The only one left in the world

[David Dunlop]

Tony.

Sometime mid-1950's, my parents took me to an air show here in Winnipeg held at the then original RCAF Station Winnipeg wartime base. In the 1960's the entire operation was moved from the southeast corner of the airfield to the west side and the last of the wartime hangers was torn down about 7 or 8 years ago.

I know the air show lasted the whole day, but the most memorable thing for me was watching six Seafires perform. They had come up from Shearwater, Nova Scotia as I recall Dad saying and they put on quite a show, the grand finally being a strafing run from south to north across the field, at a wooden shed target which had been placed at the north end of the field. I can remember the sound of the blanks being fired from the aircraft guns and when the final Seafire made it's pass, they blew up the shed with a small charge.

We had great seats for all this on a long green metal frame bleacher with wooden seats set up along the edge of the grass at the front of the ramp in front of the hanger line. I am not sure where the other Seafires parked after the show, but they brought one up behind the bleachers to park as a static display at the end of the show. I climbed down from the bleachers and walked over to watch it taxi in. The sound of that huge Rolls Royce engine idling was deafening and awesome to my little ears. The true highlight, however, was when the pilot shut the engine off and as it wound down it backfired two or three times. My feet must have been 8 inches off the ground when it finally stopped and I have been hooked on WW2 fighter aircraft ever since! I think there is a surviving RCN Seafire somewhere in Calgary, along with possibly a Hawker Sea Fury.

David