Bishop, Flying Officer Frank

Service highlights

  • Service number: 162502
  • Born: 1922
  • Enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and was sent to Canada for pilot training
  • Worked as a transport pilot, including postings in Canada and overseas
  • Married Mabel Crawford Shrubsole during wartime service
  • Died 1 February 1945 in a flying accident in Scotland
  • Buried at Cardiff (Western) Cemetery in Wales
  • Remembered on the World War II plaque at St. Marys Town Hall & A plaque later attached to the propeller blade at the crash site

A Life and Service Remembered

Frank Bishop was born in Wales and joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve at the outbreak of war. In 1941 he was sent to Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and graduated as a trained pilot in Calgary in 1942. He later completed additional training at Dorval, Quebec, then stayed on as a transport pilot. It is the kind of role that rarely makes headlines, but it carried quiet responsibility. Transport flying meant moving people, aircraft, and supplies where they were needed, often over long distances and in unforgiving weather, with little margin for error.

While stationed at Dorval, Frank married Mabel Crawford Shrubsole, daughter of R.A. Shrubsole of Lakeside. In 1943 he was posted to Nassau in the British West Indies, now the Bahamas, flying transport aircraft to and from Northern Africa and Egypt. During that posting, Mabel was able to join him for about six months, a small pocket of togetherness in the middle of a war that kept pulling families apart.

In August 1944 Frank was recalled to Canada. He was later transferred to a Royal Air Force Transport Command unit in the United Kingdom in January 1945. By then Frank and Mabel had an infant daughter, Frances, born in Montreal in November 1944. When Frank returned to England, Mabel and the baby went back to Lakeside to stay with her parents, waiting for the next letter and the next safe arrival.

On 1 February 1945, Frank was the pilot of a Douglas Dakota Mk IV, serial KK194, on a delivery flight from Montreal with a planned refuelling stop at Reykjavik, bound for Prestwick. In low cloud and heavy snow, the aircraft struck the side of Ben Talaidh on the Isle of Mull at about 2300 feet, roughly 200 feet below the summit. A memorial later attached to the propeller blade tells a detail that still stops you. One officer got clear of the wreckage, sent up flares, then made his way down into the glen, following a light from a shepherd’s house to raise help. Local people came, survivors were rescued, and the bodies of those who died were recovered. Among those lost were Frank Bishop, Squadron Leader Archibald Ernest Alderton, and Flying Officer Herbert Ellis.

Frank was buried at Cardiff (Western) Cemetery in Wales, with the grave inspected and maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. He was survived by his wife Mabel and their infant daughter Frances, along with his parents in Cardiff and his sister Ada. In St. Marys, his name is included on the World War II plaque at the town hall, a local place to remember a life shaped by duty, distance, and the hope of coming home.

Major battles and operations

  • British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in Canada, trained as a pilot and graduated in Calgary in 1942
  • Transport flying duties from Dorval, Quebec, including wartime movements in Canada
  • Posting to Nassau, British West Indies, with transport operations to and from Northern Africa and Egypt
  • Transfer to Royal Air Force Transport Command in the United Kingdom, January 1945
  • Final flight, 1 February 1945, delivery route Montreal to Reykjavik to Prestwick, crash on Ben Talaidh, Isle of Mull

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