Heritage Perspectives: Perspectives on Plane Crashes from the Past

Many people remember the drama and sometimes the tragedy of plane crashes in this area in the past, and some have asked me for details. Isolated crash sites where wreckage remains are of particular interest to people who like the challenge of accessing the sites to reconstruct the events. The new Wilderness Club at the Almaguin Highlands Secondary School found and explored the crash site of a CF100 jet interceptor that went down east of Powassan in the summer of 1953. The pilot survived, was found living in Callander, and has talked to the students at the school. Arnie Hakala reported on this on the front page of the Nugget in December and perhaps sparked some of the requests I have received for other locations.

Starting today, I will write about a few of the many crashes from the past from around North Bay. I have several requests for information on a transport plane that crashed south of Guilmette Lake in Boulter Township, but I need a date of the crash if anyone has one, as well as any additional information on the event.

Drama in the Skies Over North Bay

During one of the worst winter storms in years in the North Bay area, sixty years ago, on Tuesday January 6^th, 1942, the people of North Bay, who could barely see across the street, heard the roar of a large low-flying plane over the city in mid-afternoon. The airport was deluged with calls, and it was soon learned that three Royal Canadian Air Force Bristol Bolingbroke Bombers with four-man crews from the Rockcliffe Airbase near Ottawa were caught in the storm. Bolingbrokes were used exclusively for bombing and gunnery training, and as target tugs.

A Nugget reporter rushed to the airport, where a report eventually came in that one of the planes had made it back to Rockcliffe and had landed safely. A second report indicated that the second plane had crash-landed without casualities. There was no sign of the third plane, and it was assumed that it was the one flying extremely low over North Bay.

The third plane, #702 under flying officer Sgt. T.C. Warrender, was in trouble circling North Bay, trying to find the airport. LAC J.G. Graham, the wireless operator, could not make radio contact with the North Bay tower. A Nugget reporter later described the radio operator at the airport repeatedly calling "Bolingbroke 702, please come in. Bolingbroke 702, please come in." The plane’s radio operator later reported that he could "hear the beam through my earphones, and I figured by its sound that we were within twenty-five miles of North Bay."

A Bolingbroke bomber showing gun turrets. Photo courtesy of the War Plane Museum at Mount Hope.

But the plane was in bigger trouble than the radio—their left engine was failing, and they couldn’t get enough power to rise above the storm. The plane was flying south of North Bay toward North Bay, following the CNR rail line just above the telegraph wires, when the pilot decided to ditch the plane in a farmer’s field. He circled two or three times, realizing they had little room to maneuver. They dropped several unarmed bombs into the adjoining fields. They also had several barrels of machine gun cartridge strips on board. With the flaps down and the wheels retracted, they skimmed over the farmer’s barn and bellied their way across the field. The weak engine caused the plane to veer to the left. After ripping out a fence and knocking down a telephone pole, they slid with a thud against the elevated CNR rail bed and came to a sudden halt.

	The Bristol Bolingbroke bomber that crashed in Chisholm Township in 1942. Chisholm Women’s Institute History Book.

Meanwhile, farmer George Girard’s son Maurice headed for the plane with the farm’s team. All of the four-man crew were dazed, but okay. They went back to the Girard farmhouse and called the airport. Mrs. Girard served coffee and cake left over from Christmas. In short order, Nugget reporters and photographers were on the scene with their panel truck (see photo). The truck was later used to bring the duffel bags and other items of the airmen back to North Bay. The phones at the North Bay airport rang until midnight with people wanting to find out what had happened.

One of the Nugget reporters described how the airmen were busy salvaging what they could at the crash site when Flying Officer W.J. Wilson, the medical officer from the RCAF recruiting office in North Bay, reached the crash site. He reported that, as Wilson approached, "up went the cold-numbed hands of the four crewmen in a smart salute—discipline was not forgotten."

The Girard farm showing the barn that was just missed, and the farmhouse where the airmen waited for rescue.

In the aftermath of the event, the word "miraculous" was used to describe the survival of the men, and the word "brilliant" to describe the pilot’s work. People came from near and far to the Girard farm (now Giroux Meat and Abattoir) on River Rd. in north Chisholm Township to see the plane over the next few days. A salvage crew of fourteen men, with a twenty-ton crane and seven floats camped at the Girard’s for a week, removing the plane which was beyond repair. Mr. Girard later found the bombs while ploughing his fields, and had them carefully removed by the RCAF.

Sixteen years later, almost to the day, a CF100 Jet interceptor from North Bay got in trouble and the two-man crew ejected over the Girard farm, dropping the cockpit canopy into their field. More about this crash next week.

For more information on the Bolingbroke Bomber and the CF100, check the Department of National Defense website: www.dnd.ca. They have the National Aviation Museum at Rockcliffe and have a Bolingbroke and CF100 on site. The Canadian Warplane Museum at Mount Hope, near Hamilton, has a North Bay Black Knight Squadron CF100, and are restoring a Bolingbroke (www.warplane.com). To visit the North Bay Air Defense Museum go to the airport and turn right at the black CF100, and take the first left, any Sunday from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., except holidays. The plane on the North Bay Lakeshore is also a CF100.

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