The Politics of British Commonwealth Air Training Plan Base Selection

Between 1940 and 1945 Canada trained 131533Commonwealth pilots and air crew under the BCATP forthe Allied war effort. To do so the RCAF had toexpand its aerodrome infrastructure to accommodateover one hundred training schools and their auxiliaryfields. Few historians have considered the siteselection process assuming that community lobbyingand political patronage determined where air baseswere built. To verify these hypotheses the authorhas consulted the primary records (politicians'personal papers communities' lobbying lettersofficial investigation reports and final selectiondecisions) reconstructed the BCATP selectionprocess and discovered that partisan politics playedno part. Experts from the Department of Transportand the RCAF evaluated and selected sites accordingto pre-determined objective and technical criteriathat ensured the timely and economical development ofaerodromes suitable for military air training. Thebook will be of value to anyone interested inCanada's air force government policy civil-militaryrelations political activism and the Westernprovinces during the Second World War.