Description
Series of aerial photographs of the North Bay Airport with Royal Canadian Air Force photography stamped across the back. Curling, poor condition. b- The photo was taken in the spring or summer of 1952.
It shows the whole of the airfield. The North Bay airport terminal is the
tiny square dot adjacent to the small white circle at dead centre of the
airfield.
The image is unique and very rare, in that it shows the infant stages of
the construction of the whole of RCAF Station North Bay.
The air force base was ordered into creation by the Department of National
Defence in 1950, as an installation in Canada's fast-growing coast-to-coast
air defence network--the network forced by the rising threat of an atomic
bomb attack by the Soviet Union against North America.
In 1951 construction of the air force base began in earnest. Work wouldn't
be completed until just after New Years 1954.
In the image, all of the buildings and structures above Airport Road belong
to the air force, and include housing for families, an elementary school
for their kids, barracks for unmarried and visiting military personnel, a
mess hall for dining, hospital, supply building, base headquarters, a motor
pool that handled the base's cars and trucks, and more, all under various
stages of construction.
The four round things on the right side of the many base buildings are fuel
tanks, which held gasoline and jet fuel for airplanes.
Below Airport Road, below and beside the white circle and airport terminal
are, with a couple of exceptions, RCAF airplanes. Those with swept-back
wings are jet fighters, called Sabres.
The large dark-roofed building (two humped) to right of the terminal is the
old Royal Air Force hangar, built by the RAF during the Second World War
for the Trans-Atlantic flying training school it operated at North Bay
during the war. (The school taught Allied airmen from 23 countries how to
fly and navigate over the ocean, and how to deal with emergencies that
arose along the way.) The hangar was given to Canada by Britain at the
war's end; here it has been taken over by RCAF Station North Bay for the
base's aircraft.
That hangar, 78 years old in 2020, is still in use today, by Voyageur
Airways.
The two large H-shaped structures to the right of the old hangar are much
bigger hangars being built for the base. Actually one is H-shaped. The
other is half of an H.
The handful of smaller buildings next to the old hangar were also from the
British RAF, built during the war for its flying school and given to
Canada. They were shared by the airport and RCAF Station North Bay during
the latter's construction--as time passed and the construction expanded
they were demolished, to get them out of the way. The dark-roofed hangar
is the last remaining piece of the Royal Air Force's WW2 flying school.
Between the dark-roofed hangar and the airport terminal building is another
dark-roofed building, which has an airplane immediately to its right. This
was the Trans-Canada Air Lines hangar. The airport had been built in 1938
by the Canadian government, and Trans-Canada Air Lines was the national air
line. That hangar was built in 1939 for TCA--and is still in use today, 81
years later in 2020--but by Voyageur. Information provided by Captain Doug Newman.Creator
Royal Canadian Air Force Photograph
