RCAF Station MacDonald
General Information
Base / Station: MacDonald
Province: Manitoba
Period of Information: 1941 – 1945, 1946-?
Units:
- No. 3 Bombing and Gunnery School
- Formed 10 March 1941
- trained Air Observers (navigators/bomb aimers and wireless operators) on the techniques of air to air firing.
- trained Navigators/Bombaimers on bombing to allow these trades to carry out bombing missions.
- All practical training was done on the accompanying bombing and gunnery ranges.
- Aircraft flown:
- Fairry Battle (41-42),
- Avro Anson (42-45),
- Bristol Bolingbroke (42- 45), and
- Lysander (42-45)
- Disbanded – 17 February 1945
- No. 2 Advanced Flying School
- No. 1 Pilots Weapon School
- No. 4 Advanced Flying Training School
Unit Duties / Information:
- The base was home to No. 2 Advanced Flying School. This school was responsible for pilots’ advanced flying training. NEED AN OPENING DATE??
- PURPOSE OF NO. 1 PWS AND OPENING DATE?? COULD BE A CONTINUATION OF THE TRAINING PROVIDED BY THE BOMBING AND GUNNERY SCHOOL LOCATED AT MACDONALD UNDER THE BRITISH COMM0NWEALTH AIR TRAINING PLAN??
- July 22, 1956 No. 1 Pilots Weapon School was redesignated No. 4 Advanced Flying Training School. WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THIS SCHOOL??
- There was No. 2 Advanced Flying School located here – when was it formed – what was the final closing date of the base??
Image from the
RCAF Pilots Manual of Aerodromes and Seaplane Bases
circa 1942.
Financial Impact: $1,842,475 (total cost of BCATP construction to 15 Mar 1942)
Commanding Officers:
- Group Captain R.F. Gibb, AFC (Air Force Cross)
- on 6 August 1943
Date / Reason for closure:
No. 2 Advanced Flying School was moved to Portage la Prairie November 15, 1952.
WHAT HAPPENED TO NO. 4 AFTS?? / NEED A FINAL CLOSING DATE FOR THE BASE??
Site Evolution:
- The Publication On Track…the Pilot’s Air Travel Guide (First Annual Edition – 1978) lists the Aerodrome as “MacDonald – Lat:50 05N – Long:98 27W – GMT-6(5) – 62SE, E-17 – Abandoned”
Current Status: abandoned airfield, runways dug up, most hangars and some base buildings still exist, owned by Airport Colony Farms, a Hutterite farming colony
Location – Google Map
Photo Gallery
Photo Provided by Euan Price on Facebook
Station Magazine
“Tracer”
Daily Diary – Links – No. 3 Bombing & Gunnery School
The Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum, Brandon, Manitoba has created a transcription of this Daily Diary.
Their web site is AirMuseum.ca
Fatalities
This list was compiled from the entries in the Daily diaries of No. 3 Bombing & Gunnery School and other sources. The list likely does not include all fatalities of personnel who died while stationed at RCAF Station MacDonald, and likely includes some errors. Currently this list contains 16 personnel.
7 June 1941
27 June 1941
17 July 1941
9 May 1942
11 July 1942
19 July 1942
6 June 1943
14 December 1943
19 August 1944
Aircraft List
Battle
1755
Course List
No 3 Bombing & Gunnery School
For More information – External Links
- Wikipedia
- MilitaryBruce.com – Canadian Military History by Bruce Forsyth
- Manitoba Historical Society
- Facebook Groups:
Do you want more history on this Station?
Yes please always looking for more complete information on the subjects of the pages
No 4 AFTS. I trained there November 1956-February 1957. The school’s purpose was training of NATO pilots; British (Royal Air Force), French (Armée de l’Air), Canadian and a scattering of Scandinavian. Our initial training was on Harvards at RCAF Centralia or RCAF Moose Jaw. We then came to 4AFS for conversion to T-33’s and onward to graduation as service pilots. Some of the British pilots were hoping to make the RAF their career, some (like myself) had struck lucky with the UK National Service obligation. The French were all would-be career service pilots. They were all a great bunch, as were our instructors. Why some of us ended up at Macdonald, some at Gimli and some at Portage la Prairie none of us ever knew. 4AFS can’t have lasted very long. I think our course must have been about the third, and probably only one more after us, the NATO scheme was being run down. A notable 4AFS graduate was Neil Williams (RAF) who became one of the world’s best aerobatic pilots.I graduated at 4AFS, in due course was returned to the UK and thanks to UK politics never flew again. I’m now ninety and one of a very select bunch of bona-fide qualified RAF pilots who have never had their hands on the controls of an RAF aircraft. Bless you both, Centralia and Macdonald.