The following article is from RCAF Radar 1941-1945 (Royal Canadian Air Force Personnel on Radar in Canada During World War II) and is used with permission of the author, WW McLachlan
When the construction crews arrived to build No. 5 radar station, there was no road up the hill above Cole Harbour. There was a footpath, one that lead across the width of the peninsula. They completed only enough road to allow them to bring in the building materials and equipment, towing most of it up with a crawler tractor. After they departed it was left to us to complete the road if we thought we needed it. Of course we did.
Until our personnel had completed an almost, all weather road up the hill to our station from the generations old shore road, the weekly Ration Truck most often remained at the bottom of the hill. The MT driver, Lionel Mac McDowall, of Winnipeg, in the first year, and Doug Barkhouse, of New Minas, after that, who had left the station before 6 am to drive to the Army base at Mulgrave, would come trudging up the hill, mail bag over his shoulder, sometimes as late as midnight.
Anyone who was up and in the canteen, plus a few others who might have to be wakened, were recruited into packing groceries up that hill and into the mess kitchen. It was not a real fun job, especially if it had snowed and was cold or was raining. I was never sure who disliked the job more - those who had been pulled from their beds, the card players who had been trying to recover lost coinage, or the fellows who had been comfortably reading or chatting in the canteen.
If enough help was available, the whole load could be brought up in one trip. Otherwise, it was two or more trips for a few. That prospect made it difficult to avoid being "Joed" to help. I never weighed more than 172 pounds, but I once got a 98 pound bag of flour up that hill and into the Mess hall all by myself. No one liked the job, but there were some satisfactions.
We worked on the road all fall. We dug and shovelled and we trucked sand and gravel up from the sea shore. Unfortunately we did not succeed in completing it before winter set in. Even after the road up the hill was completed it was sometimes impassable in the winter. Actually, that road was never fully completed. After we got it built there was the everlasting maintenance. Every time we got one of those torrential rains there were washouts to repair. There were still times when, even with the help of the International T6 Crawler Tractor, the Ration Truck could not be towed up. Those time we again had to rely on 'volunteers' to bring in the rations.
The weekly ration run was also the time that we exchanged films. Being able to see a new movie was one of the incentives for the fellows who were recruited to unload the truck. Although the following evening, Thursday, was designated as Movie Night, I can recall being awakened very late many Wednesday nights or early Thursday mornings by the sounds of merriment and movies being shown in the Recreation Room. My room was separated from it by a not very soundproof wall.
The times during the first year that the truck made it right up to the Mess Hall door, were few and far between. Those times were so much appreciated. It was also appreciated by those who had been passengers. These were either fellows returning from leave or men being posted in, none of whom would have been dressed for Joe Jobs such as toting groceries in the middle of the night. Occasionally they would include visiting Padres and others, most of whom would have their own kit bags to contend with.
Eventually the road was so good that the later arrivals to Cole Harbour never had the opportunity, nor the pleasure, of carrying rations half a mile up a hill in the cold and wet at midnight.
Inexplicably, the station was originally called "Queensport", after the village some eight miles away as the crow flies, to where there was only that footpath. One did have to pass Queensport on the way to the site. However, one also had to pass through Half Island Cove, Port Felix, and Cole Harbour to get there as there was not direct road across the peninsula. The following year, in 1943, the name of No. 5 Radar Station was officially changed to RCAF Station Cole Harbour. Earlier personnel still refer to it as "Queensport".
Mickey Stevens.
September 7th, 2001.
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