10 Radio Unit - Cape Scott, BC.

1943 - Memories of Cape Scott


Web Site Comments:

Mike Higgins was employed as a lighthouse keeper at Cape Scott in 2002 and 2003. I assumed that anyone employed at a remote lighthouse would have a great deal of spare time on their hands so I communicated with Mike via Internet email message on many occasions discussing the Cape Scott area, and the original radar station in particular. I was to learn that previous lighthouse keepers at Cape Scott had been accumulating material that pertained to the radar station. Mike was kind enough to package everything available and he sent this material to be processed and used on our web site.

We suspect that the author was a gentleman by the name of "Roy Cornwell".

The article itself was typed (cira 1980) on eight pages, in small text, and the author had augmented the written text with an estimated 70 photos. Unfortunately - the copy that was sent to us must have been about 5th generation material and the photos could not be scanned resulting in reasonable detail.


1943 - Memories of Cape Scott

In the spring of 1943 Hap Newbold and I were finally given our posting from Pat Bay (not to England, as we had so hoped), but to a new secret base called radar on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, and the station was Cape Scott. This base was singularly isolated from everything except mountain lions, eagles and sea lions! Hap and I boarded a ship at Vancouver and sailed up the rugged, but somewhat beautiful western coast of Canada, stopping at isolated logging camps along the way to deliver food supplies to the loggers. The first stop of this large ship was Port Hardy, another air force base on northern Vancouver Island, but with a few of the amenities of civilization. From Port Hardy we sailed on a small 30 foot vessel called the Combat, whose chef was a weird man named Stan with a strange seafaring glint in his eye, but a marvelous cook as we found out during the voyage to the Cape. When we finally rounded the northern tip of the immense island, the ship stood off shore about 300 yards since the only landing site was a beautiful white sandy beach. Were put aboard a dingy with supplies and headed for shore, attempting to land smoothly with the white breakers. This the sailor accomplished and we were washed up on a small wet beach and one solitary figure was there to meet us. His name, we found out later, was Ada Brown, and he wore a dirty, elbow-torn cardigan and a pathetic smile to greet us. He was one of the two resident wireless men on the base, and was leaving the Cape now that we had landed. An airforce truck met us and drove us along a rough board road (pictured in the lower right-hand snap on this page), to the camp where we met an informed bunch of about 50 radar mechanics, cooks, security guards and a single medic. In the woods were about six wooden barracks, containing sleeping quarters, canteen, mess hall and sickbay. Construction units had even built toilets with septic tanks, but we had to cut wood for heat and to fire the boilers for showers, etc.

After the regimentation of Pat Bay, this wilderness was a whole new life style which took many weeks to adjust oneself to its rugged and informal ways. The CO and the adjutant were very pleasant and friendly middle-aged men and life here was extremely pleasant. The food being cooked for a small group of men, was much better in quality than we had been used to at Pat Bay, however, one of the cooks used to be notorious for the morning pancakes. His name was Leo, and the pancakes looked lovely and golden brown on the outside, but when they were cut open, the batter flowed out onto the plate in a raw state. We used to call them 'cream centres' and learned to pass them up for scrambled eggs – the powdered variety.

This page contains snaps of the beach, and some inland scenes, one of which shows me slogging along a muskeg road to nowhere. We came across a deserted grave, which indicated that many years before it must have been some primitive settlement. Near the grave, on the opposite page, stood the ruins of an old cottage, but we never did investigate this strange abode. This site was about five miles from our camp and aroused little interest from our secret new radar base. The boy at the lower right is Fred Farr and a strange coincidence arose from our meeting. When I first landed at the Cape, Hap and I were given our quarters, and as we exchanged greetings with our new mates (about a dozen or so), I noticed a shy, tall lad standing by his bunk. With my memory for faces, it didn't take me long to recognize Fred Farr, who had been a classmate of mine at Oakwood Collegiate. He had just joined the airforce, and was terribly homesick. I had been in the service for about two and a half years and considered myself now a veteran, so I took the liberty of cheering him up, and when I introduced myself and reminisced about the good times in high school, it wasn't very long before he was in a spirit of high morale, which was so important in those days, if one was to do a good job. Fred and Hap and I became fast friends and an experience of comradeship sprang up that is a rarity life, and one that in retrospect, I wouldn't have missed in my lifetime.

