Hangar 11
11760 109th Street
Constructed: 1942-43
As Steven Boddington and Sean Moir write, “Japan’s aggressive expansionary activities throughout the Pacific Rim during the late 1930s and early 1940s, and the attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, jump-started the Canadian and American Governments to follow through with the defence of mainland North America.” Their solution was the creation of the Northwest Staging Route, a series of landing strips that connected the Lower Forty-Eight to Alaska. The primary section of the route connected Edmonton to Fairbanks.
The Staging Route’s purpose was thus: “first, to provide insufficiently supplied American bases in Alaska, including those on the Aleutian Islands, with the materials and manpower necessary to defend themselves and launch operations. Second, it was to serve American and Canadian pilots who were shuttling Lend-Lease aircraft to Fairbanks, where they were turned over to Russian crews.”
‘Lend-Lease’ had been enacted in March 1941 through an act of Congress. Passed prior to America’s involvement in the war, the program bypassed the country’s neutrality to supply aid to Allied powers already fighting. Thus, “the United States would ‘lend’ the supplies to the [Allies], deferring payment. When payment eventually did take place, the emphasis would not be on payment in dollars… Instead, payment would primarily take the form of a ‘consideration’ granted by [the Allies] to the United States.” As other powers, such as the Soviet Union, got pulled into the conflict, they too were added to the recipients list.
The program ramped up following December 7th, 1941. As the United States became ever more involved, they established a mounting presence in Edmonton, to help facilitate the continued transfer of war-goods to the U.S.S.R. The immense volume of their operations can’t be understated. Locals rightfully dubbed it a “friendly invasion”, as some 50,000 American servicemen came through Edmonton between 1942 and 1946.
Their arrival was a boon for a city still shrugging off the effects of the Depression. As Boddington and Moir explain, “the most apparent impact was the creation of thousands of jobs that gave the city’s struggling economy and war-weary morale a much needed boost. The construction undertaken to upgrade facilities and transport systems, and the leasing of all available space for residential and office use, provided local workers, businesses, and land owners with opportunities previously untenable.”
Due to the ‘invaders’, Edmonton’s gross-construction grew seven-times its 1939 high. Building permits tripled, over a million in unused land was sold off for military use. Housing developments sprouted everywhere, and the City recorded its highest tax revenue up to that point. Fifty-nine partially vacant buildings were fully leased. By 1943 alone, the U.S government had requested land for over 1,200 projects in the Edmonton area! So large was the American force, that switchboard operators at the administrative headquarters for the Alaskan Highway jokingly answered calls with the phrase “Hello, you’ve reached the Army of Occupation.”
At Blatchford Field, North West Service Command constructed quarters for some five-hundred-twenty-eight officers, and 1,920 other ranks, 66,000 square yards of warm-up apron, 39,750 square feet of storage space, some half-dozen offices, and two new hangars. By March 1943, $701,500 worth of permits had been issued for the airfield. It was easily “the ‘growingest’ part of Edmonton”, in the Journal’s mind. “Hangars are springing up like mushrooms… Do not be surprised if one of these days the airport swallows a sizeable part of Kingsway.” The numbers supported the Journal’s claims. In 1943 more freight was going through Edmonton in one week than all of that in 1939 combined.
The sheer frenzy of it all contributed to the United States Army Air Force constructing four separate hangars to meet demand. They decided to build along the eastern edge of Blatchford to separate themselves from the Royal Canadian Air Force’s existing facilities. Preliminary construction began on Hangar 11 — known to the U.S.A.A.F. as Hangar T3 — in November 1942. Work began with no detailed drawings, so hectic was the rush to build.
Through Blatchford the American’s would ferry thousands of aircraft. On one day alone, in June 1942, five hundred planes touched down on its tarmac, all en-route the Soviet Union. It was a North American record until September 29th, 1943, when an even bigger shipment of eight-hundred-sixty fighter craft were shuttled through Edmonton. For its citizens, “P-38 Lightenings, P-39 Aircobras, B-24 Liberators, all with the Red Star of Russia painted on their wings and fuselage, became so commonplace that people didn’t even look up when scores of them took off from the local field.”
A history report on Hangar 11, published by ERA Architects, remarks that “the impact that the Lend-Lease program had on the eventual outcome of the Second World War cannot be overstated. The Eastern Front saw some of the largest and most destructive battles in history, with horrific atrocities and massive numbers of casualties for the Soviet Union and the Axis powers alike, with military casualties alone being estimated at over 5,000,000. Without the critical materials being provided by the United States to the Soviet Union, victory in this conflict would have been doubtful. The ability of the Soviet military and its citizens to hold, and eventually reverse, the Axis invasion forces, with the support of the Lend-Lease aid, retained a two-front war for Germany.”
