May 12th is Manitoba Day and that’s the day a museum in Brandon traditionally starts the summer season.

The Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum, north of Brandon, starts summer hours Thursday.

In honour of Manitoba’s 152th birthday, the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum, Canada’s only air museum solely dedicated to the preservation of those who trained and fought for the British Commonwealth during WWII is hosting a free open house on Thursday, May 12, 2022 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  at the Brandon Municipal Airport. 

Visitors will be invited to travel back to the 1940s while touring a WWII vintage hangar serving as a display area for aircraft, vehicles and hundreds of artifacts from that era.

Executive Director Stephen Hayter looks forward to a busier summer in 2022. “Every year we celebrate Manitoba’s birthday and kick off the season with a free open house and remind people they have this local museum they can come out and check out.”

The museum is also promoting the fact that on June 5th they’ll be holding Armed Forces Day at the museum.

“Traffic is already picking up and people are excited to get back out in the public and do the things they are used to doing. We’ve also seen a lot more school tours. That was the hardest thing when the pandemic shut us down tours went away. We want students back in the museum to share the history with them” said Stephen Hayter.

The mandate of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum (CATPM) is to collect, preserve, restore, and display artifacts of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) and to commemorate the 18,039 who gave their lives while in the R.C.A.F. between 1939 and 1945.

Manitoban RCAF that lost their lives during WWII are honoured on the museum’s RCAF WWII Memorial wall.