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Army Camps on Sea Island, 1937
(Harvey Stewart)
The Canadian military was present on Sea Island in Richmond, British Columbia in Canada prior to the onset of World War II (WWII). Army Camps consisting of an encampment of huts (hutments) were established before the war.
Through the recollections of military personnel and Sea Islanders, we learned that Army Camps were present on Sea Island at least since 1935, before WWII was declared in 1939.
We know of the following:
When WWII broke out in 1939, Canada was an ocean away from the fighting in Europe. Under a deal signed in 1939, Canada agreed to provide facilities and training for airmen from every part of the Commonwealth under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCAPT) agreement. Canada declared war on Germany on September 10, 1939, seven days after Britian and France. Enlistment in the military soared, and manufacturing grew, in particular shipbuilding and aircraft construction. The outbreak of World War II meant great changes at the Vancouver Civic Airport (renamed Vancouver International Airport - YVR in 1948) on Sea Island in British Columbia. As the only established air base on the West Coast available to the Canadian armed forces, it became a defence zone operational base of the RCAF. William Templeton remained as the Civilian Manager. He said, “It was a radical new phase, we now had to assume responsibility first to His Majesty and second to taxpayers of Vancouver.”
RCAF Station Sea Island was established beside the Vancouver Airport on July 22, 1940, under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, first as No. 8 Elementary Flying Training School. It was situated across the airfield, about 1 mile north of the Vancouver Airport civilian terminal.
In March 1942, RCAF Station Sea Island (later renamed RCAF Station Vancouver) emerged as an entity in itself, with the formation of a headquarters. Its many branches – supply, accounts, technical and others – provided the administrative and logistic support for a diversity of flying units.
In 1961, RCAF Station Sea Island was made up of station personnel, No. 121 Composite Unit, and Nos. 442 and 443 Auxiliary Squadrons. During July and August of each year, the station hosted approximately 1,800 air cadets at summer camp. The station had a 10-bed hospital, two chapels, a large recreation centre, a library, bowling alleys, a hobby shop and 109 PMQs located on 543 acres of perennial evergreen.
It was bound on the east side by the Burkeville residential area, on the north side by Miller Road and on the west and south sides by the airport shared runway taxiways. The RCAF base was accessed through the guard house gate on Jericho Road at Miller Road. The residential area of the base, the PMQs, were located on the east side of the base and accessed from Aylmer Road off Miller Road.
RCAF Station Sea Island Photographic Plan, April 6, 1959
(Department of National Defence)
RCAF squadrons were posted at Sea Island prior to, during and post WWII. Some squadrons were on Sea Island for a short duration before being shipped to other battlegrounds. Some were formed for the war effort and disbanded during or shortly after, while others are still active today under new designations.
440 Squadron was formed as the No. 11(Army Cooperation) Squadron in 1932. In 1937, it was redesignated No. 111 (Coast Artillery Co-operation) Squadron. It was stationed at Sea Island between May 1935 to May 1940, and again, between March 1943 and January 1944. They had a hangar on the south side of the Vancouver Civic Airport until 1940. In 1940, they were redesignated No. 111 (Fighter) Squadron and relocated at RCAF Station Patricia Bay in Sidney, British Columbia located on Vancouver Island. The squadron was disbanded in 1941, then redesignated 440 Squadron (Fighter Bomber) and Communications and Rescue, and Transport Rescue. It now operates under its last designation as 440 Transport Squadron.
On July 22, 1940, the Royal Canadian Air Force Station Sea Island (RCAF Station Sea Island) was established beside the Vancouver Airport as No. 8 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS) under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan to train more than 131,000 Canadian and Allied aircrew. Soon, the little yellow Tiger Moths became familiar to all residents of Richmond as the Vancouver Air Training School, formerly the Aero Club of British Columbia, put young men through their initial eight weeks of training. The RCAF Station Sea Island pilots had grass runways on which to land. The grass runways were eventually replaced by a Congo mat (steel mesh mat) runway. Airforce personnel guarded all entrances to the airport grounds and facilities. In January 1942, the No. 8 EFTS relocated to RCAF Station Boundary Bay and became No. 18 EFTS.
