Katherine Bickford

Bristol Bolingbroke on display in Brandon, Manitoba

In 1937 the Bristol Aeroplane Co. developed the Bolingbroke as an improved version of the Blenheim Mk. I, light bomber. Development of the Bolingbroke was handed over to the RCAF, and Fairchild Aircraft, of Longueuil, Quebec was licenced to manufacture the Bolingbroke. The first Bolingbroke Mk. I flew in September 1939. A total of 626 Bristol Bolingbrokes were manufactured in Canada between 1939 and 1943.

Most Bolingbrokes were used as trainers with the bombing and gunnery schools of the BCATP, and in RCAF Coastal Command squadrons on anti submarine patrols on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Bolingbrokes were phased out of RCAF service at the end of the war in 1945.

Bolingbroke 9944 carries the registration number of one that crashed 12 miles north of the aerodrome at Paulson, Manitoba on July 7, 1943. Killed in the crash were Warrant Officer R.D. Mathers (RCAF), Leading Aircraftman P.A. Trudel (RCAF) and Leading Aircraftman N.M. Glenday (RNZAF). Bolingbroke 9944 was rebuilt by the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum with the assistance from the Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship.