Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
In this free lecture Michael Terry tests the wholesome image of early fighter pilots.
This free lecture is part of the RAF Museum's Research Lecture Programme. If you'd like to support the RAF Museum, you can make a donation at: support.rafmuseum.org/Donate-Now.
Talk Outline
Fighter aces from the First World War generally have a glamorous and heroic reputation. However, a close examination of their wartime lives can often challenge this positive view.
The most significant example is from the career of the Canadian fighter pilot Major Billy Bishop, the highest scoring R.F.C./R.A.F. First World War ace. Bishop has been accused of having faked significant parts of his achievements, including the one that won him the Victoria Cross.
The debate around this accusation has persisted in the 21st century, where Bishop has both been attacked as a ‘distinguished fraud’ and defended, intriguingly, as an ‘authentic hero.’
This presentation examines the controversy surrounding Bishop, as well as examining three other examples of aces whose activities raise a query over the wholesome image of the early fighter pilot: Oliver Stewart, whose book based on his experiences depicted the ace’s life as calculated, selfish and strikingly sordid, Philip Fullard, who after the war admitted to what appears to be an intentional friendly fire incident on the Australian infantry, and William Barker, whose alleged anti-social nature and obsession with killing caused Ernest Hemingway to label him after the war as a ‘bloody murderous bastard.’
The intent of this presentation is not, however, simply to challenge the integrity of these aces. The presentation will examine the meaning of the term ‘authentic hero’ and whether these stories truly challenge any notion of authenticity in wartime.
It will also consider the extent to which the popular mythology surrounding First World War aces is guilty of trying to sanitise their war and hold them to a moral standard that was hard for anyone to match.
About Michael Terry
Michael Terry is an English Literature graduate and early career researcher currently writing a PhD thesis for the Open University on the Representation of First World War Aerial Combat in Literature.
His work aims to highlight the significance of this under-researched genre of writing. He examines how this body of work confounds our general expectations of what First World War literature should be like, and how it helped form a mythology about early aerial combat that persists to this day.
As his focus is literature, his work largely involves the close analysis of texts. As well as novels and memoirs, he studies combat reports, diaries, letters, wartime communiques, squadron histories, newspaper articles and publication records.
Michael has presented several lectures about the popular mythology of First World War aerial combat and how it relates to memory, history and literature.
These lectures have been for the Institut Historique Allemand in January 2021, the ‘Three Minute Military Thesis’ competition for the British Commission for Military History in March 2021, for the RAF Museum in August and September 2022 and most recently at the British Commission for Military History’s Close Air Support Conference at Hendon in March 2023.
This lecture was first broadcast on the Museum's Crowdcast Channel in April 2023
In this free lecture Michael Terry tests the wholesome image of early fighter pilots.
This free lecture is part of the RAF Museum's Research Lecture Programme. If you'd like to support the RAF Museum, you can make a donation at: support.rafmuseum.org/Donate-Now.
Talk Outline
Fighter aces from the First World War generally have a glamorous and heroic reputation. However, a close examination of their wartime lives can often challenge this positive view.
The most significant example is from the career of the Canadian fighter pilot Major Billy Bishop, the highest scoring R.F.C./R.A.F. First World War ace. Bishop has been accused of having faked significant parts of his achievements, including the one that won him the Victoria Cross.
The debate around this accusation has persisted in the 21st century, where Bishop has both been attacked as a ‘distinguished fraud’ and defended, intriguingly, as an ‘authentic hero.’
This presentation examines the controversy surrounding Bishop, as well as examining three other examples of aces whose activities raise a query over the wholesome image of the early fighter pilot: Oliver Stewart, whose book based on his experiences depicted the ace’s life as calculated, selfish and strikingly sordid, Philip Fullard, who after the war admitted to what appears to be an intentional friendly fire incident on the Australian infantry, and William Barker, whose alleged anti-social nature and obsession with killing caused Ernest Hemingway to label him after the war as a ‘bloody murderous bastard.’
The intent of this presentation is not, however, simply to challenge the integrity of these aces. The presentation will examine the meaning of the term ‘authentic hero’ and whether these stories truly challenge any notion of authenticity in wartime.
It will also consider the extent to which the popular mythology surrounding First World War aces is guilty of trying to sanitise their war and hold them to a moral standard that was hard for anyone to match.
About Michael Terry
Michael Terry is an English Literature graduate and early career researcher currently writing a PhD thesis for the Open University on the Representation of First World War Aerial Combat in Literature.
His work aims to highlight the significance of this under-researched genre of writing. He examines how this body of work confounds our general expectations of what First World War literature should be like, and how it helped form a mythology about early aerial combat that persists to this day.
As his focus is literature, his work largely involves the close analysis of texts. As well as novels and memoirs, he studies combat reports, diaries, letters, wartime communiques, squadron histories, newspaper articles and publication records.
Michael has presented several lectures about the popular mythology of First World War aerial combat and how it relates to memory, history and literature.
These lectures have been for the Institut Historique Allemand in January 2021, the ‘Three Minute Military Thesis’ competition for the British Commission for Military History in March 2021, for the RAF Museum in August and September 2022 and most recently at the British Commission for Military History’s Close Air Support Conference at Hendon in March 2023.
This lecture was first broadcast on the Museum's Crowdcast Channel in April 2023
