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Location Category ID:
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8200
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Address: |
1000 Stevenson Rd N, Oshawa, ON L1J 5P5. South Field, Oshawa Municipal Airport (Physical)
The Ontario Regiment RCAC Museum, Col RS McLaughlin Armoury, 53 Simcoe St N, Oshawa, ON L1G 4R9 (Postal)
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Telephone: |
905.728.6199
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Email: |
info [at] ontrmuseum.ca (Replace [at] with @)
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Opening Times: |
1200-1600: Friday, Saturday, Sunday and holiday Mondays (May until 11 November). Visits can be arranged at other times.
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Official Website: |
Ontario Regiment RCAC Regimental Museum
Museum History
Armoured Vehicles of the Oshawa Military and Industrial Museum
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Other Links: |
Wikipedia - Oshawa Military and Industrial Museum
Ontario Regiment Museum Rollpast Day
Toronto Sun
Durham Region
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Latitude, Longitude: |
43.916773
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-78.895252
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Location Accuracy: |
7
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Tanks Previously Here: |
1: Fahrschulpanzer Leopard Driver Training Tank - Georgina Military Museum, Georgina, Keswick, Ontario, Canada (seen 7 July 2007)
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The Ontario Regiment’s museum began with the Ferret Club, founded in Oshawa in 1980. The Regiment’s Honorary Lieutenant Colonel, Norman Wilton, an Airborne veteran of World War II and prominent business leader, provided the initial funding for the establishment of a nine-car troop of Ferret scout cars procured from Canadian Forces. A small group of active and retired crewmen, NCOs and officers came together for the purpose of stripping the Ferrets and restoring them to parade-ready operational condition. As the club’s membership and collection expanded so, too, did its appetite for larger restoration projects. Jeeps, Sherman and Centurion tanks soon followed, as did a series of wheeled vehicles including GM trucks built in Oshawa during the war years. The museum also took possession of several retired Canadian APCs, Lynxes, a Staghound, wreckers, American M60 tanks, an artillery piece and the actual jeep used by the late Major Ward Irwin (later Honorary Lieutenant Colonel of the Regiment) in theatre during the Italian campaign.
Over the past three decades, the museum’s collection has grown to include a number of fully restored vehicles including several tanks and tracked vehicles used by the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps, the Canadian Forces, and allied forces. In 1980, the club set up shop in a two bay garage formerly located at the intersection of Simcoe St N and Glover’s Rd in Oshawa. The Club relocated to a dairy farm near Ritson Rd N and the 8th Concession for a few years in the mid-1980s. Before long, it became necessary to find a permanent home for the club’s rapidly growing collection. The members felt there was no more historically appropriate location than the Oshawa Municipal Airport, home to the Commonwealth Air Training Plan for allied pilots during the Second World War. At that time it was known as the Oshawa Military and Industrial Museum.
The Ontarios, past and present, enjoy a long history of service and gallantry which is documented and explained in the museum’s static display section. The static displays were, for many years, housed in a room at Parkwood, the home of the Ontario’s storied patron and long-time Honorary Colonel, Robert Samuel McLaughlin, founder and president of General Motors Canada. The club and museum are more than just a showcase of vintage military vehicles and equipment. The museological functions of acquisition, storage, conservation, research, exhibition also contribute to the understanding of Canada’s military history during the past three centuries. (Source: Ontario Regimental Museum website).
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