Sopwith Ace

Air Classics, Mar 2004 by Pahl, Gerard

One of those wounded, William Barker, was not about to let his injuries become disabilities - his destroyed left arm did not keep him from flying. Bill had willpower. Indeed, he was involved in several aviation businesses in both Canada and the US, some of them with Billy Bishop as his partner. Though somewhat grudgingly accepted into the social status he sought, Barker had a difficult time fitting into civilian life. Nephew Jim writes, "He married a millionaire's only daughter, joined Toronto High Society and started drinking heavily after the war. Like many simple young men he must have had a problem adjusting to the high life as well as tolerating his handicaps." Handicaps or not, Bill was instrumental in the founding of the Royal Canadian Air Force and was its Acting Director on its founding day, 1 April 1924.

After his military service and an unhappy stint as a gentleman tobacco farmer, Barker became either VicePrésident and Sales Manager of FairchildCanada Ltd. or its actual President sources vary. Unfortunately, he died in a flying accident on 12 March 1930 demonstrating a new aircraft design. It has been suggested that Barker again let his pride get the better of him in taking up an unfamiliar aircraft, demanding of it what it could not do, and then - with his damaged arm - not having the ability to control the aircraft once he was in trouble. Nephew Jim Barker writes, "I have my own personal theory of why he crashed and died at Ottawa, based on my own Hying experience (as a Korean War-era jet fighter pilot). he (Bill) had just heen made President of Fairchild Canada and was in charge of a demo where Fairchild was trying to sell a new model trainer to the RCAF. Bill was unsatisfied with the performance of the demo pilot and took the plane up himself. he was pulling up in a sharp climh when the plane nosed over and dove into the ground. As strange as it seems, with all his experience, he may never have encountered a high-speed stall, which is what I think may have happened. Remember that all of the WWI planes had high lift wings and relatively slow speeds. I doubt if it was possible to high speed stall them. After the war, he (Bill) flew war surplus Jennies for a few years. The only flying training he ever had was a few hours in 1916. all of the rest was seat of the pants experience."

Sadly, Bill had only returned home to Dauphin once, in 1919, after the war and his family had never visited him in eastem Canada. Jim Barker feels, "Although he had found his fame and fortune, I think he probably felt embarrassed about exposing his very rustic background to his high society circle." Jim, in researching his family, discovered that grandpa, George (Bill's father), was a hard worker who did not drink, "but he was addicted to making a fortune by commodity trading on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. Virtually every dollar he got his hands on, right to the end of his life in 1950, was lost playing the market. Grandma was the cement that held the family together." This is probably why Bill was always writing his mother more than anyone else. The family only came east for his funeral and it was an awkward experience. This was a family that "often spent winters with little but game and boiled wheat to eat" and now they were visiting a millionaire's daughter, the wife of Bill.