As work developed, it became clear that the School was in point of fact one of tuition in aerial fighting, the practice of tactics forming a large part of the instruction given. Its nomenclature was in consequence altered in July, 1918.
In the summer of this year, a fourth squadron was organized and housed, and steps taken to provide permanent accommodation for all ranks. This programme included additional officers’ quarters, and the construction of about a dozen large buildings on the hillside which previously held the tents of the unit. The work had just been completed at the date of the armistice, when the accommodation at this station was sufficient for 122 officers, 400 cadets, 96 warrant officers and sergeants and 768 rank and file.
Other services covered an excellent supply of pure water from the lake, a complete drainage system, and ample electrical facilities from the circuits of the Dominion Power and Transmission Company of Hamilton, from which city Beamsville is some twenty-three miles distant to the eastward.
The trip from Toronto by air was always of interest, paralleling the south shore of Lake Ontario to the long sandspit that cuts off Hamilton Bay from the main lake, along this curving bar and thence over orchard and vineyard along the edge of the great escarpment over which, a little further eastward, plunges the Niagara River. This area is appropriately called the garden of Canada, and the unit found itself fortunate in its surroundings.
OFFICERS AND STRENGTH, SCHOOL OF AERIAL FIGHTING, BEAMSVILLE.
