1940 Old De Havilland Canada hangar – Tiger Moth production
Image Credit: De Havilland Aircraft of Canada
With the outbreak of the Second World War, De Havilland Canada (DHC) became one of country’s largest aircraft manufacturers in Canada with 7,000 people directly employed at Downsview (including thousands of women) when production exceeded 50 aircraft a month, and another 8,000 people employed at subcontractors from coast to coast.
The first wartime challenge was to build training aircraft to equip the flying schools of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) in Canada. This resulted in the production of 1,959 single-engine DH 82C Tiger Moths and 375 twin-engine Avro Anson II trainers between 1940 and 1943, as well as the assembly of hundreds of training aircraft shipped from the UK.
The DH 82C Tiger Moth made a major contribution to the war effort with tens of thousands of pilots taking their initial flight training in these maneuverable yellow biplanes.
A large hangar with multiple bays was built south of the original DHC factory to accommodate the Tiger Moth and Anson production lines (now known as The Hangar at Downsview Park). The Massey Harris factory in the Toronto suburb of Weston built wings for Anson aircraft being assembled at Downsview and by National Steel Car at Malton airport.
The Tiger Moth equipped the majority of the Elementary Flying Training Schools (EFTS) in Canada prior to 1943, sharing the training duties with the Fleet Finch built in Fort Erie, Ontario.
In 1942 production shifted at Downsview to the famous twin-engine all-wood DH 98 Mosquito “Wooden Wonder”, which was one of the fastest and most versatile Allied fighter-bombers and reconnaissance aircraft of the War.
The first Canadian Mosquitos were built in secret in a rented building at 888 Dupont Street at the corner of Ossington Avenue in downtown Toronto and Massey Harris was awarded the Mosquito wing contract.
The prototype Canadian Mosquito (KB300) made its first flight at Downsview on Sept 23, 1942 and the secrecy was lifted in early October when test pilot Geoffrey de Havilland Jr. arrived from England and flew the Mosquito before a crowd of 4,000 DHC employees and VIPs.
To accommodate the Mosquito’s longer takeoff distances, the runways were lengthened with the east-west runway absorbing the fields occupied by the former Canadian Air Express airfield to the east and runway 15-33 incorporating the Toronto Flying Club airfield to the south bordering Wilson Avenue.
A total of 1,133 Mosquitos were built at Downsview between 1942 and 1945 of eight different variants on a moving assembly line, with production reaching almost 60 aircraft a month by the war’s end. The majority were flown across the Atlantic Ocean for delivery to the Royal Air Force (RAF) squadrons and United States Army Air Force (USAAF) photo reconnaissance units in the UK fighting in Europe.
When the Mosquito contract was cancelled in August 1945 at the end of hostilities, most of DHC’s employees lost their jobs in the transition to peacetime. In 1947-1948, about 205 undelivered Mosquitos stored in Canada were sold to China.
– Kenneth Swartz
Today, students from Centennial College, Toronto Metropolitan University, Queens University, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto are working together on collaborative DAIR projects, developing skills and helping to build an even stronger aerospace industry for Ontario and Canada.