Billy Bishop - World War I Services

World War I Services

When the First World War broke out in later in 1914, Bishop left RMC and joined the Mississauga Horse cavalry regiment. He was commissioned as an officer but was ill with pneumonia when the regiment was sent overseas. After recovering, he was transferred to the 8th Canadian Mounted Rifles, a mounted infantry unit, then stationed in London, Ontario. Bishop showed a natural ability with a gun, and excelled on the firing range. His seemingly "super-human" eyesight allowed him to put bullets in a target placed so far away others saw only a dot. They left Canada for England on 6 June 1915 on board the requisitioned cattle ship Caledonia. On 21 June, off the coast of Ireland, the ship's convoy came under attack by U-boats. Two ships were sunk and 300 Canadians died, but Bishop's ship remained unharmed, arriving in Plymouth Harbour on 23 June.

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