Dear Editor,
I refer to a letter in SN of November 18 where it was stated that the building on High Street opposite the Parliament Building being torn down had been the terminal of the Mackenzie Airport, while the headline of that letter read: ‘The former Bureau of Statistics building now being torn down was once the airport terminal at what is now the CJIA.’
In attempting to set the record straight the following is proferred:
a. The Mackenzie Airfield was built as a back-up to Atkinson Airfield during WWII, in the event of an attack; bauxite from Mackenzie/Wismar was vital to the Allied war effort then. After the sneak attack at Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, the US did not want their eggs in one basket, and another landing facility for seaplanes was also available at Makouria off Bartica.
b. No commercial flights were possible at Mackenzie until after the war, and that terminal building was merely a shack barn. The building being torn down this week did not come from Mackenzie Airfield.
c.The Timehri Airport was destroyed by fire in May 1959, and the old US terminal building was used until a new airport was built which became the CJIA later. The old US terminal reactivated after the fire must have received major renovation to be functional.
d. The building now being torn down was erected in the mid fifties to accommodate the new Ministry of Communica-tion, for example, when I worked at the Public Buildings from 1955 to 1960. This is a fact.
This letter invites other readers to throw some light on this matter. It is very important we record our history correctly.
Yours faithfully,
Godfrey Chin
