INSIDE UPLANDS
During the long days of the Second World War, the wide, flat Ottawa Valley was a virtual production line for pilots bound for the battlefront theatres of Europe, North Africa, Asia and South Pacific. Young, eager men from distant lands and from the far corners of Canada would arrive by steam train at Ottawa's magnificent Union Station. Men, clothed in the blue great coats of the Royal air forces, leaned from the platforms and windows of incoming coaches making their way that last slow mile along the frozen Rideau Canal, peering at the gothic towers of Canada's Parliament Buildings, framed by a vast cumulus of steam rising from Hull's pulp and paper mills. The air was icy. The sky hard blue. The sons of New Zealand sheep farmers and cattlemen of Queensland, or the college students of California must have wondered just what frozen hell they were entering.
Soon, from the air, they would come to know this ancient valley very well. From Union Station they would find their way to flight schools and RCAF stations scattered across its flat plain - No. 10 EFTS Pendleton, No. 13 EFTS St. Eugene, No. 3 Flying Instructors School, Arnprior, RCAF Station Rockcliffe, the relief landing fields of Killaloe, Carp, Hawkesbury and others. But at the centre of it all was the massive No.2 Service Flying Training School at Uplands south of Ottawa - the present day home of Ottawa's Macdonald-Cartier International Airport.
Here, thousands of young men would complete their Service Flying Training on North American Harvards and Yales, after which they dispersed for further training, instructor school and for most the little understood risks of all out war in Europe and the Pacific. Ottawa would become a stepping off point where they would hone their nascent skills, build hours flying day and night. The risks of the war that was out over the horizon were great indeed, but training in itself was extremely dangerous and demanding. The sky above the Ottawa Valley, from Arnprior to Lac des Deux Montagnes, was a crowded place indeed. From sun-up to sundown, and to a lesser extent throughout the nights, Harvards, Yales, Tiger Moths, Cornels and Finches speckled the sky. Cross-country flights droned, formation practices thundered, aerobatics looped and spun and rolled in a crazy cacophony right down the whole valley. It was not a good time and place to be a mink farmer or to search for a quiet, meditative spot. There was a war on and the complainers were few.
All these aircraft required constant attention from mechanics and ground crews. As a result, bases like No. 2 SFTS Uplands had huge populations, not only of student and instructor pilots, but of service people, mechanics and administration staff. Over the past couple of years, whilst researching other stories, we have come across a number of photographs of operations in and around No. 2 SFTS. When viewed all together they begin to paint a picture of a day in the life of this long gone place in Canadian history.
Recently I was contacted by David Russell who shared with me a suite of photographs of day-to-day life at Uplands. With the images coming to light thanks to Russell, Vintage Wings has put together these and other images of No.2 SFTS so that you can perhaps see back over the decades and have a clearer picture of what this important facility in our community looked like. Let's go back nearly 70 years and take a look at a day in the life of Number Two Service Flying Training School, Uplands.