Although he remembers always being a bit of a history buff, It was a trip to the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa that grabbed 13-year-old Grant Letford’s attention.
“They had armoured tanks on display that were really interesting to me. In the gift shop, I bought a small model of a German Tiger tank. And then I built a model of a WWII American gull-winged plane, the Chance-Vought Corsair. Things kind of just spiraled from there,” said Grant.
Letford has only been modelling for about a year, but already has an impressive collection, which is now on display in glass cases in the main floor foyer of the community centre as a Remembrance Day tribute. Normally, the planes (1/72 scale) and tanks (1/35 scale) are shelfed or hung in his room at home.
In addition to the WWII-vintage German Tiger tank, he has another German tank model, a Leopard, which was used by the Canadian Armed Forces in the postwar years. Grant said his grandfather served during peacetime with Lord Strathcona’s Horse, in an armoured unit using British-built Centurion tanks in Western Canada.
Manufactured in the United Kingdom since 1952, Airfix kits are the preferred models, according to Grant, who has acquired airbrushing tools to paint his creations in authentic battlefield colours and camouflage.
“Painting them is my favorite part of the process, along with the research involved in documenting their history,” he said.
In addition to the Corsair, Letford has an American Grumman Wildcat, a German Messerschmitt ME-109, a British Supermarine Spitfire, an Avro Lancaster bomber, and a WWI Sopwith Camel. Letford is pictured above with his Lancaster, the real-life version of which can often be seen flying Niagara skies in good weather.
Although he loves building model planes, he’s not so sure about actually taking to the skies in them.
“I get really bad motion sickness,” he said.
Grant mentioned that one of the Royal Canadian Legion banners on display near the Meridian Community Centre is a tribute to his great-grandfather, Donald Saunders, who supported the war effort in Canada during WWII by building fuel tanks for Avro Lancaster bombers at an assembly plant in Malton, Ontario.
