Ploughshares to Swords: Manufacturing Aircraft for World War II

Ploughshares to Swords: Manufacturing Aircraft for World War II is the story of the evolution, by necessity, of the aircraft industry as it “ramped up” for war in 1938, to 1945. Dr. Garry Balsdon is a tour guide and instructor of WWII history to Grade 10 students at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum at Mount Hope. Photos will be enhanced by stories of some operations, and seasoned with reports about local people. The experience in Brantford will be referred throughout the presentation.

About the presenter: Dr. Garry Balsdon  was a veterinarian in Ontario for 41 years, now retired. Garry caught “a second wind” and is now keenly consumed by World War II history. Two trips to the battlefields in Normandy and one into Britain has now prepared him to be a tour guide and instructor of WWII history to Grade 10 students coming for the “Wartime Experience” program at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum at Mount Hope. Along with these trips, the books read are too numerous to count, as well as personal interviews, and documentaries viewed provide resources for what Garry offers. To demonstrate the degree of the addiction, Garry has also been for a ride in each of a Harvard, Firefly, Beach 18, Norseman, DC-3, B-17, B-24, B-25. and B-29.