Topic: Militaria
No. 12 Canadian Army (Basic) Training Centre, Chatham, ON
During the Second World War, Chatham, Ontario, was home to No. 12 Canadian Army (Basic) Training Centre. Opened in October 1940, the training centre occupied an area bounded by Lacroix Street, Willomac Avenue, Queen's Street, and the area of Fergie Jenkins Field and the Memorial Arena.
Initially organized for the Non-Permanent Active Militia (i.e., the Reserves, as known today), the training centre was placed on Actice Service on 15 February 1941 in order to support the training of new recruits for Canada's forces overseas. In November, 1943, the training center was redesignated No. 12 Cdn Infantry (Basic) Training Centre 15 Nov 43.
As with many of the training centre locations across Canada that were built in or near communites to support Canada's war efforts, the last remaining vestiges of the Cahatham site hae been built over and swallowed up by progress and fresh construction. What appears to have been the last remaining building, the original training centre drill hall, which saw new life as the Kinsman Auditorium, was torn down in 2012. It can still be seen on the Google maps air photo (but not the street view), until that gets updated and the training centre fades a little further from public memory.
The following images show the locations of buildings at the training centre (in September 1943) overlaid on the Google air photo of the area, and the scanned site plan. Either of these images can be clicked to access a larger scale version.
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