A Wartime Loss

A WAR TIME LOSS
Airplane Crash Claims Lives

JUNE 1941
One Saturday evening, a young woman from Seeley's Bay accompanied some friends to the Golden Slipper dance hall near Kingston. Also in attendance was a group of British airmen from the Empire training school at Collins Bay.

The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was a joint air crew training program created during the Second World War. It was one of the largest aviation training programs in history and was responsible for training nearly half of the pilots and crew who served during War including the Royal Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

Photo caption: The Fairey Battle was a British single-engine light bomber built by the Fairey Aviation Company in the late 1930s for the Royal Air Force.

JUNE 9
One of the young airmen, ALA. William McCulloch, was so smitten with the Seeley's Bay lass that, a few days later, he flew his trainer, a Fairey Battle, to the village to salute his new found love. While making a low pass over the village, the plane caught a utility wire, struck a barn and careened towards Bay Street where it crashed into a row of boathouses. The young pilot perished along with a local carpenter, James Free and his 13 year-old grandson, Harold Battams.

Photo caption: The wrecked boathouse near Hartley's Saw Mill.

Photo caption: Partially recovered aircraft wreckage.