After we finished our shift at the 'Wireless Shack' we had lots of time off to explore these pristine shores. A good example of the lonely white sandy beach is seen at the top of the page. To the right of this typing is a caricature of a hated “Jap” made from sea shells and kelp on the beach. Going down the page in clockwise motion from that are: Hap in a crystal lagoon; me taking a nude dip in a quiet pool; Hap standing by the deserted cabin' Fred and I on the rocks; Hap again at the lagoon; and some sand writing with airforce cap and pipes.

We went for many hikes along the shore, and spotted several large eagles as well as tracks of what must have been mountain lions, but unfortunately we never sighted any. Despite the calm looking Pacific, this was one of the roughest shores in a northerly wind, and breakers easily reached a height of six feet to come crashing down with a thunderous noise. On some occasions the sea was so rough that the “Combat” failed to make our island, and we had to rely on parachute drops of supplies from amphibian planes of the RCAF. On others, the dinghy would reach shore from the Combat, only to be upset by a huge breaker that was ill timed. This caused our mail and supplies to become salt water soaked – yes, and even the personnel. At Easter, the Padre from down the coast came up to present an Easter Service to the boys, who at times, needed some spiritual comfort. As ill luck would have it, he was baptized unexpectedly in a capsized boat and unceremoniously washed ashore in a tumult of sudsy white water. I heard him utter the Lord's name out of context on that occasion – and it gave us a much needed laugh on that desolate shore. It was hinted that some of the boys took Holy Communion just to taste the wine! They wouldn't – would they? Such uncharitable thoughts at Easter time. However, there was a generous spirit of goodwill on that island and they were a great bunch of boys gathered together in the wilderness.

Radar was extremely secret in those war days, and the equipment was high on a cliff overlooking the Pacific (and even out of bounds to us wireless men, which was rather a ludicrous measure, we thought). However, even the Germans and Japanese didn't have radar at that time, and it was an invaluable weapon. So accurate that our station picked up what they thought was Japanese aircraft. I turned out to be a flock of geese! Such were the radar screens of the war year of 1943.

A lengthy stop at this isolated post caused a condition in some airmen known as “Bush wacky”. So it was essential that we all take our annual leave regularly. I took my two weeks in June 1943 and again headed for Toronto. The snaps in this page attest to the fact that I again had a memorable leave with Elma and other friends. I must confess that all the noise and traffic of civilization, not to mention the girls, made me a little apprehensive about treading into the great white way. However, after an uneventful ship journey down the Pacific coast, and the transcontinental train to Toronto from Vancouver, I had soon forgotten all about the wilderness of Cape Scott and settled into two glorious weeks in June with my “girl”. We danced at the Old Mill under the stars and at the Casa Loma to the music of – I think – Ellis McClintock. That's Frank McMahon at top left, showing a little leg with me. Next is a girl named Vera (I think that she went with Frank and Ed at the time), then at the right, Elma and I and Mom and Frank in Mom's duplex garden on Booth Ave.

Below are more snaps taken at the same time as the ones above. The bottom line shows Elma with her friend, Marg Sellon – and some winter pictures of Elma at the skating pond with more of her girl friends. The house at the bottom is Elma's mother's on Booth Avenue.