Commemoration of No. 8 EFTS Squadron on Sea Island in 1991
L-R: Jerry Lloyd (President of BCAC), Frank O’Neill (long-time GM at YVR), Rollie Back (BCAC), unidentified,
Colonel Jack McGee (Ret’d), unidentified, Bill Marr, 1st No. 8 EFTS graduating class
(Canadian Armed Forces)
On July 22, 1991, Colonel John (Jack) McGee (Retired), the RCAF Comox Base Commander at the time unveiled a commemoration plaque erected on a large rock on Cowley Crescent at the YVR South Terminal on Sea Island. Jerry Lloyd, the President of the British Columbia Aviation Council (BCAC) and Rollie Black also of the BCAC were present, along with Frank O'Neill, the YVR General Manager, Bill Marr, a veteran and member of the first graduating class of the No. 8 EFTS Squadron on Sea Island and a number of other veterans from the same graduating class.
In 1940, the No. 13 Operational Training Squadron was also established at the Vancouver Airport but its stay was brief. It was relocated to RCAF Station Patricia Bay, in November 1940.
In December 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the No. 8 (Bomber Reconnaissance) Squadron was moved to RCAF Station Sea Island as part of the RCAF Western Air Command. Equipped with Northrop Deltas and Bristol Bolingbrokes, the squadron was tasked with anti-submarine duty. In June 1942, it was moved to Alaska in response to the Japanese attack on the Aleutians. The squadron returned to Station Sea Island in March 1943. The No. 8 Squadron was disbanded at RCAF Station Patricia Bay on May 25, 1945.
The No. 147 (Bomber Reconnaissance) Squadron was a Canadian Home War Establishment (HWE) squadron formed in July 1942 as part of the Western Air Command at Sea Island where they were tasked with anti-submarine duty. No. 147 Squadron was disbanded on March 15, 1944.
While bomber reconnaissance and fighter squadrons came and went from RCAF Station Sea Island, the No. 165 (Transport) Squadron and the No. 166 (Communication) Squadron remained at Sea Island for longer periods. They came to the West Coast early in 1943 and were disbanded at Sea Island in October 1945.
The 165 (Transport) Squadron flew on transportation and paratrooper training operations in Western Canada under Western Air Command, while the No. 166 (Communication) Squadron flew on communication and rescue operations in the same command.
The 442 Transport and Rescue Squadron was first activated in 1942, flying Curtiss Kittyhawks as No. 14 (Fighter) Squadron with the Western Air Command. The squadron moved to Alaska during the Aleutian Islands Campaign. It was renumbered the 442 Fighter Squadron and transferred to England in 1944. In 1945, the squadron was disbanded in England and reformed a year later at Station Sea Island as an auxiliary fighter squadron with deHavilland Vampires. It was disbanded in 1964 and reformed during the 1968 unification of the Canadian Forces as 442 Communications and Rescue Squadron at CFB Comox before being redesignated to its current name of 442 Transport and Rescue Squadron.
TheThe No. 163 (Army Co-Operation) Squadron was authorized on December 10, 1942. It was redesignated No. 163 (Fighter) Squadron on October 27, 1943, and disbanded on March 15, 1944. The squadron flew on photographic, close air support and air defence operations in Alberta and on the Pacific Coast under the Western Air Command. It was stationed at Sea Island Station between March 1943 and June 1944 flying Bolingbrokes, Cranes, Harvards and Kittyhawks. The squadron had no badge/motto or battle honours.
The No. 133 (Fighter) Squadron was authorized on June 3, 1942 and disbanded on September 10, 1942. It flew on air defence operations under the Western Air Command. It was stationed at Station Sea Island between March 10 and August 20, 1944 flying Hawker Hurricane MkIIB, Hawker Hurricane XII and Curtiss Kittyhawk I & II. The squadron had no badge/motto or battle honours.
The 2442 AC&W Squadron (Auxiliary) was formed in 1950 as the 2442 Aircraft Control & Warning Unit (Reserve) in Vancouver to train personnel in radar operations. It was redesignated as 2442 Aircraft Control & Warning Unit (Auxiliary) in 1951 and became a squadron in 1953. In 1951, the squadron was moved to a building converted for it at Station Sea Island. It was disbanded in 1961.
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During WWII, the role of women in Canadian society changed dramatically. Canada needed women to pitch in and support the war effort from their homes, to work at jobs traditionally held by men, and to serve in the military. Many women took a wide variety of civilian jobs once filled by men. Canada had its own version of the “Rosie the Riveter”, the symbolic working woman who laboured in factories to help the war effort.
