The Prince Albert Historical Museum opened its doors to the public for Remembrance Day. (Ian Gustafson/paNOW Staff)

By Ian Gustafson

Remembrance Day

Historical Museum remembers those lost in air force training

Nov 12, 2019 | 8:15 AM

The Prince Albert Historical Museum added some extra awareness to the great day of Remembrance by opening its doors to the public Monday afternoon.

The free offering was aimed at highlighting the veterans who fought or who were being prepared to fight in the Canadian Military.

Second World War veteran Ed Laird, who earlier laid a wreath at the Remembrance Day service at the Armoury. was in attendance and gave a speech about his time in uniform.

In addition, Bob Spracklin, civilian instructor with the Air Cadets and museum volunteer, provided a presentation to the public about the 17 members of the Elementary Flying Training School who were killed while training for the Second World War.

“I was talking about the memorial cairn that is at the Prince Albert airport,” Spracklin said.

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The names on the cairn are students and instructors who died in a period between 1940 and 1944 during the conduct of the No.6 Elementary Flying Training School, which was in Prince Albert. It was a part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and they flew the Tiger Moth aircraft.

“Prince Albert was one of the first places to start flight training in the prairies and it continued until 1944,” Spracklin told paNOW.

He said 2,600 people went through the program from all over the commonwealth and in some cases all over the world.

“It was probably one of the largest contributions Canada made to the air force effort in the Second World War,” he explained.

“We’re very aware of those who are war dead who were buried overseas [and] those who never made it home but there are some who never made it there. They didn’t complete their training because all of these were the result of training accidents.”

Spracklin said this part of Canadian history tends to be overlooked very easily so he wanted to educate people on it.

“It was a major part of why the airport is where it is and Prince Albert calls itself the Gateway to the North but in the 30s and 40s there was a lot of aviation moving north from here and it was one of the reasons why the site was selected to be one of the first airfields used in the prairie provinces,” he explained.

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Ian.gustafson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @iangustafson12