Ultimately, “Of the 14,000-plus aircraft delivered by the U.S. to the Soviet Union, more than 7,900 flew the Northwest Staging Route.” Edmonton’s facilitation of the Lend-Lease Program is undoubtedly its claim to wartime fame. Only its part in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan holds a candle to that momentous undertaking…
And it’s at this point I know I’ve lost some people. “This is great and all”, I hear them say, “but Dane, what’s this got to do with Hangar 11? You’ve barely talked about the building!” And, you’re right, I haven’t said much about it. But that’s because I think there’s more to Hangar 11 than its worth as just a building. Now don’t get me wrong, as a physical reminder of that era, it’s all too important. Yet, to reduce this hangar to a barebones architectural study misses the crucial point.
Hangar 11 is representative of so much more. It’s not important for being just a building, it’s important for being a physical symbol. It’s a symbol of the international fight against Fascist tyranny and Edmonton’s vastly important — and often vastly understated — role in it. All you need to know about its importance comes from the above. Hangar 11 was admittedly a small, small, small cog in the machine that brought an end to Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, and Tojo’s Japan, yet even so, it was a consequential one, emblematic of all Edmonton facilitated to help bring it down.
Historical Note:
There’s some question over the architect responsible for Hangar 11. Ken Tingley and David Murray argue it’s noted local draftsman Geroge Heath MacDonald. They submit City Building Permit No. 1841, for the construction of an “Assembly Plant,” as evidence. This is refuted by the E.R.A. report, which argues that “Hangar T2 (immediately north of Hangar T3/Hangar 11), one of the first two to be constructed, also features a distinctly different design from the other three American hangars, with a low-pitched roof rather than an arched roof. This may have been a question of functionality, but may also be the mark of a different designer. George Heath MacDonald may have designed this first hangar, and not the following three.”
Image Gallery:
Sources:
“Edmonton’s $6,000,000 Airport Is Bustling Hive of Activity: Development of Aviation Brings City Into Own,” Edmonton Journal, March 31, 1943.
“Here and There,” Edmonton Journal, November 26, 1942.
“701,500 in Permits Issued for Airport,” Edmonton Journal, March 9, 1943.
Nick Lees, “Edmonton’s Blatchford Field Was a Key Part of Allied Second World War Effort”, Edmonton Journal, May 18, 2020,
A.J. Mair, E.P.S. The First 100 Years: A History of the Edmonton Police Service (Edmonton, Edmonton Police Service, 1992), 73.
Charles Mandel, “Fear of a Japanese attack brings the U.S. army to Alberta and B.C.”, in Alberta in the 20th Century: Volume VIII (1939-1945): The War That United The Province, ed. Ted Byfield (Edmonton, United Western Communications Ltd., 1998), 163, 172.
Katherine Koller, “The Year of the Alaskan Highway: 1942”, Edmonton City As A Museum, April 12, 2016, accessed January 29, 2021,
https://citymuseumedmonton.ca/2016/04/12/the-year-of-the-alaska-highway-1942/.
Steve Boddington and Sean Moir, “‘The Friendly Invasion’: The American Presence in Edmonton, 1942-1945”, in For King and Country, ed. Ken Tingley (Edmonton, Provincial Museum of Alberta, 1995),177, 178, 181, 182.
John F. Gilpin, Edmonton: Gateway to the North: An Illustrated History (Windsor Publications Ltd., 1984), 180.
Dennis Person and Carin Routledge, Edmonton: Portrait of a City (Edmonton, Reidmore Books, 1981), 164, 178.
City of Edmonton, Report: CR_6367, Historic Significance Summary of Hangar 11, January 15, 2021, 94, accessed January 29, 2021,
https://pub-edmonton.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ashx?DocumentId=78290.
City of Edmonton, Hangar 11 — Blatchford: Historic Building Record, Historic Building Condition, Conservation Plan, by ERA Architecture and GEC Architecture (City of Edmonton: Edmonton, AB, December 20, 2019), accessed January 29, 2021,
https://pub-edmonton.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ashx?DocumentId=78290.
City of Edmonton, Heritage Assessment of Hangar 11 at the Former Edmonton Municipal Airport, Alberta, by Ken Tingley, David Murray, and NEXT Architecture (City of Edmonton: Edmonton AB, April 2017), accessed January 29, 2021,
https://pub-edmonton.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=11703
“Lend-Lease and Military Aid to the Allies in the Early Years of World War II”, Office of the Historian, accessed January 29, 2021, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/lend-lease.
