When Canada marks 100 years since the Battle of Vimy Ridge, replica First World War biplanes will roar past in honour of the pilots who risked their lives to collect crucial intelligence.
A group of aviation enthusiasts known as Vimy Flight have built the Nieuport biplane replicas and packed them into a Royal Canadian Air Force C-17 for transportation to the ceremony in France on April 9.
They鈥檝e also reconstructed two Sopwith Pup fighter planes that will be displayed on the ground. After the ceremony, the planes will return to Canada for a cross-country tour, funded in part by a Canada 150 grant.
team leader Allan Snowie says that the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service -- which included Canadian pilots as young as 18 years old -- were crucial to the Canadian victory over the Germans.
鈥淭he reason the Canadians took Vimy Ridge was the photoreconnaissance, the mapping they did,鈥� he said. 鈥淓very Canadian soldier got a map, and every soldier knew what he was going to do that day because of the way it was well-mapped.鈥�
Snowie said he plans to dedicate his flight to Joseph Fall, a Nanaimo, B.C. flying ace who shot down three dozen German planes. Fall鈥檚 Sopwith Pup, emblazoned with the names of his sisters Betty and Phyllis, is among the two rebuilt replicas.
鈥淚 call him Canada鈥檚 first snowbird because he stayed with the Royal Air Force and the first (British) Air Display (and) after the war he led the formation team,鈥� Snowie said.
Ray Fessenden, an aviation mechanic and lead builder with Vimy Flight, said he can鈥檛 even picture what it was like for the men who 鈥渃limbed into these fragile airplanes and went out there and got shot at.鈥�
Snowie said that he鈥檚 visited the Vimy memorial before and that seeing it brought tears to his eyes.
鈥淚鈥檒l try to keep my goggles clean on this one,鈥� he said.
More than 10,500 Canadians were killed or wounded during the four-day battle at Vimy, from April 9 to 12, 1917. 麻豆传媒 will carry special coverage of the ceremony on Sunday.
With a report from CTV鈥檚 Melanie Nagy