Like all good things, the leave passed all too quickly, and I was very crestfallen to say goodbye to Elma at the Union Station. We were deeply in love by now, and she had a few tears when my train pulled out of the station for Vancouver. After we passed the prairies, I began to get back into the mood of returning to Cape Scott. I met some nice people on the train journey and when we arrived at Vancouver, we were all good friends. We had stood on the back platform of the observation car going through a mountain tunnel, and when we emerged we were covered in soot. The trains were those marvelous steam engines in those war years and so interesting to watch. As soon as I arrived in Vancouver, I went into a barber shop and got a shampoo to wash the dirt out of my hair. I just had time to catch the ship for Port Hardy, and then that rolling sea around the top of the island to Cape Scott. Cape Scott was getting like home now, and the boys were glad to see me back, and I must confess after a few days in that relaxing male world, I again was contented. We had a wireless sergeant named Tommy LeFebre, and everyone was convinced that poor Tommy was “bushed” for good. At night when the lights went out, we could hear him spraying the air around his bunk cursing the flies and shouting obscenities at them, “God damn flies, get out of here.” The funny thing was that we didn't have any flies there.

Those were the days of short hair or brush cuts, and Hap began to take liberties with his hair, and it wasn't long before his silhouette against a moonlit window, began to take on all the characteristics of Leo the lion. The Adjutant, Tommy Thompson, finally had to insist that he get his hair cut. Yes, Hap was the precursor of the Beatles in those war years!

This page reflects very vividly, the life at Cape Scott. At top left Eric Yeoman (a very resourceful chap, who used to row the boats to the Combat offshore to pick up supplies). Eric could also regale us with interminable, funny stories and poems. He was a man whose presence could always be felt. In clockwise rotation, you can see me and one of the lads cutting some of those superb fir logs, which we used for heating and the boilers for hot water. If we didn't take turns cutting, we were almost ostracized by the boys at the camp. It was a necessity of life at Cape Scott. The next snap shows Fred Farr and me cutting logs in front of our barracks. That's Eric in the mask and rubber suite, which was used in the winter for rowing the dinghy. Those Pacific winds were bone chilling and wet and the suit was essential.

The next two snaps show Roy Gillespie (whom I noted on the back of the snap, and a gorgeous blonde wife, which must have been extremely frustrating for him, with her in Toronto). The fellow with him holding the pipe is Don Valentine. Below that you can see me getting an infrequent haircut from the camp's improvised barber, Ron Gillespie. He also gave egg shampoos, but they were discontinued when the boys all complained that the yokes would invariably slide down their necks before Roy could massage them into the scalp.

The bottom pictures give an excellent view of our beloved canteen, where the boys went for recreation, to consume beer, to read, or play table tennis, or eat a chocolate bar. Ned Root, one of the radar operators, operated the canteen, and was an extremely amiable lad. Strange thing about the beer. There was plenty of it in this wilderness, but I didn't have on bottle while stationed there. It seemed out of context with the ambiance of the place. After all, there was no point in having a few beers if one couldn't go to a dance or to town to live it up. In fact, there were only two boys who over indulged in booze there, and I put that down to inexperience. We had no great drinking problems. One of the industrious boys who was a radar operator also, decided to open up his own hand laundry! It was a boon to us, as I deplored washing socks and underwear all the time. However, when he made sufficient money for a well eared leave in Vancouver, he gave up the laundry. The poor guy was worked death at the job. The washing, he didn't mind, but he just couldn't cope with the ironing.

Of course, we all loved the movies, and films were provided by the Western Air Command's Social Services. Twice a week, two major films would be brought in by boat with our other provisions. They were in large cans of 35mm. We had an ancient Bell and Howell projector at the canteen, and as such luck would have it, Hap and me were detailed to operate the projector. It was an intricate job threading which took much practice to synchronize the sound with the picture, but when we mastered it we were in great demand for “Movie Night”. We had the odd breakdown, which caused boos from the audience, but other than that, we did enjoy the job. Our favorite actress of that time was Ginger Rogers, and we named her the camp sweetheart. The Adjutant sent a letter to Hollywood to her, and the camp received a host of autographed pictures from her which were put on the canteen walls. I don't know how many the Adjutant kept for himself however.

