RCAF Centennial Celebrations at Nanton

Photos and story by John Chalmers,
CAHS Membership Secretary
posted May 2024
To celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) on April 1, 2024, special events are being held across Canada this year on the ground and in the air, ranging from speeches to dinners to air shows. To mark the centenary of the RCAF at the Bomber Command Museum of Canada at Nanton, Alberta, a full program of activity was held on May 3 and 4 at the museum.
Lancaster Bomber
Throughout the weekend, the museum’s key attraction was its Lancaster bomber, FM159, parked day and night in front of the museum, seen by all traffic going by on Highway 2, Alberta’s major highway, which cuts through the town. When all engines are running, cars and trucks pass through the propwash!
Rob Pedersen
Rob Pedersen, president of the Lancaster Museum Society, which was formed for the restoration of FM159, welcomed a large number of visitors who came on the weekend to visit the museum and hear the speakers. Behind Rob is the Cessna Crane, donated in essentially flying condition to the museum, and recently repainted in livery of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, recognizing its importance as a training aircraft used during the Second World War. Suspended at above left, in BCATP yellow is a 2/3 scale Westland Lysander, another aircraft with wartime history.
Terry Chester
Terry Chester, national president of the RCAF Association, was the featured speaker on the evening of May 3 with his presentation about the history of the RCAF. Terry himself is part of that history, serving first as an RCAF navigator, then as a pilot, and retiring from the air force holding the rank of Colonel after 42 years in uniform and 10,000 hours of flying time to his credit.
Lancaster at night.
A special attraction on several occasions each year at the museum is an engine run of all four liquid cooled Merlin V-12 engines on the Lancaster. Following Terry Chester’s presentation on May 3, a large crowd assembled to watch a night engine run-up. Both morning and afternoon engine runs on the bomber were held the following day, seen by large crowds visiting the museum. For more info on the museum and events, see www.bombercommandmuseum.ca.
Hercules engine
As well as engine runs on the Lancaster, one of the museum’s 14-cylinder radial engines with a shortened propeller and mounted on a mobile demonstration trailer was also featured in both night and daytime engine run-ups to the delight of crowds. The air cooled Hercules engine was used on four-engine Halifax bombers during the war.
Karl Kjarsgaard
Karl Kjarsgaard, curator for the museum, spoke of what he has called the RCAF’s finest hour and busiest day during the war -- the bombing raid on Duisberg, Germany, on October 14-15 1944. With a particular interest in the Handley Page Halifax bomber, Karl heads up tireless efforts to recover Halifax components from the sea at Norway, and to construct other parts in order to build a Halifax bomber for the museum at Nanton.
Mosquito
Currently the main restoration/reconstruction project at the Bomber Command Museum is work by volunteers to build a de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bomber, an intruder type of aircraft flown by the RCAF during the war. A project of the Calgary Mosquito Society, the “wooden wonder” will eventually be returned to its owner, the City of Calgary, for display in that city. Now in its eleventh year, the restoration is expected to take yet another ten years to complete.
Captain Lee Sheard
Capt. Lee Sheard of the RCAF Centennial Committee spoke of the air force’s plans and activities to celebrate the RCAF’s one hundredth anniversary during 2024. The lectern used by all speakers in the program is from All Saints Anglican Church at Waterton Lakes National Park in southern Alberta. The lectern bears a  carved Royal Air Force crest. Prior to demolition of the church in 2014, the lectern was donated to the Bomber Command Museum.
Richard de Boer
Richard de Boer, president of the Calgary CAHS chapter and president of the Calgary Mosquito Society, received a well deserved standing ovation for his outstanding presentation about Johnny Fauquier, the most decorated airman in RCAF history. Richard’s talk was supported by information in  Johnny, a biography of Fauquier by museum librarian, Dave Birrell, author of several books related to the museum, its history and its collection. A bomber pilot during the war, Fauquier flew at least 93 operational bombing flights and retired with the rank of Air Commodore. Members of the Fauquier family from Canada and the U.K. were present for Richard’s talk.
Tiger Moth
As well as run-ups of the Lancaster engines and the Hercules engine, a Tiger Moth flown as a training aircraft did an engine run with Terry Chester at the controls and museum board member Doug Eaglesham seated behind him. The engine started immediately on the first flip of the propeller! During the Second World War, thousands of RCAF pilots took their elementary flying training in a Tiger Moth of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
Bomber Command Memorial
At the granite Bomber Command memorial outside the museum, there are 10,855 RCAF members named who lost their lives with Bomber Command while serving during the Second World War. Even though every effort was made to identify all names before the memorial was erected in 2005, some names were missed, occasionally the result of errors in recording wartime data. Further research and information from families about names that were missed eventually revealed 191 more names. They were added to the monument and recognized at a dedication ceremony on May 3. We must never forget.
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