| Born |
December 2, 1897
|
| Died |
July 16, 1918, Age 19
|
| Force |
Air Force
|
| Division |
43rd Wing (Leaside, Ont.),, Royal Air Force
|
| Home Address |
620 Spadina Avenue
[Map]
|
Wilfrid Tait was a champion athlete at UTS, winning a gold medal in his final year at the school. Like his fellow alumni George Dick and Harry Walker, he was a member of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, and he may also have been a member of the Y.M.C.A., given that the national secretary of the organisation assisted at his funeral. He joined the Royal Flying Corps in October 1917, training at Long Branch and in Texas. Despite his eagerness to go overseas, he was kept as an instructor at the Leaside Airfield in Toronto, holding the rank of Flight Lieutenant in the 43rd Wing of the Royal Air Force. On 16 July 1918, he and Second Air Mechanic Howard Belford were testing an aeroplane at the Leaside Camp when the machine crashed, killing them both. His commanding officer, Captain Wilmer Scandrett, noted that although Tait had only 126 hours of flying experience at the time of his death, he nevertheless had had “great confidence in him,” and he was buried with full military honours. He is one of the nine UTS boys who died in service to be buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, and is also commemorated on the Memorial Tablet at Bloor Street Presbyterian Church, now Bloor Street United, along with his fellow UTS students Herbert Cumming, Fleetwood Daniel, and Francis Morton. “They feared not Death and meeting it they won the Victor’s Crown.”
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