Easy Aces

"I got in a good shot at a German, found his gas tank near the wing root, fired into it and into the front of his cockpit till his plane started to smoke and he rolled over on a wing and headed for the ground in flames."

Since December 1939, the letters of 22-year-old Roy E. Buckley have been crammed with such offhand heroics. To his mother and friends in Canada, Buckley wrote of dogfights over Norway, France, Britain, of five Germans he shot down in one fight, of a 35-hour flight from Britain to Singapore in a U.S.-built bomber, of his Distinguished Flying Cross and other decorations, of his promotion to Acting Squadron Leader.

Button-bursting with pride, mother and friends sent the letters on to Canadian newspapers which published them. Roy's exploits were confirmed by a letter from "Air Vice Marshal Dollard" to his mother, dramatized over the air by Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Soon Buckley was Canada's most popular, most publicized air hero.

Last month Ace Buckley came home, only to have his flying career make a crash landing in a Toronto police court. Skeptical Canadian authorities had checked up on Buckley's record, found that he was a plain aircraftsman who had been washed out of a pilot-training course in England, then deserted. Fortnight ago, police nabbed him swanking about Toronto in a flyer's uniform with a D.F.C. ribbon.

In court Deserter Buckley told how he had gone from England to Ireland, bought a passage home to Canada. He had worn his store-bought uniform just five times. Sentenced to two months in jail or $100 fine for impersonating an officer, he was waiting last week to hear whether he would be taken to England to be court-martialed for desertion.

In Quebec, police rounded up another youth with a homemade D.F.C. and shoulder insignia. He had been lecturing on his "experiences" before a Rotary Club. When arrested he was planning a broadcast about his latest flight of fancy: piloting the Duke of Kent to Canada.

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