He was an old chap named Tommy Thompson, and was the camp's champion ping pong player! It was quite an honour to play Tommy, but he was the old master and no one ever defeated him. I think he retired as the undefeated champion in the final tournament. He also used to have to censor our mail from the camp, which was a sore point with us because he would plagiarize our favourite written jokes to our sweethearts and wives, and also ogle any lines of love that we would pout out to our loved ones. The wireless office was right across the hall from Tommy's office, and Hap and I, much to our chagrin, could hear him chuckling to himself as he went through the day's mail.

Another enterprise which took much of our time, but we loved every minute of it, was the publication of a mimeographed camp newspaper called "The Isolationist”. Although the paper was naturally local and amateurish, each week all the fellows eagerly awaited the latest edition so that they might read the camp gossip and perhaps have a laugh at the cartoons and columns. I remember that Fred Farr wrote an extremely professional and interesting column, much like Thomas Richard Henry of the old Telegram. He was a gifted writer and much appreciated by all. Of course, Hap and I also wrote corny columns and I did the paper cartoons (corny as they were). A man named Ernie Ramm was the editor and we had to rush to make many deadlines, as I recall. I had to draw the cartoons on a wax tablet with a blunt needle, as the equipment was quite crude in those days compared to the sophisticated Xerox machines of today. However, we put our hearts into it and it helped to give the boys the much needed morale for those lonely nights. I still have a few copies of the old “Isolationist” stashed away, and they are real keepsakes to me now. Even after Freddy, Hap and I were posted away from the Cape, the old tradition of the “Isolationist” continued as new writers and editors and cartoonists took our place. We even received commendation from Western Air Command for our efforts in this tiny paper, as it was our small contribution to boosting the morale of the boys in the Air Force.

Pictures in clockwise motion on this page: A great salmon catch by the boys. That's Tommy LaFebre at the left end. Buckely (from Alberta's farmland) and me outside one of the natural caves around the shores; Buckley and I in the sand; me in the lagoon; Hap and I in the caves; and Freddy having a picnic with me on one of the beaches.

I suppose one would have to pay a small fortune to live in this wilderness today with a group of companions, supplied with food and lodging, but to us, it was just a job. However, in retrospect, I wouldn't have missed that opportunity for the world; I feel it was one of the high water marks in my uneventful life thus far, and couldn't be measured in dollars, but only in companionship and adventure.

For an isolated post with little clearing for any sort of playing field, we had an amazingly diverse recreational schedule. We did, with much work, clear a volleyball court outside and we had a regular schedule drawn up, with its imminent round robin playoffs.

One time we even had a field day with mile long runs along the white beaches, sprints, tossing the football, shot put and even a beauty contest for the best male legs on the island. Needless to say, I walked off with the “Legs” competition, even if I did lose the mile event. It was all in good fun and provoked many laughs.

We tried swimming in the Pacific, but unfortunately this part of the coast was bitterly cold, and only the hardiest would venture in for a dip. It was a great pity in view of the gorgeous beaches on all shores. Like the poem “water, water everywhere---“.

For indoors there was a good collection of 78 records of the day, including the idol of the bobby socks, Frank Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey, Dick Haynes and Arty Shaw.

We even had a chess club during the evenings and many hours of deep reflection were spent pouring over the chess boards. So recreation was there at Cape Scott, and we led a well rounded life, and didn't even miss the girls – at least most of us didn't, and I can't remember an unpleasant interlude during my year at the island.

Even the unpleasant things evoked a laugh somewhere: Norm Grace was another wireless man at the post besides Hap, me and Tommy LeFebre. Norm owned a lovely sweater which could be described best as egg shell white. He kindly lent me that sweater on a number of occasions, and to show him how appreciative I was for this gesture, I washed that sweater. The only trouble was that I hung it over the stove pipe to dry one evening. Well, it didn't take very long before smoke began to sift from the wool – and suddenly it burst into flames! A few black threads were all that I could glean from the hot pipe when I discovered my anomaly. The most difficult thing about the episode, was my task of breaking the “news” gently to Norm. He loved that sweater, and when I told him, he just put on a wry smile, and looked at me askance! What could I do – I meant what could either of us do? He took it very bravely, poor chap. Strangely enough, he never lent me a thing after that, but heck, I wasn't all bad. Hap once borrowed a pair of my best running shoes while I was on leave. When I got back to the Cape, the only honorable thing we could do was bury them, holding them aloft on the end of a long pole. I don't have to say, that Hap didn't borrow any of my shoes again either.

