RFC training in Canada

Kyt · Apr 26, 2009

Author gives Canadians history of air training plan - Nova Scotia News - TheChronicleHerald.ca

Most Canadians who have a passing knowledge of this country’s history are aware of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, a scheme signed in December 1939, shortly after the Second World War began, to train Allied aircrew in Canada. By the end of the war, the BCATP had trained 131,553 pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators, air gunners and flight engineers from Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, other parts of the Commonwealth, the United States and the countries of occupied Europe.

The plan earned for Canada the epithet "Aerodrome of Democracy" from former American president Franklin D. Roosevelt.

What is far less known is that a similar plan existed during the First World War, to train aircrew and mechanics for the British Royal Flying Corps, amalgamated with the Royal Naval Air Service on April 1, 1918, to create the Royal Air Force. In Dancing in the Sky, Bill Hunt, a Belleville, Ont., author and long-time amateur pilot, has done a workmanlike job in the first complete telling of Canada’s first pilot training program.

The airplane came into its own during the First World War. The first airplane flight had been made in 1903 by the Wright Brothers — less than a dozen years before the war started — while the first flight in Canada only took place in 1909 in Nova Scotia, an event whose centennial we celebrated in February.

Prior to the war, the airplane was an item of curiosity — the so-called "circus-and-carnival" era of flight. Pilots gathered at meets and races to compete for speed, distance and altitude records. Practical uses, such as passenger, cargo and airmail journeys, were unknown.

When the war broke out, the prime role of the airplane was unarmed reconnaissance, but it soon developed into a full-fledged war machine, em-ployed to strafe ground troops and shoot down enemy planes and balloons. An offshoot was the bomber, which quickly brought the war to the home front.

By 1916, the British were suffering terrible losses in pilots and observers, and were unable to train replacements fast enough. The British government turned to Canada for help, and in less than six months a new training program was up and running in Canada. It was known variously as the Imperial RFC or the RFC (Canada), and later as the RAF (Canada).

The handful of no-nonsense men under Maj. (later Brig.-Gen.) Cuthbert Hoare, who established this scheme, overcame enormous obstacles to build airfields, hangars and training facilities; acquire JN-4 "Canuck" training aircraft; set up courses; enrol recruits from across the country and train them. "Hoare was not your typical British officer," Hunt noted in an interview. "He bent the rules, he twisted the rules, he ignored the rules."

Four sites in Canada were eventually used — all in Ontario — at Camp Borden, North Toronto, Deseronto and Beamsville, on the Niagara Peninsula. Arrangements were also made with the United States to conduct some of the training in Texas during the winter of 1917-18, in the hope of better flying weather, as the airplanes of the day were all open-cockpit machines.

In less than two years, the plan graduated 3,135 pilots, 137 observers and 7,453 ground crew for the RFC/RAF, plus another 456 pilots for the United States. Sadly, 137 young men were killed during training. The last was Lt. Thomas Logan of New Glasgow, who died 11 days after the end of the war. The British government spent an enormous amount of money on the plan — $40 million. By comparison, the total expenditures of the Ontario government for 1917 and 1918 were $30 million.

As a result of this wartime training plan, Canada entered the age of the airplane much sooner than it might have and it paved the way for this country’s increasing influence on the world stage. It contributed directly to the growth of an aviation industry in Canada, which led to the opening of the Canadian north, and actually gave this country a head start over the United States in aviation.

This is a book that will appeal to anyone interested in Canadian aviation history in general and military aviation history in particular.

John Boileau is the author of several books and articles about Canada’s military history.
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Kyt · Apr 26, 2009

Amazon.com: Dancing in the Sky: The Royal Flying Corps in Canada: C.W. Hunt: Books

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RFC training in Canada

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