Two massive wings are to be flown from Scotland to Ontario aboard a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) aircraft later this month as part of a Nanton air museum project to eventually display a completed Halifax bomber in its hangar.
Karl Kjarsgaard, the Bomber Command Museum of Canada director heading up the project, said he located both wings in England while on a quest to find more parts for a Halifax, the bomber most used by Canadian airmen during the Second World War.
The Yorkshire Air Museum, which has a Halifax, had a spare wing in the back of its hangar, and the RAF Museum had a wing in a storage hangar, said Kjarsgaard.
“People didn’t know they were there, and I found them,” he said.
The Bomber Command Museum is making 12 1.8-metre Halifax propeller blades for the Yorkshire Air Museum in exchange for the wing, and the RAF Museum donated the other wing.
The two outer wings, which measure roughly 7.6 metres by three metres, tapering down to 1.8 metres at the wing tip, are now at the RCAF detachment in Prestwick, Scotland, and are scheduled to arrive at CFB Trenton, Ont., on July 30.
Armed force unit 429 Squadron, an RCAF squadron that flew Halifax bombers during the Second World War and is now a transport squadron, is flying the two wings on a C-17 across the Atlantic, said Kjarsgaard.
“We couldn’t afford to ship the wings across the ocean, by ship, plane or whatever, so the RCAF contribution is very great,” said Kjarsgaard.
Both wings are in good shape, having been stored inside for years, but it will take years before they’re installed on the Halifax rebuild.
One wing will be taken to a shop in Arnprior, a town near Ottawa, at a cost of $2,800. The other will be transported to Nanton, 80 kilometres south of Calgary, to be displayed for now at the Bomber Command Museum. Kjarsgaard is currently working out how much it will cost to transport that wing, which weighs about 1,100 kilograms, a distance of over 3,000 kilometres.
“These two wings are going to save us thousands, literally, of man hours of rebuild to either make them or rebuild them,” said Kjarsgaard.
Kjarsgaard hopes that having the two wings flown across the Atlantic will “supercharge” awareness and fundraising for the Halifax rebuild project.
The project relies on private donations to continue, and funds are getting low.
“We cannot finish the Halifax without the support of donations,” said Kjarsgaard.
At a cost of $2,500, it took four hours to get the wing out of the RAF storage hangar, using a special crane. But it’s not like the museum could go shopping for a Halifax wing at Canadian Tire, said Kjarsgaard.
And while it’s fortunate that other Halifax parts have been found and stored in England, it’s going to cost somewhere between $500 and $1,000 per crate to have them shipped to Canada, he said.
“I’ve got five or six crates I could send across the ocean right now, but I don’t have enough money to send all five or six at once,” said Kjarsgaard.
In past summers, a diving team has brought to the surface parts from a downed Halifax bomber found at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, just off the coast of Sweden. But another dive is on hold until a sonar survey can be evaluated.
A few other Halifax bombers have been found underwater, each within diving depth, in Europe. Those sites are to be explored in the coming years, said Kjarsgaard.
Over 60 per cent of the Canadian airmen killed while on bomber missions for the Allied Bomber Command during the Second World War were flying on the Halifax, he said. Outside the Bomber Command Museum stands a granite memorial wall etched with almost 11,000 names, listing the Canadian airmen, as well as non-Canadians who served with the RCAF, who died during the war.
The Nanton museum already has one Second World War bomber, a Lancaster, which 20 per cent of Canadian airmen died while flying during the Second World War.
“If you had a Lancaster in your museum, that’s great. But if you’re a Canadian museum, knowing what’s on the (memorial) wall, what do you need sitting beside a Lancaster?” said Kjarsgaard.
“So that’s the bottom line of why I’m crazy enough to keep going.”