Imagine turning a corner and seeing rows upon rows of green painted wooden buildings as far as the eye can see. One minute, there was nothing. The next minute, an entire town appeared in front of me.
For just a moment, I shared a bit of the awe my ancestors must have felt on day one of their military training during WWII.
The experience took place while I was touring wineries near Picton Ontario last summer.
A former airfield and military base on County Road 22 operates as the Picton Airport and Loch-Sloy Business Park. It includes 54 historic buildings and six airplane hangars on 701 acres of land.
Local businesses rent space
The Prince Edward Flying Club offers “prior permission required” landing services for pilots.
Fifteen other business tenants rent space there too. I saw listings for carpenters, furniture makers, glass manufacturers, landscapers, mechanics, and stone distributors. There’s even a yoga studio on site.
Driving and walking through the park feels like taking a step back in time.
The Picton airfield originally opened on April 28, 1941 as a bombing and gunnery school for the war effort.
Canada, with the support of Britain, built new or expanded existing fields into more than 100 such facilities in less than four years.
The effort became known as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
Looking back it is difficult to grasp the BCATP in all its dimensions,” wrote J.F. Hatch, in his 1983 book describing the project. “In themselves, the statistics are impressive: 131,553 [plus 5,296 RAF and Fleet Air Arm personnel trained prior to July 1, 1942] aircrew trained for battle, through a ground structure embracing 105 flying training schools of various kinds, 184 support units and a staff numbering 104,000. When war was declared the RCAF had less than two hundred aircraft suitable for training, many of them obsolete. In December 1943 there were 11,000 aircraft on strength of the BCATP.” [1]
My ancestors Paul Emile Hurtubise, Jean Charles Mathieu and Richard Himphen all trained at Ontario-based military installations just like this one, although the ones they went to were in Camp Borden, Dunnville and St. Thomas rather than Picton.
Camp Borden still operates as an active military training facility. The ones in Dunnville and St. Thomas are long gone.
Picton is probably the last BCATP centre in existence—with original buildings and triangle airfield layout intact—anywhere in the world.
Heritage Structures Intact
The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) used the buildings and hangars for storage and equipment maintenance after WWII.
After that, the Royal Canadian School of Artillery (anti-aircraft) moved in to train anti-aircraft gunners, gunnery radar operators, technical assistants and artillery instructors. The first battalion Canadian Guards infantry unit also used the site for a while.
During part of that time, AVRO Arrow test models could be found in some of the hangars.
In 1969, the Department of Defense closed down CFB Picton and the H.J. McFarland Company purchased the land and buildings.
Loch-Sloy bought the site from the McFarland family in 1999.
Dreams for a Period Museum
That’s when the company began a slow challenging effort of reconstructing the former buildings into a period museum that they hope will eventually open full-time. They produced a fun video describing their dreams in April 2013.
Until that happens, you can arrange private tours of the site or contact them for upcoming public events.
I highly recommend the experience. It connects you to the past in a way that reading documents just can’t achieve.
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If you want to read more about my WWII military ancestors and the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, refer to the following stories:
[1] Hatch, F. J. The Aerodrome of Democracy: Canada and the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, 1939-1945. Ottawa: Directorate of History, Dept. of National Defence, 1983, 222 pages.
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