No. 39 Service Flying Training School:
by Bruce Forsyth (www.militarybruce.com), with permission
Opened on 15 December 1941 east of Swift Current as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, with Relief Landing Fields at St. Aldwyn, Wymark and Ralph (ed note, this latter is an error). The school closed on 11 February 1944.
The aerodrome is now the Swift Current Airport. Two runways remain in use by the South West Flying Club.
All that remains of the wartime school are one complete hangar, one partial hangar, the tower for the original control room (but not the control room itself), the gunnery backstop, the maintenance garage and the water pumping station.
All that remains of RCAF Detachment St. Aldwyn is the abandoned airfield and the hangar pad.
Source material: “Wings For Victory” by Spencer Dunmore & Kevin Haglund, local resident of Swift Current (2005).
The following perished while serving at No. 39 SFTS: DO Ashcroft, HW Booker, S Broome, JF Clark, D Geldart, LG Gray, CS Guttridge, J Helme, JA Howard, DTB Leader, WH Lloyd, CH O’Bryan, DA Pettigrew, E Sowery, CJ Street, NL Streeter, AB Thompson and TN Wood.