' Royal

the ccuntry up, we also seek to screw up our
history. Especially when it bears an Anglo name.

A big argument has been
going on down. East about

- Billy Bishop, tne greatest

Canadian air ace of world
War One and one of the
greatest ever. Bishop scored

72 victories, won the Vic-

toria Cross, and became
world famous.

In today’s Canada,
though, heroes are out of
style. In style are’ ‘‘nuclear-
free zone’’ lunatics, pansies
and whiners. | .

Typical of this ‘trend was
a national Film Board epic

called’ The Kid Who

‘ Covldn’t Miss, which cast
- dirt on Bishop and painted

him as a phoney.
His V.C., it was sug-

I gested by some. pimple-
- headed upstart flying in the
- NFB studio nearly 70 years
-. after the event,. was gained
» under false: . pretences.
: Bishop. didn’t ‘really shoot
* down three enemy aircraft

. in the course of a lone straf-

‘ing raid on a-German air-

» field. No, what he did was

* to land in a pasture, shoot

© holes’ in . his

“tailplane, and more or less

-- recommend himself for the
big medal.

machine’s

A 50-page analysis by the
) Military College
showed that the NFB ver-

i sion. of the Billy Bishop

story was even more full of

. holes than: his opponents’

planes had been.. But we

* won't go into all that now.

To believe the NFB fiction,

‘you must also believe that a
f- man) whose-.career had
“- already been -minutely in-
~ vestigated had also been the
_ subject of a-seven-decade
cover-up.

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It is harder to win the
_V.C. than any other decora-
tion in the world. But even
if the raid for which Bishop
was awarded the decoration
had never taken place, he
would have deserved the
medal for various other ex-
ploits. Unless the NFB had
been on the scene and
declared those phoney too,
of course.

Would an American,
German or British film
studio attempt to put out
such garbage about a
Rickenbacker, a von
“Richthofen or an Albert
Ball? Not without being
laughed off the stage. But
“we're different. Not only do
we do it, we also subsidize
it.

To allow it to play its
“games, the NFB gets
“anything between $63
‘million: and $84 million a
- year from the taxpayer,
.depending on how well it
can con the politicians into
believing that it-is the only
defence we have against the
rotten Yankee culture.
“Take this money, boys
and girls, and have fun.
“Shoot down Billy Bishop.
About time, too. Who
needs an old war-wanker
like him?”

There has been some
outrage over this attempted
murder..The Senate awoke
from its slumbers to growl
‘at' the NFB and deliver a
few home truths. But Pierre
‘Berton, he of The National
Dream, took dreaming pen
‘in hand’ to defend the
NFB’s ‘‘investigative jour-
nalism’’ and to slap the
critics. For good measure,

| THE

MAN

Park Shore
1 985-9344

Doug: Collins

e get this straight

TRAINED.

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WE’RE A funny lot: Not content with screwing he also claimed that ‘many

lesser medals ‘are handed
out like cards’’.

Some may wonder how
the hell he became an expert
on such things. Well, he
says he is writing a book on
the Battle of Vimy Ridge
and interviewed a survivor
who told him that a group
of soldiers drew lots there
fora Military Medal.

Berton has the nerve to
call that “‘research’’,

Here is a man who has
done just about everything
in Canadian journalism.
Yet he gives aid and com-
fort to Billy Bishop’s batty
detractors and, on the
shaky basis of a single state-
ment by someone who may
or may not be speaking the
truth, diminishes those who
distinguished themselves in

some of the bloodiest bat-

tles of modern times.

What sort of journalism
is that? He ignores the
Point, too, that anyone who
stormed Vimy was worth a
medal just for being there.

Where things military are
concerned, the trendies --
who include Berton -- are
more interested in kicking
the past in the ass than they
are in respecting it. And
you can also bet that if
Bishop had been French in-
stead of Anglo, the NFB
would have steered clear of
him. English - Canadian
Phonies yes, French-
Canadian ones no.

As for Berton’s book on
Vimy Ridge, he can stuff it.
My guess is that it'll be a
tehash of how allegedly
dumb the high command
was. I'll get out a book on
Billy Bishop instead. And [|
have yet to read one that
even hints that he was a
phoney.

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