One in a Thousand: The Life and Death of Captain Eddie McKay, Royal Flying Corps

202 Pages·2017·1.83 MB·English

by  Graham Broad

One in a Thousand
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One in a Thousand
The Life and Death of Captain Eddie McKay,
Royal Flying Corps
Graham Broad
Copyright © University of Toronto Press 2017
Higher Education Division
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Broad, Graham, 1970–, author
One in a thousand : the life and death of Captain Eddie McKay, Royal Flying
Corps / Graham Broad.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
isbn 978-1-4875-9341-4 (cloth).—isbn 978-1-4426-0746-0 (paper).
—isbn 978-1-4426-0747-7 (pdf).—isbn 978-1-4426-0748-4 (html).
1. McKay, Eddie, 1892–1917. 2. McKay, Eddie, 1892–1917—Death and burial.
3. Great Britain. Royal Flying Corps—Biography. 4. Fighter pilots—Canada—
Biography. 5. World War, 1914–1918—Aerial operations, Canadian. 6. World War,
1914–1918—Aerial operations, British. I. Title.
d607.c2b76 2017 940.4'4971092 c2016-905197-8
c2016-905198-6
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But I should blush
To face the men and long-rob’d dames of Troy,
If, like a coward, I could shun the fight.
Iliad, Book VI
I cannot tell you how much I feel his loss, as he was one in a thousand, and by far the
best man I had, and the one that I could least spare.
Letter from Major Arthur Bryant to Joe McKay, 29 December 1917
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Timeline xiii
Introduction xv
Historians and Their Sources xxvii
CHAPTER One
To Western and to War: 1892–1916
1
Historians and Fact Finding
32
CHAPTER Two
Over the Somme: July–October 1916
41
Triangulation and Reading Against the Grain
70
CHAPTER Three
THe Battle, October 28, 1916—March 14, 1917
77
Mentalité and the Military Past
94
CHAPTER Four
THe Choice: March 15–December 28, 1917
105
Thinking about Thoughts: The Past as a Foreign Country
121
viii Contents
CHAPTER Five
THe Letter: January 1918–July 31, 1932
131
Historians, Historical Ethics, and the End of History
139
appendix: the mysteries 149
selected bibliography 157
index 163
Acknowledgements
I tell my students to avoid clichés, but sometimes they are inescapable. Searching
for Eddie McKay was like trying to find a needle in a haystack—and occasionally
a needle in a stack of needles. The difficulties would have been insurmountable
without the help of friends, students, colleagues, librarians, archivists, an array of
aviation historians in several countries, and members of McKay’s extended family.
The first order of thanks is due to the students of my 2006–07 “Canada in the
World Wars” seminar at King’s University College, Western University. Their class
project on Eddie McKay, which culminated in a bronze marker placed on campus
in his honour, laid the groundwork for this book. At a time when there is growing
concern about student disengagement, these exceptional young scholars demon-
strated conclusively that the good students are as good as they ever were. Thanks
especially to Courtney Everrett, Kerri Gibb, Chris Miller, and Dave Poisson for
their sustained interest in Eddie’s life.
Few historians know more about Canada in the First World War than Jon-
athan Vance and Tim Cook, who were generous with their time, ideas, and en-
couragement, helping to ease a Second World War historian into the Byzantine
world of Great War historiography and record keeping. Mike Bechthold, John Ed-
wards, Barrington Gray, Trevor Henshaw, Richard Holt, Peter Kilduff, Alex Revell,
Ed Roach, and Amy Shaw offered their expertise to the finished work’s advan-
tage. I owe a particular debt to Stewart K. Taylor, who for decades conducted dil-
igent and careful research into Canadian aviators who served in the British flying
services. Stewart shared his research on McKay with me in several letters and
phone conversations. He also gave me the remarkable photo of McKay taken by
his squadron-mate George Trudeau just days before McKay was killed in action.
I spent many hours either working with or in correspondence with archivists
and historians at institutions in six different countries. Among many others were
Tom Belton and Theresa Regnier at Western University’s Archives and Research
Collection Centre; George de Zwaan at the sadly beleaguered Library and Ar-
chives of Canada; Peter Hart at the Imperial War Museum; John Armstrong at
Wright State University Archives; Ross Mahoney at the Royal Air Force Mu-
seum; Patrizia Nava of the Eugene McDermott Library at the University of Texas