Airmen honoured as Second World War plane pulled from Lake Muskoka

BRACEBRIDGE, Ont. – Two young airmen killed during the Second World War were honoured with a moment of silence today as wreckage of their crashed plane was pulled from an Ontario lake.

A recovery team hoisted a wheel and part of the plane’s tail section from Lake Muskoka, where the Northrop A-17 Nomad aircraft sank in December 1940 after a mid-air collision.

Both airplanes were on a rescue mission searching for an airman who had gone missing.

The other plane was located shortly after the crash; both men on board were killed.

But the plane carrying 24-year-old pilot Peter Campbell and 27-year-old observer Theodore Bates would not be found until some seven decades later.

It was first discovered in 2010 and the remains of Campbell and Bates were pulled from the water in 2012. Both were buried in Woodside Memorial Park in Guelph in 2013.

Royal Canadian Air Force Maj. Jan Kennedy says the fact that Tuesday’s recovery mission was happening at the same time that Cpl. Nathan Cirillo had his funeral in Hamilton made the day all the more poignant.

“It’s been an extremely emotional day today, with the recovery of the tail … it drives home the story of the two people who perished here. And to have that occur on the day of the funeral is unbelievable,” Kennedy said.

She called the 1940 crash “a heartbreaking story.”

Bates had just received his pilot’s wings the day before the crash and was given the day off.

But after hearing that a fellow airman had gone missing, he volunteered to help in the search.

“He didn’t even have time to sew his wings onto his uniform, he tucked them into his pocket,” Kennedy said.

“The weather was terrible and he ended up in a mid-air collision.”

If all goes according to plan, the Royal Canadian Air Force hopes the main fuselage of the plane will be moved out of the water by Sunday. It is set to be transported to the National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton, Ont.