Gus: From Trapper Boy to Air Marshal.

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

This is the biography of a now little-known fighting airman who rose from humble beginnings as an English immigrant coal miner and eventually became the highest ranking officer of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). The subhead is unintentionally misleading, as it refers to a youngster working in coal mine, not the usual meaning of a fur trapper.

“Gus” Edwards had a remarkably adventurous military career: as a fighter-pilot in the First World War, he was shot down and captured by the Germans and endured grim captivity in a prisoner of war camp, from which he escaped to freedom, only to be recaptured again. At war’s end, Edwards went to serve as a fighter-pilot during the Russian Revolution. Edwards must have been an unusually impressive personality, as he was among the few officers retained to stay on in the small peacetime RCAF.

The book is written movingly by his daughter, Suzanne Edwards, who is able to include many close details of her father’s character and experiences, leavened by excerpts from some of his personal letters. She fondly tells of his modesty, hard-headed realism, and complete lack of affectation, which well suited him to the challenging job of leading Canada’s large contingent of airmen in Britain during World War II. He became Air Officer Commanding of the RCAF Overseas in World War II and Air Marshal, remaining a popular leader post-war, until his untimely death at a relatively young age.