Firefighters in West Dalhousie, NS, have successfully saved a monument to a fatal plane crash of World War II of a nearby forest fire, preserving a tangible piece of the history of war in Nueva Scotia.
It was on the path of a forest fire that threatens the area.
A monument on the site honors two Royal Air Force aviators who died during a training exercise in 1944 while flying a mosquito de de Havilland B MK XX, a variant built in Canadian of the Bomber plane.
Speaking in an informative news session from Wildfire on Wednesday, Dave Steeves, of the Department of Natural Resources, said that a division supervisor of the area knew about the importance of the site and did everything possible to guarantee its safety.
The natural resources firefighter, Cory Isenor, removed a cross plate with the names of the site aviators.
The plane took RCAF Greenwood on April 19, 1944 for a night training flight and crashed during the mission.
He dropped about 19 kilometers south-southeast of Bridgetown, NS, shortly after midnight on April 20.
The pilot officer James Gerald Brown, 20, and Flying officer Hugh Edward McCann, 21, were instantly killed.
Glen Gaudet of the Association of Heritage of Friday, an organization dedicated to investigating and commemorating the victims of the First and Second World War with ties with New Scotland, says that the site has great historical importance.
“Some would probably say that it is only a piece of remains in the forest, but it is a reminder that during World War II, even far from the first line of Europe and the Pacific, the cost of war was real and personal,” Gaudet said.
He said the monument is one of the few physical traces of the presence of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in the rural area of Nueva Scotia.
Brown and McCann were in New Scotland under that plan, like so many who came from everyone to complete air training, he said.
The mosquito, nicknamed the wood of wood due to the wood used in its construction, was a versatile combat plane.
The plane that crashed was part of an operational training unit based in Greenwood that prepared teams for first -line service.
The remains of the aircraft, mainly metal components given its wooden fuselage, are still scattered throughout the area, known locally as the “plane crash path.”
Gaudet said that the remote location of the site makes it a moving milestone.
“It is one of the only shock sites that is really marked, where people can stop and reflect on the very tangible impact that the war had in Nueva Scotia,” he said.
“It’s just a reminder that World War II approached a lot in New Scotland of what we thought, and training accidents were quite common.”
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