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Raymond Collishaw was born at Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada on 22nd November 1893. He joined the Canadian Fisheries Protection Services as a cabin boy at the age of fifteen. By 1915 he had worked his way up to first officer.

In January 1916, Collishaw joined the Royal Naval Air Service. Over the next two years he scored 60 victories, including 38 assessed "destroyed." He commanded the famous Black Flight of No. 10 Naval Squadron. This unit, all Canadians and flying Sopwith Triplanes with black trim, claimed 87 German aircraft destroyed or driven down in three months. During WWI, Collinshaw was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Distinguished Service Order with bar.

At the end of the war he remained in what had become the Royal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force (often abbreviated to RAF is the air force of the United Kingdom. History Formation and Early History The Royal Flying Corps was formed by Royal Warrant on May 13, 1912 superseding the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers. The Royal Na. He served in RussiaThe Russian Federation ( Russian: , transliteration: Rossiyskaya Federatsiya or Rossijskaja Federacija , or Russia (Russian: , transliteration: Rossiya or Rossija , is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. With during 1919Events January January 1 Edsel Ford succeeds his father as head of the Ford Motor Company January 5 Spartacist uprising Socialist demonstrations in Berlin turn into attempted communist revolution with Spartacist League in the forefront January 9 Spartacus as part of the Allies intervention on the White Russian side of the Russian Civil WarThe Russian Civil War was fought between 1918 and 1920. Following the success of the Russian Revolution, the new Russian ( Bolshevik) government made peace with Germany at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ratified on March 6 1918. This negotiated peace was th. He added another victory to his total during this conflict as well as managing to sink an enemy gunboat with a bomb dropped from his Sopwith CamelThe Sopwith Camel was a British World War I single-seat fighter aircraft. The Sopwith Camel was first built in 1916 by the Sopwith Aviation Company. Approximately 6,000 Camels were produced. It featured a 150- hp (110- kW) Gnome nine-cylinder rotary engin.

During the Second World War he attained the rank of Air Vice-Marshal following distinguished service commanding the Desert Air ForceThe Desert Air Force DAF was a formation made up of squadrons from the Royal Air Force and Commonwealth air forces. It was formed in the Middle East to support the Eighth Army in its campaigns during World War II. It provided support to that force right u in North Africa. He retired, involuntarily, from the RAF in July 1943.

Raymond Collishaw died on 28th September 1976 in West Vancouver, British Columbia at the age of 82.

His memoirs were titled Air Command, A fighting pilot's Story and were published in 1973.