On this day in 1942, an Edmonton fighter pilot was sharing his recent experiences during the infamous Dieppe raid of the Second World War.
Flying Officer Cliff Horncastle recounted the tale to a Canadian Press reporter a few days after the raid. The failed assault on the then German-controlled port of Dieppe, in France, led to a high number of Allied casualties, the majority of which were members of the Canadian infantry. Horncastle was flying with the overseas 414 Squadron during the raid. Its primary role was to provide reconnaissance on German troop movements and defences. However, as Horncastle told the reporter, he instead ended up in a battle with a German pilot in the skies above Dieppe.
The battle ended with both pilots living to fight another day. Horncastle was able to get behind the German fighter, but his guns malfunctioned and he wasn't able to down the aircraft. (The newspaper account called the P-51 Mustang plane ("a hawk without claws")).
Horncastle was born in Saskatchewan. His family then moved to Ponoka, and then eventually to Edmonton, where he attended high school. He worked as a clerk before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force in his early 20s.
He was one of many young men from Edmonton who joined the Air Force during the Second World War. Despite being on the other side of the world and away from the conflict, Edmonton served as a vital aviation hub during the Second World War. Blatchford Field became both a major training airfield for Allied pilots, as well as an important staging ground to fly supplies in to support forces and civilians in the Soviet Union (which was fighting the invading Germans). All this also prompted many local men to enlist in the Air Force, several of whom went on to become aces, like William McKnight and Russell Bannock.
But many of these pilots never returned home, Horncastle included. In November 1942, just a few months after the Dieppe mission, a fire started inside Horncastle's Mustang shortly after it took off from an airfield in England for a patrol operation. The 24-year-old pilot was killed when the plane crashed. The accident reportedly happened just a few days before Horncastle was supposed to serve as the best man in the wedding of a close friend, a pilot from Calgary.
The stories of pilots like Horncastle are part of Edmonton's wartime history. But the future of some of what remains of Blatchford Field is less fixed. Earlier this year, arson destroyed Hangar 11, which was built in 1942 as part of the wartime operations at the airfield. In May, Edmonton history advocate Dan Rose told Taproot that Hangar 11 was deeply important to the city's story. "You could pull a thread on each of those (narratives) and I think you'd end up at the same place with like, 'Wow, this was a pretty significant place in terms of social, cultural, (and) economic development of Edmonton as a region,'" Rose said.
The Alberta Aviation Museum is currently in negotiations with the City of Edmonton to take ownership of Hangar 14.
This clipping was found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist @revRecluse of @VintageEdmonton.