All good times end – and Hap got a posting before I did, in the late fall of 43. He went to Sand Spit, which was on the Queen Charlotte Islands, and just a spit that was even more isolated than we already were.

My posting came through a little later, and I wen to No.2 AOS at, of all places, Edmonton! I really wasn't happy about leaving Western Air Command for a training station once more. We always felt it was sort of a demotion to leave active service for these civilized training stations – but one has to go where he is posted, so off I went.

My recollections of my arrival at No.2 AOS in Edmonton in early Dec. 1943 are rather nebulous now, but I see by the snaps that I was met by two of my old west coast buddies, Ada Brown and Fuzzy Webber. I was billeted with Ada, Fuzzy and three other boys who became fast friends with us out there: Wes Eyre, Gord Ewings and Don Ross. Our job as night flying in Mach 4 Ansons as wireless operators while training navigators from Britain and Australia. The routine soon became quite monotonous: All the flyers would assemble for briefing as to weather, route, etc., and then we'd fly from about 11 at night to 2 AM. After landing and interrogation, we'd receive our supper “chits” and head for the mess hall for our fried eggs, corn flakes, toast and coffee. We'd have all day to loaf around, but the irregular hours didn't help our diet much.

On snowy moonlit nights, the area was quite beautiful. We'd fly up to Lake Athabaska and other northern areas and the farm fields and forests below, stood out sharply as the moon reflected brilliantly off the snow on the ground. The nights were bitterly cold though, and warm flying gear was essential because in those days, the planes weren't heated nor was there oxygen in the old Ansons. When we'd get airborne, the first thing we'd do was reel out the trailing antenna, which was a long wire which trailed behind the aircraft. I remember on one occasion, the operator of the flight before me had been airsick, and my trailing antenna was covered in guck! Just one of the little joys of flying. On another occasion we hit into a blinding snow storm about midnight and the pilot became completely lost up over Athabaska. There seemed little hope as the fuel ran out and the pilot told us to buckle on our chutes. However, not to be defeated in this dark hour, I frantically turned my rotating loop outside the plane and managed to pick up the faintest signal from the Edmonton radio beam. I 'homed' in on it and took a bearing, when I hastily gave to the pilot. He turned sharply and the signal became stronger and stronger. The result was that we got home with just enough fuel and a very thankful crew that we didn't have to bail out in that cold northern wilderness. I like to think that my ingenuity and fast thinking saved four lives that night of the blizzard.

Generally though, flying was fun and there was a good rapport between the crew on these night flights. We, as radio operators, got so good at navigating that we quite often had to tell the student navigators where our position was. The Australian fellows for some inexplicable reason were quite intractable and headstrong. I remember on one occasion it came my turn to be orderly sergeant for the day (which meant that I had to take someone to raise the flag, blow reveille, go to the mess hall for any complaints and call the roll for parade).Everything was fine except the parade. I just couldn't call the Aussies to order for roll call – and it took the CO to come over to the parade square to obtain order from these unruly guys.

Looking clockwise at the page, that's one of the last snaps Hap and I had taken at Cape Scott before he was posted. Next, in flying gear are Fuzzy Webber and Gord Ewings. That's the old Anson and a picture of the interior of the radio operator at work. Next are Gord and I, and finally a better shot of one of our favourite “kites”.

This life was completely incongruous to our freedom at Cape Scott, and the regimentation of training camps was really not the lifestyle that we were accustomed to, with its parades and large mess halls. However there were many fringe benefits on this large station because of its position.


About This Page

This page is located at

http://www.pinetreeline.org/rds/rds10-5.html

Updated: July 19, 2003