It is now 70 years since the Battle of Norway and the Battle of Britain and on that occasion there will be an exciting air show in Muskoka on 17-18 July. This is an excellent opportunity to see aircrafts such as the 1949 Boeing Stearman and 1942 Hawker Hurricane XII fly high above the ground.
Norway’s participation in the Second World War started on April 9 1940 with the Nazis invasion of Norway. Luckily, the Norwegian King and the Government escaped from Oslo while the Norwegian troops held back the German forces. The Norwegians were unaided for three weeks before the Allied forces arrived. Together they were facing an enemy superior in manpower and equipment and the resistance was thus a difficult one. As a result, in June 1940, the active resistance on Norwegian soil came to an end as both the King and the Government went into exile in London.
The Norwegian Government had plans to create training camps abroad in order to reorganize the Norwegian Royal Air Force. The original plan was to establish these in France, but due to Hitler’s invasion of France the plans were changed. The Norwegians then turned to the Canadian Government for negotiations and a camp was set up in “Little Norway” in Ontario. Here, young Norwegians were trained to become pilots and air crews in order to return to the European continent to fight on the side of the Allied troops.
Training was initially conducted using combat planes, some 20 million dollars worth, purchased from the United States before the war. They did not reach Norway in time to be used in the first months of the war. They were therefore delivered to Little Norway. Combat planes such as the Fairchild PT-19 elementary trainers, Curtiss fighters, Douglas attack bombers and Northrop patrol seaplanes were all used. They were later joined by Harvard trainers purchased with some of the 400,000 dollars received under the "Wings for Norway" fundraising campaign which received contributions from various Nordic associations, including some 100,000 dollars from Swedish-Americans, Norwegian expatriates, Canadians and Americans.
In 1942 a second training centre was established at Muskoka Airport, 120 miles north of Toronto. Once the Royal Canadian Air Force purchased the Toronto training centre, "Little Norway" was transferred to Muskoka, although the original aerodrome was still at the disposal of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. More than 2600 Norwegian officers, aircrew and ground crew trained for the war effort in Toronto and Muskoka between 1940 and 1945.
Read more and see photos at: Muskoka 2010 Air Show