“Harvard trainer at Claresholm, Alberta.”, 1943, (CU1148674) by Unknown. Courtesy of Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.
A 1943 Mid-air collision claims three RAF Airmen during wwII training exercise
On January 7, 1943, a mid-air collision between two Harvard training aircraft from Calgary’s No. 37 Service Flying Training School claimed the lives of three Royal Air Force (RAF) airmen. The crash occurred north of Chestermere, Alberta, in a farm pasture roughly three-quarters of a mile north of the intersection of Inverlake Road and Range Road 282. The aircraft collided during a training exercise, with the wreckage falling on the east side of the Range Road.
The victims of the crash were Pilot Officer Philip Duncan Corlett, 21, from Liverpool, serving as a flight instructor; Leading Aircraftman Alfred Leder, 25, from London, a trainee pilot; and Leading Aircraftman David Alexander McAuley, 19, from Northern Ireland, also a trainee pilot. All three were members of the Royal Air Force.
The collision was witnessed by local residents, including Frank McElroy, who was working on his farm nearby. Another local, Carman Ellis, was among the first to reach the crash site. Ellis reportedly drove to the scene so hastily that he forgot to engage the brake on his vehicle, causing it to roll into a ditch.
The landowners were temporarily hired by the military to guard the wreckage overnight until an official investigation could be carried out. Debris from the crash was scattered across the pasture, and fragments remained even after the area was cleared. One such fragment was fashioned into a letter opener, which is still held by the McElroy family, descendants of the original landowners.
The victims were laid to rest in cemeteries across Canada. Philip Duncan Corlett is interred at Burnsland Cemetery’s Field of Honour in Calgary. Alfred Leder was buried in Calgary’s Jewish Cemetery, and David Alexander McAuley was laid to rest in Greenwood Cemetery, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, where his uncle lived.
This tragic incident was one of several training accidents during World War II, part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), which operated flight schools across Canada, including Calgary’s No. 37 SFTS.
