Phil Egan
It was still early in the Second World War when the attack came, right here in Sarnia.
Shortly after 11 p.m. on June 15, 1940, a Canadian National Railways freight car departed Port Huron, Michigan – part of a train travelling through the rail tunnel beneath the St. Clair River bound for the station in Sarnia.
The freight car was carrying four aircraft engines. The valuable freight was coming from California and headed to the Fleet Aircraft Corporation of Fort Erie, which produced planes for the Canadian Air Force.
When the train arrived in Sarnia, Const. Thomas Laing of the CNR police detected the odour of smoke, which was coming from the car carrying the aircraft engines.
Police soon confirmed an attempted an act of sabotage. Strips of burning blanket drenched in flammable linseed oil had been stuffed through holes drilled in the floor of the railcar, directly beneath the aircraft engines.
One of the crates had caught fire, and the Sarnia Fire Department soon arrived and extinguished the blaze. Though the crate was badly charred the aircraft engine itself was undamaged.
It was obvious the fire had been set in Port Huron, before the train passed through the tunnel. Police investigators in Michigan suspected the saboteurs of targeting the wrong train. Just hours earlier a special train carrying highly explosive munitions had passed through the tunnel from Port Huron.
A full investigation ensued. The superintendent of the CNR investigation department at London contacted the chief of the Grand Trunk Western police in Detroit and railway detectives in Port Huron. Two RCMP officers stationed in Sarnia and a pair of provincial police officers were also involved in trying to identify the saboteurs.
The freight car and aircraft engines were ultimately allowed to proceed to Fort Erie, where the car was again thoroughly examined.
Though the OPP criminal investigation unit and FBI agents took over, the culprits were never found.
However, the failed plot resulted in 24-hour armed guards at both the Port Huron and Sarnia tunnel entrances. And for the rest of the war, civilians were prevented from accessing the tunnel mouths and the rail yards surrounding them.