. Therefore, by re- evaluating the source material we are able to better appreciate the experiences of

Canadian pilots.

There were many reasons why men chose to enlist into the flying services. For some, the allure of the danger and excitement of this new mode of transport was alluring.

For others, the perceived improvement in survival rates was enough to convince them to avoid the ground forces, and instead become airmen. For others, the class distinctions that separated the flying services from the other armed services were enough to inspire them to enlist. Taylor's own motivations show us that a pilot's reasons for enlisting were complicated, with pilots often enlisting for a multitude of personal, ideological and social reasons. Canadian pilots contributed more than their share to the war in the air, and recorded some of the most notable feats of the early era of military aviation.

211 Lee Kennett, The First War in the Air: 1914-1918 (New York: The Free Press, 1991). p. 170. Desmond Morton, Silent Battle: Canadian Prisoners of War in Germany, 1914-1919 (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1992), p. 24. In total, 13,000 Canadian airmen served during the First World War, of whom slightly more than 10% were killed during the conflict, and 2.9% became prisoners-of-war. At the time of the Armistice, 15% of the Royal Air Force (the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service) were Canadian. Using the total number of Canadian airmen (13000) provided by Kennett, and the total number of Canadian airmen taken prisoner (377), provided by Morton, we can calculate the percentage of Canadian casualties and prisoners-of-war.

Early in the war, men such as Neil Taylor were forced to travel to another country to learn how to fly, whether this be the Curtiss or Wright Schools in the United States or crossing the Atlantic to train in Britain. These were big commitments to make, especially considering the haphazard nature of flight at the time. As the war progressed, and training methods improved, one of the main beneficiaries was Canada. With huge investment from the imperial Royal Flying Corps, training facilities were established in Canada from early 1917. These facilities and training methods would form the foundation from which the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) was formed in 1924.

The records of pilots such as Neil Taylor provide us with a glimpse into the lives of Canadian airmen who enlisted prior to the creation of Canadian training facilities in the First World War, an area of Canadian military history that is often overlooked in favour of the origins of the RCAF in Canada. Although it is important to stress Canada's role in the development of aviation in North America, it is also important to recognize the role of Canadians like Neil Taylor who pioneered military aviation before the establishment of training facilities in Canada. Taylor's correspondence reveals how difficult it was for these early aviators to gain their pilot's qualifications. A number of early aviators had to begin their careers in other services, or travel thousands of miles at a substantial personal cost, in order to become airmen.

Once they had made it through training, pilots had to come to terms with the unpredictable and occasionally terrifying experience of active service. Although many pilots were involved in reconnaissance and artillery spotting, these tasks were expanded in late 1915 when it became clear that pilots could also kill enemy pilots. Being a pilot became an increasingly hazardous undertaking, and new pilots like Neil Taylor were

affected by a variety of factors: technological, tactical, meteorological. Often, new pilots only had a short tenure on active service before they were either killed or taken prisoner, and the knowledge of this reality took its toll on them psychologically and physically.

Neil Taylor's experiences exemplify the difficulties faced by newly qualified pilots.

Entering into enemy territory, Taylor had little time before he was faced with a situation of peril, and ultimately became a prisoner-of-war due to a lack of experience.

In this environment of danger and trauma, a number of pilots were captured by the enemy. The Edwardian ideals of the time did not allow these men to view their incarceration as anything other than shameful. Trapped within the confines of German military discipline, these men had to do their best to survive on inadequate rations.

Officer prisoners-of-war fared a lot better than ordinary soldiers in captivity as they were not obligated to serve as labour during their confinement. However, the basic conditions of their captivity, and their use as political leverage meant that they were still in an unsavoury predicament. Dependent on the will, and sometimes mood, of their captors, their wellbeing was often compromised. In Taylor's correspondence, we are given a glimpse into the struggles faced by these men, namely their lack of substantive food and exposure to their captors' capricious treatment. To combat these difficulties prisoners-of- war banded together to ensure their survival, and employed passive resistance against their captors whenever possible.

Returning to Canada after the war, prisoners-of war found liberation underwhelming. After the success of the ICRC parcel schemes, they felt neglected by their government and the public.212 Pilots as a whole felt the need to forget about their

212 Jonathan Vance, Objects of Concern: Canadian Prisoners of War Through the Twentieth Century (Canada: University of British Columbia Press, 1994), p. 79.

experiences in the war, and stick to the "stiff upper lip" of other contemporary veterans.

A good number of pilots never returned to the cockpit, choosing to leave flying for good because they associated it with "war, death, and mutilation."213 Taylor himself went back to school, and finished his study in law before returning to Regina.214 Although it appears that he never flew again, he did remain an active member of the veterans' community in Regina. There is no record that he ever spoke about his time as a captive publicly. Nevertheless, the bequeathal to the Saskatchewan Archives of his correspondence indicates that family members considered his experience worthy of remembrance.

