William Claxton

(Disambiguation: you may be looking for William Claxton (photographer), who worked for three decades with fashion designer Rudi Gernreich.)

William Gordon Claxton (June 1 1899 - 28 September 1967) was a Canadian World War I flying ace.

Born at Gladstone, Manitoba, Claxton enlisted with the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in Canada upon his eighteenth birthday in 1917. After pilot's training at Camp Borden he was assigned to No. 41 Squadron in France the following March flying S.E.5a aircraft. Claxton arrived on the Western Front late on during the war but he nevertheless strove to make up for lost time by embarking upon a remarkable, reckless, run of victories that saw him emerge from the war as his squadron's most successful airman. He claimed a remarkable 37 air victories in just 79 days during the War's final year.

Claxton opened his tally of 'kills' on 27 May 1918 in the skies above East Estaires, downing a German Fokker Dr.I aircraft. The following day he brought down two Pfalz D.III aircraft. Between 12-30 June Claxton successfully downed 17 German aircraft plus an observation balloon. On 30 June alone he brought down six enemy aircraft. By the end of July he had increased his total to 27.

3 August 1918 saw Claxton (nicknamed "Dozy") awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC). His citation noted that "this officer at all times shows fine courage and disregard of danger... on a recent occasion, having destroyed a hostile balloon, he pursued an enemy scout ten miles and eventually drove it down; he was then attacked by five enemy triplanes and other scouts, but managed to return to our lines, though his machine was riddled with bullets".

On 17 August 1918 Claxton was shot down by Leutnant Johannes Gildemeister during an encounter with Jasta 20 in which he and fellow pilot Frederick McCall were outnumbered 20-to-1; by this time he had amassed 37 air successes. Having brought down three German aircraft during the encounter Claxton crash-landed behind enemy lines with a serious head wound and was only saved by prompt attendance of a German doctor.

Claxton's final score was 2 ballons, 18 and 2 shared aircraft destroyed, and 15 'out of control'.

He remained a prisoner of war until the armistice. Claxton was repatriated on 1 December 1918. Returning to his homeland Claxton, who had received a Bar to his DFC and the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) took up a career as a financial journalist.

He died in Toronto on 28 September 1967, aged 68. He was cremated.

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