The Bomber Command Museum of Canada in Nanton, Alta., has added an historic aircraft to its collection after acquiring a B-25 bomber in late October. The plane sat in a Wetaskiwin field for close to 30 years before its owner made the deal to send it south. It took the crew at Rangeland Trucking two days to make the 400-kilometre journey on back roads to its new home. Now the bomber is in storage near the museum. “I’m always looking for stock machines that haven’t been butchered inside – modified, whatever,” said Karl Kjarsgaard, the museum’s curator. “This one is as stock as you can get from the factory – all inside, everything is still the way it was when it was built in 1944.” Kjarsgaard says this B-25 last saw service in Winnipeg, Man. and Trenton, Ont. It was one of the last of the B-25s to be produced in California, and the bomber was in use all over the world. Kjarsgaard says the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) had several hundred of them which they used them in combat up to the end of the Second World War. “They found out how good a B-25 was for training bomber crews after the war,” he said. “During the Cold War, they kept them as navigation trainers and this particular one came to the RCAF in 1952 and then was surplus out in 1962.” Kjarsgaard says there are a handful of restored B-25s in Canada but many more south of the border. “There’s quite a few in the United States,” he said. “There’s, I believe, two or three existing in Canada, but this is the sort of unrestored B-25 you would love to have. We have all the parts, all the engines, all the wings, all the propellers – we have everything -- so we’re ready to roll on this, but we’ve got to have a massive expansion of our museum (to make it fit inside).” Dan Fox, museum VP, says the aircraft spent a number of years parked in southern Alberta. “I remember I first got to climb in this aircraft when it was in storage at a pseudo air museum down by Cardston on the border,” he said. “It was sitting there outside at that time, and that would have been back in 1991 or so.” Fox says this aircraft, once it’s restored and on public display at the museum, will help tell the story of RCAF history. “It’s a major addition to our collection, because it’s a very large aircraft, and if we had this in our museum and could show it off, I think people would really be impressed,” he said. “To imagine these young fellows climbing into an airplane this big and taking off and heading over Europe, it had to be a heck of an experience for them.” Fox says now that the B-25 belongs to the museum, the process of cataloguing what the aircraft has and what it needs to be restored will begin. “And it’s of course going to be a big job redoing some of the damage that’s been done to it, but it’s a doable project.” Kjarsgaard says it’s going to be a multi-year project once money is raised and volunteers can begin to restore the bomber. “When you come to see us rebuilding, we are going to tell you the stories of the men of Bomber Command that gave you your freedom, so it’s saving history,” he said. The museum is hosting a Remembrance Day ceremony on Nov. 11, and the museum will be open the entire day at no charge.