For aviators and former prisoners, the transition back into their normal civilian lives was not a straightforward task. A notable example of the struggle to fit into post-war

Canadian society is William Barker, VC. One of Canada's most decorated airmen, Barker fell into alcoholism as it became clear that there was no longer an exciting role to be played by aviators in the post-war world. After a series of failed business ventures, including a failed aviation company with Billy Bishop, Barker was killed while test piloting a new type of airplane. Even more tragically, it was an accident that was the result of pilot overconfidence and error, not technological malfunction.215

Conn Smythe represents one of the post-war success stories for an aviator and prisoner-of-war during the First World War. After returning to Canada, Smythe embodied the attitude of a number of fellow veterans, choosing to forget about his

213 L. E. O. Charlton, War from the Air: Past, Present, Future (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1935), p. 76. 214 Ironically, Taylor never practiced law, and instead went into property management, the administration of the Regina Rugby Club and, eventually, the Western Rugby Football Union. 215 Wayne Ralph, Barker VC: William Barker, Canada’s Most Decorated War Hero (Canada: Doubleday Canada Ltd., 1997).

experiences as a pilot and prisoner during the war and instead focus upon making up for lost time. 216 He spent years building a sand supply company in Toronto, and founded the

Maple Leafs ice hockey team in his spare time.217 However, he never forgot the lessons he learned as a prisoner-of-war. Time was of the essence for those who had been repatriated from captivity, and they wasted no time in making the most of what they had.

After the war had ended there were numerous developments in Canadian aviation.

Although air power would not be taken on as an independent military force in Canada until 1924, aircraft were used in other ways to develop Canada's identity. Whilst the

British were trying to save money by championing the use of aircraft to police the

Empire, Canada was taking advantage of skills developed in the war in another way; airplanes and pilots were put to good use in mapping, policing, and maintaining the

Canadian expanses of land in the North, offering the first accurate aerial photographs of the Canadian land mass.

Canadians played an important role in fighting the first war in the air, and for those who became prisoners-of-war this struggle continued after they were captured by the enemy. Aspects of the experience of these pilots relating to their training, active service and incarceration as prisoners-of-war have been overlooked in the historiography.

It is important that we incorporate the experiences of ordinary servicemen such as Neil

Taylor in order to rectify this oversight, and create a more accurate picture of the struggles that Canadian servicemen underwent during the conflict. The First World War

216 Leslie Roberts, There Shall Be Wings: A History of the RCAF (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company Ltd., 1959), pp. 30-35. 217 Conn Smythe, If You Can't Beat 'Em in the Alley (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1981). Smythe actually made William Barker the Honorary President of the Maple Leafs for a while, but Barker's alcoholism got in the way of his duties and he had to be let go by the organization. For more on this, see: pp. 93-94. Smythe was also heavily involved in the University of Toronto varsity teams before the war, and was very likely to have been at least acquainted with the Taylor brothers through this involvement.

had a lasting impact on Canadian pilots and on military aviation. Pilot training practices had evolved to meet the operational needs of the pilot, aviation technology had advanced to fulfil multiple operational roles, and the flying services were now recognised as their own independent service. These early innovations military aviation helped to define the quality and character of the independent Canadian flying service that would develop after the conflict, and shape the role it continues to play to this day.

APPENDIX

The following images were included by permission of the copyright holders. Due to these courtesies, I am able to provide a small visual sample of some of the sources that provided valuable insight in my research. SECTION 1

Pre-war Neil Joseph "Piffles" Taylor (Bottom Row, second from left) in Toronto Varsity Sweater, 1914. The occasion for the photo was the Regina law schoo l student lacrosse game. Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan - R-B8768

Future pilot Lancelot de Sausmarez Duke Leaving Vancouver, BC, as an infantryman in 1915. Canadian Letters & Images Project

The Young Man's Element - The Air. As advertised in The Montreal School of Aviation, Rigging Lesson - Toronto. Gazette, January 16, 1918. Department of National Defence - RE-19062-40 AH228-5 81

APPENDIX SECTION 2

Most kills, Canadian pilot William Avery "Billy" Bishop. Library and Archives Canada / PA-122515

Andrew McKeever - 11 Squadron RFC. Imperial War Museum – © IWM (Q 68942) Bristol F2 "Fighter" Piloted by William Barker. Canada Aviation and Space Museum – CAVM-3528 Neil Joseph "Piffles" Taylor with Squadron Friends. Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan – Neil J. Taylor Fonds

APPENDIX SECTION 3

Conn Smythe (seated on the right) during his time as a prisoner-of-war in an Officer Prisoner-of-War Camp. Archives of Ontario – F 223-1-1-11

Record of Internment – Neil J. Taylor. ICRC archives [ACICR C G1] Keeping records of prisoners-of-war was one of the duties of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) during the First World War. These records provided the ICRC with important information relating to inmates. In this case, you can clearly identify Taylor's rank, service, place and date of capture, initial prisoner -of-war camp, place of birth, date of birth, and home address. These records provide valuable information for those researching the fate of prisoners-of-war during the First World War. Below is an enlarged image that focuses solely upon the information relating to Neil Taylor.

APPENDIX SECTION 3 Red Cross Parcel Guidelines Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan The Neil J. ("Piffles") Taylor Papers Another duty performed by the ICRC during the First World War was shipping food and other goods to prisoners-of-war in the form of parcels. The regulations relating to what could go into these parcels were strict, and changed periodically over the course of the war. However, as was the case with so many other things pertaining to prisoners-of-war, officers were subject to much more lenient restrictions and enjoyed a better standard of life than their private contemporaries.

These two extracts from Flight Magazine were provided with the kind permission of FlightGlobal.

Pilot Status – N. J. Taylor. As Recorded in Flight Magazine Roll of Honour, 1917. The first of these records "Missing." is dated from the October 4, 1917 issue of Flight Magazine. The Second record "Previously Missing, now reported Prisoners in German hands." is from the November 22, 1917 issue of the same magazine. It often took weeks for the fate of downed pilots to be confirmed. 84

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