Before WW II, Otaco Limited was known far and wide as a manufacturer of farm implements, mining and haulage equipment.

In the early 1940’s Otaco was enlisted into the wartime effort, machining small parts for training planes made by de Havilland Aircraft in Downsview Ontario. The West Street South plant had the skills and machinery and soon landed contracts to make parts for the Mosquito Bomber and Fighters used by the Canadian and Allied Air Forces.Exhaust manifolds, engine bearing assemblies, nose cones, canopy tops, bomb bay doors and the landing gear units shown here were made by the hundreds.

At the height of the war effort there were 1600 workers at the Otaco plant – more than half of them women – working around the clock over three shifts. De Havilland would send up a completed Mosquito once in a while to fly over the West Street plant to drum up excitement for war bonds.

Up to 1945 over 1,000 Mosquitos were built by de Havilland Canada at the Downsview Airfield, thanks in part to the contribution made by the men and women of Orillia.