Behind the Glory

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Ted Barris. Behind the Glory

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Ted Barris divides his time between teaching at Toronto’s Centennial College in the journalism department and writing/ broadcasting professionally. His work on CBC and TVO is well known (he has earned a Billboard Radio Documentary Award and numerous ACTRA Award nominations) and his bylines appear in such publications as the National Post and Globe and Mail, and the Legion, Beaver, and Air Force magazines. He has published 16 non-fiction books. In 1993, he received the Canada 125 Medal “for service to Canada and community.” In 2004, the Remembrance Service Association of Halifax recognized Ted Barris and his military history writing with its annual Patriot Award. In 2006, the 78th Fraser Highlander regiment awarded Barris its annual excellence award, the Bear Hackle Award, to recognize his “contribution to the awareness and preservation of Canadian military history and traditions.”

Books of Merit

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But King wasn’t finished. Even as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan document was being put into its final form, he had second thoughts about the status of Dominion squadrons in the field. The agreement suggested that the United Kingdom would “initiate discussion” on the matter later. That wasn’t good enough for King. He was afraid that Canadian graduates of the BCATP would lose their RCAF identity completely and, after overseas posting, be swallowed up by RAF operational squadrons. The British Air Ministry dug in its heels. Even if an operational squadron were manned largely by RCAF air crew, its ground personnel would be largely RAF and would consequently outnumber the RCAF air crew; thus, the ministry would refuse RCAF designation of such a squadron. By December 15, 1939, the two sides had come to a stalemate.

Riverdale was at his wits’ end. King was adamant, but he wanted the agreement signed. He telegraphed Anthony Eden, the Dominion Secretary, to say that the entire BCATP was “imperilled.” The telegraph and telephone lines between London and Ottawa buzzed with new urgency. British Air Ministry officials huddled. King entreated the Governor General, Lord Tweedsmuir, who was ailing and bedridden at Government House, to support the Canadian position.

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