RALPH o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-11-11 published
The crash of a Canadian hero
Lest we forget, Roy
MacGREGOR traces the spectacular feats and
the sad fall of a flying ace
By Roy MacGREGOR,
Tuesday,
November 11, 2003 - Page A1
Ottawa -- Here is as good a place as any to lay a small poppy
on Remembrance Day.
It is nothing but a concrete dock ramp on the Ontario shore of
the Ottawa River, not far downstream from the Parliament Buildings.
There is nothing here to say what happened that cold March day
back in 1930, and on this, a fine brisk morning in November,
73 years later, there is only a lone biker, a man walking two
setters along the path that twists along this quiet spot, and
a small, single-engine airplane revving in the background as
it prepares to take off from the little Rockcliffe airstrip.
Seventy-three years ago, another small plane took off from this
airfield, turned sharply over the distant trees, flew low and
full-throttle over the runway and went into a steep climb that
eventually cut out the engine and sent the new Fairchild twisting
toward this spot -- instantly killing Canada's most-decorated
war hero.
Will BARKER, 35, of Dauphin, Manitoba
Perhaps you've heard of him. Likely not. He is, in some ways,
the test case for Lest We Forget.
Lieutenant-Colonel William George
BARKER won the Victoria Cross
for what many believe was the greatest dogfight of the First
World War.
He was alone in his Sopwith Snipe over Bois de Marmal, France,
on October 27, 1918, when he was attacked, official reports say,
by 60 enemy aircraft -- Mr.
BARKER, who rarely talked of his
war experience, always said 15 -- and he shot down three before
passing out from devastating wounds to both legs and his arm,
only to come to again in mid-air, turn on the fighter intending
to put an end to him and bring down a fourth before he himself
crash-landed in full view of astonished British troops, who were
even more amazed when they got to the plane and found him still
alive, if barely.
The four that one day took Mr.
BARKER's list to 50 downed aircraft.
He returned to Canada as Lt.-Col. William George
BARKER, V.C.,
D.S.O. and enough other medals to lay claim to being Canada's
most honoured combatant -- if he'd ever cared to do so. As British
Air
Chief
Marshal Sir Philip
JOUBERT wrote, "Of all the flyers
of the two World Wars, none was greater than
BARKER."
He came home and went into the aviation business with another
Canadian
Victoria
Cross winner, Billy
BISHOP. He married Mr.
BISHOP's wealthy cousin, Jean
SMITH, and had a miserable next
dozen years. The business failed, the marriage teetered, he suffered
depression and terrible pain from his injuries, and the previous
non-drinker soon became a drinker.
It seemed life was taking a turn for the better in January of
1930 when Fairchild hired him to help sell planes to the Canadian
government. A test pilot had been sent to show off the plane
at Rockcliffe, but the veteran fighter unfortunately insisted
on taking it up himself for a run.
Some say he committed suicide here; some say he was showing off
for an 18-year-old daughter of another Rockcliffe pilot; his
biographer believes he was just being too aggressive with a new,
unknown machine and "screwed up."
They held the funeral in Toronto, with a cortege two miles long,
2,000 uniformed men, honour guards from four countries and 50,000
people lining the streets. As they carried the coffin into Mount
Pleasant Cemetery, six biplanes swooped down, sprinkling rose
petals over the crowd.
"His name," Sir Arthur
CURRIE announced, "will live forever in
the annals of the country which he served so nobly."
His name, alas, is not even on the crypt -- only "
SMITH," his
wife's snobbish family who never really accepted the rough-hewn
outsider from Manitoba.
Somehow, he became all but forgotten. Though Mr.
BISHOP called
Mr. BARKER "the deadliest air fighter that ever lived," it is
Mr. BISHOP who lives on in the public imagination. Often, if
Mr. BARKER is mentioned at all, "Billy"
BARKER, as he was known
to his air colleagues, is confused with "Billy"
BISHOP.
A request for a government plaque to commemorate his Manitoba
birthplace was rejected the first time, but there is now some
small recognition thanks in large part to the work of Inky
MARK,
the Member of Parliament for Dauphin-Swan Lake and the excellent
military biography,
BARKER VC, produced a few years back by Wayne
RALPH.
Mr. RALPH, a Newfoundlander now living in White Rock, British
Columbia, thinks Mr.
BARKER was simply too much "the warrior"
for the Canadian appetite.
"He was an international superstar," says Mr.
RALPH. "
BARKER
had all the traits of the great Hollywood heroes. He was disobedient,
gregarious, flamboyant. He was a frontier kid, a classical figure
in the American style of hero. Born in a log cabin, went on to
fame and fortune, and died tragically at 35.
"Now he is basically buried in anonymity. To me, it's the perfect
metaphor for Canada, where we bury our past."
Today, though, even if it is only a poppy dropped at the end
of a concrete boat ramp, we will remember.
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RALPH o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-10 published
The backroom brain of the Canadian Football League
For 37 years, he was 'Facts Fulton,' the head-office man who
made things work and who wrote the complex rules that govern
the Canadian Football League
By Dan RALPH,
Canadian
Press;
Globe and Mail files Wednesday,
December 10, 2003 - Page R5
For 16 years, former Canadian Football League commissioner Jake
GAUDAUR never relied on a computer to draw up the league's regular-season
schedule. Instead, he looked to Greg
FULTON to do it in his head.
"We used to run it [the Canadian Football League schedule] in
the computer for days," said Mr.
GAUDAUR, who served as league
commissioner from 1968 to 1983. "But in the final analysis, Greg
would always have it worked out in his mind."
Mr. FULTON, who spent 54 years with the Canadian Football League
as a player, statistician and historian, died in Toronto on Monday.
It was his 84th birthday. The cause of death was not provided
but he reportedly suffered a stroke last week that caused him
to fall into a coma from which he never emerged.
