Google Earth allows us to see things that we miss from ground level. What is invisible, driving south of Hartney on Highway #21 is quite clear from the air.
It is indeed an airfield.
In fact, it is what remains of Relief Field 1 for No. 17 Service Flying Training School based at RCAF Station Souris. The Souris Station was a Second World War British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) unit operated and administered by the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF).
The school opened in March of 1943 and closed in March of 1945. Aircraft used included the Harvard and Anson. The field at Hartney was an important element, providing much needed runway space and infrastructure for the repeated takeoff and landings required in the intensive training program. The Hartney Board of Trade learned in 1942 that the relief field planned for Hartney would have one large hangar and personnel of eighty men and twenty-five officers. In November the site of the airport was chosen on farmland owned by Mrs. Horace Fry, and operated by T. H. Hopkins. The farm buildings were removed to other land owned by Mrs. Fry and construction of the hangar began. The hangar and airfield were completed and ready for operation by September 1942. During 1943, training planes flying over the town between the Souris and Hartney airports were a constant reminder of war activity. Shortages of rationed articles, sugar, tea, coffee, butter and gasoline gave Canadian people a slight understanding of the supply difficulties of the British people.
Post War
When training at the Souris and Hartney airports ceased, the Somerville brothers, Hartley and Walter purchased the airport at Hartney from the War Assets Commission, to house equipment for their large farming operation. The brothers also secured pilot's licenses and bought a Tiger Moth airplane with which to supervise their widely scattered farms. Their custom combining operation took them as far south as Kansas. The men of their work crew, twenty-five to thirty-five in number, were housed at the airport and fed by the wives of two of the workmen.
Today as one drives by on the highway there isn’t much to see, but the view from above is still pretty impressive. In 1980 a new airport with grass runways was established one mile west of the first site. Sources:
Hartney and District Historical Committee. A Century of Living - Hartney & District 1882 – 1982. Steinbach. Derksen Printers, 1982.
Ewen Mosby Collection
Photo by Gordon Goldsborough
