In the early years of aviation, pilots would travel around the country in their rickety airplanes, treating people at small town fairs to exhibitions of stunt flying and taking paying passengers up for rides high above the trees.
They were also known to “buzz” people, vehicles and buildings in rural areas by swooping down at them at high speeds. It was all part of the thrill and novelty of aviation, and was known as “barnstorming.”
However, unusual activity in the sky by unidentified aircraft was ill-advised in time of war.
The first sighting of something strange in the sky over Wellington County came one evening in March of 1944. This was before the heyday of UFO sightings. Farmers heard the engine of a low-flying aircraft. When they looked up, they saw what appeared to be a plane on fire. Then they saw a glowing object, which some people thought was a bomb, fall from the plane.
There was no subsequent explosion, but soon the lights of another aircraft appeared. Then both planes flew off into the darkness.
The entire incident lasted about 20 minutes.
At that time, Canada was at war with the Axis powers. Nobody actually thought a German Focke Wulf fighter or a Japanese Zero could somehow appear in the sky over central Canada, but the whole thing seemed strange, especially since there was no report of any plane crash in the area, and the military offered no explanation – if they even had one.
Back in the First World War there had been reports of enemy spies and saboteurs lurking in the shadows in Canada, and people learned after the fact that a notorious German agent had been secretly lodged in the Guelph jail.
So now, with Canada locked in a deadly conflict with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, people wondered.
The general public didn’t know one of the twin engines of a training plane called an Avro Anson had caught fire, and the pilot had dropped an emergency flare to alert others of his problem. That had drawn a second plane to the scene. Both planes had returned safely to their base.
A few months later, on a July afternoon, another Avro Anson trainer flying over Wellington County was forced to make an emergency landing in a field in the face of an approaching thunderstorm. The plane smashed through a fence and left a trail of debris. Fortunately, nobody was injured.
Inquisitive boys came to investigate and picked up bits of wreckage as souvenirs before police or air force personnel arrived.
Throughout that summer there were reports of another mysterious plane, this one a single engine aircraft, in the sky over Wellington Country. It had no markings, indicating it was not an air force trainer. It flew low – too low for the liking of some of the people who saw it – and it seemed to be making unusual manoeuvres.
Reports said it made unregulated landings in hay fields, and then took off again.
The RCAF started receiving reports of a strange aircraft, and they knew only that it wasn’t one of theirs. Instructions were sent to RCMP stations in Kitchener and Guelph, and even London for officers to keep watch for the plane. Constables responded to reports of sightings, driving out to the countryside to look for a phantom among the clouds and the stars.
The policemen never saw a thing, even though they compiled a thick file on the matter. Rumours circulated the police and military suspected
espionage. Just because enemy planes couldn’t make it all the way to Canada didn’t mean enemy agents already in our midst couldn’t be using aircraft to carry out spy missions.
By February of 1945 it was clear Hitler had no hope of winning the war and Nazi Germany’s total defeat was just a matter of time. But on Sunday, Feb. 11, it seemed once again something sinister was going on in the skies over Wellington County. The unmarked plane buzzed a church in Maryborough during services.
The barnstorming pilot flew so low over the building the windows rattled and soot was shaken from the chimney. The roar of the engine drowned out the words of the minister’s sermon.
However, the reverend didn’t think he’d just been buzzed by a barnstorming German agent. He knew exactly where the plane came from and who was at the controls. Other people in the area had known who the barnstormer was, too. They just hadn’t bothered to tell the authorities or their uninformed neighbours.
But the minister was so angry about his sermon being rudely interrupted he made a phone call to complain about a breach of the Lord’s Day Act.
Over a year earlier, the owner of a small private plane had made a crash landing in Lake Belwood. He’d escaped the wreck intact, but considered the plane a write-off. He sold the crumpled ruin to a young Kitchener man named Andrew McKimmon who worked at the tiny Breslau airport.
McKimmon had formerly resided in Guelph where he’d been employed as an auto mechanic.
McKimmon salvaged the plane and rebuilt it. He added a few alterations of his own which meant the plane didn’t exactly match known local aircraft. He then took it for barnstorming joy rides around the countryside. He even stopped in farmers’ fields and gave people short rides for $2 a go.
The plane had no identifying markings and was not licenced or registered.
Thanks to the phone call the minister of the Maryborough church made, this time when McKimmon landed at Breslau, RCMP officers were waiting for him with a warrant. McKimmon was charged with flying an unlicensed aircraft, carrying passengers without a permit, and flying passengers without a commercial licence.
This all led McKimmon to a day in Guelph’s police court.
The prosecutor representing the Crown had prepared a substantial case and wanted the reckless aviator to suffer the full wrath of the law. After all, there was a war on – even if it was all but over.
Fortunately for McKimmon, the magistrate found the whole case somewhat amusing and decided to go easy on the young barnstormer. He fined McKimmon $100 plus court costs.
Peace and quiet returned to the skies above Wellington County.