"He worked behind the scenes and received so little credit,"
Mr. GAUDAUR said. "There was no one in Canadian history who knew
as much about the league as Greg did."
Doug MITCHELL, who succeeded Mr.
GAUDAUR as Canadian Football
League commissioner in 1984, marvelled at Mr.
FULTON's ability
to draw up a Canadian Football League schedule.
"He did it on a sort of a blackboard," he recollected. "What
the computer kicked out invariably never worked but Greg's schedules
always did. It really was incredible."
Current
Canadian
Football League commissioner Tom
WRIGHT said
Mr. FULTON's passion and commitment were an inspiration. "While
he served our league with distinction and honour, he will best
be remembered for the warmth of his smile, the wit of his stories,
and the depth of his recollections."
Mr. FULTON, a Winnipeg native, moved to Calgary in 1930 and began
his career as a player with the Stampeders in 1939. During the
Second World War, he served with the Calgary Regiment of the
First Canadian Armoured Brigade and participated in the abortive
Dieppe raid on August 19, 1942.
Returning home in peacetime, he attended the University of Alberta
to get a bachelor of commerce degree and soon after found a job
with Revenue Canada.
So, how exactly did a Calgary tax man end up as one of the Canadian
Football League's most influential people? It started with a
love affair for facts and figures that first led to a part-time
job in Calgary as a statistician for the Stampeders. When Clark
DAVEY, who was later appointed to the Senate, was appointed in
1966 as the Canadian Football League's first full-time commissioner,
he lured Mr.
FULTON to Toronto.
Sen. DAVEY "made some quick enemies because he was outspoken
and the job wasn't really ready for him," Mr.
FULTON told former
Globe and Mail sportswriter Marty
YORK. So 54 days after he took
the job, much of which consisted of feuding with Canadian Football
League officials, Sen.
DAVEY resigned. Mr.
FULTON was kept on
under Mr. GAUDAUR,
Sen.
DAVEY's successor.
"Jake usually approaches me every day to ask me something," Mr.
FULTON once said in an interview. "A lot of the times, I think
he knows the answers to the questions he is asking, but I think
he might feel better if he hears something from me. I guess you
could call me his confidant, but there are times when I do mention
something that he has overlooked and that often can have an effect
on the league and the fans."
What was most important, wrote Marty
YORK in 1981, was Mr.
FULTON's
status as assistant commissioner -- a title he did not hold but
a role he filled seven days a week. A walking Canadian Football
League encyclopedia, he was soon nicknamed Facts Fulton. He was
also known as Jake
GAUDAUR's memory bank.
When Mr. GAUDAUR became commissioner, he delegated a number of
the commissioner's key duties to Mr.
FULTON who already administered
the pension funds and had the challenging task of drawing up
the Canadian Football League schedule. Consequently, the nine
Canadian Football League general managers became accountable
to Mr. FULTON.
He was authorized to issue orders, regulations and memoranda
to all club officials, including coaches and players. Also, he
was responsible for roster control, player personnel, registration
of all contracts, waiver procedures, negotiation lists and draft
lists.
"He did the work of three people but the last thing he wanted
to do was talk about it," Mr.
GAUDAUR said.
At the same time, however, Mr.
FULTON was a confessed nag. "I
wouldn't be doing my job if I wasn't," he once said.
Managers of Canadian Football League clubs across the country
sometimes came to dread the sound of the phone ringing. "He'll
bug you when he calls to remind you that you didn't do such-and-such
a thing," said Montreal Alouette general manager Bob
GEARY in
1981. "It gets on your nerves sometimes, but I guess if he didn't
do that kind of stuff, no one would, and we'd be suffering more
than we do."
Mr. FULTON was also something of a Canadian Football League policeman
who had to lay down league laws. At one time, Canadian Football
League clubs were strictly limited about who could attend training
camps. Under the terms of an agreement with the Canadian Football
League Players Association, clubs were allowed to conduct pre-training-camp
practices only for rookies, quarterbacks and veterans who had
surgery the previous year. Veterans were allowed to work out
on their own, but coaches were forbidden to order them to participate.
In a case in which the Argo felt they had good reason to start
camp early, Mr.
FULTON had to consult his regulations.
"I told them it was fine," he decreed. "As long as the veterans
were running around on their own."
Clubs that violated pre-training-camp rules by practicing with
veterans faced fines, he said.
All things considered, though, it was drawing up the schedule
that was Mr.
FULTON's most time-consuming job. It was also the
one for which he suffered the most criticism.
"I've never yet been able to satisfy everyone with the schedule,"
he said. "I'm convinced that that's impossible because of the
uniqueness of our league. We only have nine teams, which means
that one team has to sit out every week. Also, because some of
our clubs play in stadiums where baseball and soccer are played,
I have to work the schedule around that too."
In 1990, Mr.
FULTON received the first Commissioner's Award for
his contribution to football in Canada. Five years later, he
was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in the builder's
category. In 1995, he was named the honorary secretary-treasurer
and was active in head office as a consultant and historian until
his death.
Mr. FULTON, who was reappointed by the Canadian Football League
to his primary role about 10 times eight times, sometimes felt
guilty about his job because he puts it ahead of everything else
in his life.
"I've never been able to take an extended holiday," he said in
1981. "But I wouldn't change it for anything in the world...
I'm one of those rare people who actually enjoys his job."
To a sometimes troubled league, he was a godsend.
"Thank goodness we have a guy like him," Bob
GEARY told Marty
YORK. "I hate to think what would happen to us if he wasn't around."
Mr. FULTON leaves children Robert, Byrne and Rebecca. He was
predeceased by wife
Angela
BOMBARDIERI in 1990. Funeral details
are pending.
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