The obituary of Topper Smythe

I have always tried to see the funny side of life, hence the stories in the book – The Rhetorical Musketeers and other stories. I have often tried to redefine what certain words mean and it can be fun to play with their meanings. I have often wondered whether Shakespeare ever received a rejection from anyone and so I thought I would write my own. When The Bible was read to me at school I did wonder where the ‘cross-eyed bear’ had come from and where the other bear had gone, given that the animals went on to Noah’s ark two-by-two.

Here is an excerpt from a spoof obituary of a WWII fighter pilot

Topper Smythe is most famous as a fearless fighter pilot during World War II racking up more kills than any other Canadian, if you count his allied victims too. Some of his feats are legendary, such as his incredible individual raid on the Focke-Wulf plant at Bremerhaven, while the rest of the air force attacked the actual plant in Bremen. “All Jerries look the same from that height,” was his memorable explanation of this incident.

On that day, he still found time to shoot down 8 Messerschmitts, 7 Dorniers, and a Flying Fortress in what was one of the earliest examples of a friendly fire incident. Topper was an extremely daring pilot, once flying just 2 feet away from a railway engine and trying to shoot the driver with his revolver, having expended all his ammunition over Holland. The Great Western Railway in England complained and Topper was officially warned as to his future conduct, though privately the Canadian military judge agreed that Topper had done the right thing – the driver wasn’t a hockey fan.

Topper’s speed of reaction was sensational, though it had to be as he was a very fast driver, as Victor “Chalky” Black, a fellow pilot remembers: “Topper sped everywhere and he used to give me a lift to the airfield from our lodgings – on one memorable day the siren went off and we raced to the field – accidentally running over six peasants on our way – and blow me, if after shooting down 12 jerries, we hit those same people on the way back after the dogfight – isn’t that a coincidence? The peasants were cheery about their fate, they grimaced and waved a V for Victory at us, it was wartime after all and the Dunkirk spirit still prevailed. After driving with Topper, stepping into the plane and fighting the Germans was a relaxing experience”.