Postcard Memories is a series of historic views, stories, and photos of Innisfil and the area, a trip down memory lane on a Saturday morning.
At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the Royal Canadian Air Force base at Camp Borden, Angus, was one of the main air-training facilities in Canada. It took on increased importance in 1940 when the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was established. Hundreds of pilots from Canada, Britain, and other parts of the Empire received their instruction here.
In the winter of 1940, a pilot cadet taxied his plane into position and sent it bustling down the snow-lined runway. The pilot steered the aircraft southeast and was soon over the white fields and barren woods of Innisfil.
When the pilot looked at his fuel gauge, he noted with alarm that it read near-zero. There must have been a leak in the fuel line. The pilot began to panic; there was no way he could nurse the plane back to Borden. He needed someplace flat and wide open. But where?
His eyes settled upon the vast, frozen expanse of Cooks Bay. The pilot pointed the plane’s nose downward and watched wide-eyed with a mixture of fear and excitement as the frozen surface of the lake came rushing towards him. The plane hit hard but held together as it ploughed a path through the snow before coming to a stop, damaged by a bent propeller but otherwise intact. The pilot cheered with victory, thrilled to be alive.
Lifelong Gilford resident Sam Neilly witnessed it.
“Air force ground crew came to Gilford to replace the prop and get the plane airborne again,” he once told me. “But it couldn’t take off because the lake was covered in snow. They had to shovel a path on the ice so the plane could take off.”
In the end, both plane and pilot were safe.