Women worked shoulder-to-shoulder with men in factories, on airfields and farms. Many of the employees at the Boeing Canada plant on Sea Island were women. Boeing Canada actively solicited women workers, especially after the Americans joined the war in December 1941. Women's smaller physical size and manual dexterity helped them develop a great reputation for fine precision work in electronics, optics, and instrument assembly. Due to their stature, they could work in cramped spaces on aircraft wiring and riveting. The aircraft riveters became well-known and were called "Rosie Riveters".
To work at Boeing Canada on Sea Island during WWII, you first went to an interview at their office on West Georgia Street, in Vancouver. If hired, you were fingerprinted for your identification card and told to buy coveralls, flat shoes or a sensible-type of Oxford shoes. Women had to wear kerchiefs to keep their hair from becoming tangled in the machinery, and Boeing Canada did not pay for any of these. At the peak of wartime employment in 1943-44, Veterans Canada estimated that 439,000 women worked in the service sector, 373,000 in manufacturing and 4,000 in construction.
In a letter to the Editor published in the November 10, 2004, edition of the Nanaimo Harbour City Star newspaper, Ms. Eileen Garcia wrote that Edna Isabel Beveridge was the first blind woman hired by Boeing Canada to sort and package rivets in their Vancouver war plant. Ms. Garcia went on to say that generous co-workers raised $1600 to send her to New York to determine if she was a candidate for one of the early cornea transplants. Ms. Garcia is the author of the book, "Beyond Jericho, Growing Up Blind and Resilient - The Story of Isabel Beveridge."
After WWII, RCAF Station Sea Island was renamed RCAF Station Vancouver.
In 1951, Canada went through a year of “protective re-armament” in response to the Cold War of the post WWII era. Part of the strategy was the expansion of the RCAF Reserve Forces across the country in selected bases such as Sea Island. This brought a return to training exercises on Sea Island.
During the Korean War (1950-1953), the RCAF enlisted CP Air to help fly wounded men and women from Japan to hospital facilities at McChord Air Force Base in Washington State in the United States aboard DC-4 aircraft (Canadair North Star aircraft). RCAF flight nurses like Margaret Mary Kennedy Jasper of RCAF Station Sea Island/Vancouver assisted with the trips.
When the Canadian military reorganized and consolidated services in the 1960s, several military bases were downsized, merged or closed as a result. RCAF Station Vancouver closed on March 31, 1964. Aircraft and the squadrons were relocated to Canadian Forces Base Comox (CFB Comox) on Vancouver Island in British Columbia where they remain to this date (2023).
The PMQ houses of RCAF Station Vancouver and the PMQ houses of RCAF Jericho Beach were administered by one Commanding Officer until 1973, when they were sold and moved onto First Nations Reserves along the Salish Sea (Georgia Straight).
Today this area on Sea Island is part of Vancouver International Airport (YVR).
The Sea Island Heritage Society continues to document the history of the squadrons and its members who were stationed at RCAF Station Sea Island (later renamed RCAF Station Vancouver) during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the Aleutians, before, during and post World War II.
The Society often requests the assistance of the Comox Air Force Museum in their research. The Comox Museum has an extensive collection of periodicals, photographs, logbooks and primary documents in their research library including information from the large databases of military personnel who served prepared by Canadian military historian Hugh A. Halliday and Surgeon Commander (ex F/O) John Blatherwick. The Comox Museum is accredited as a stand-alone Canadian Forces Museum.
Through this mutual collaboration, the Comox Museum keeps the Society informed of many military events and happenings. The Comox Museum informed the Society of an exciting upcoming event involving an aircraft stationed on Sea Island from 1948 to 1956.
A 1948 DeHavilland Vampire Mark III, tail number 17031 stationed on Sea Island for eight years was taken on the Public Account of the Comox Museum at 19 Wing Comox on May 5, 2000. It arrived in flying condition and was declared an artifact in February 2001. But due to its unique wooden construction, the Comox Museum was not able to store it outside and it has been kept in a hangar since its arrival.
1948 DeHavilland Vampire Mark III, tail number 17031 stationed at Sea Island 1948-1956
(Comox Air Force Museum)
To mark the 100-year anniversary of the RCAF in 2024, 19 Wing and the Comox Valley Air Force Museum Association are fundraising to construct a pavilion to house the DeHavilland Vampire Mark III, tail number 17031 to be able to display the plane.