A map of "Spruce Park" (we lived at 13 Park Road). If there were no nuclear war games going on that day, I could take a short cut around runway 26 to get to the swimming pool. Even as a child I felt something important was going on at Goose Bay. The United States had leased land there, and built a sizable base with runways long enough (and strong enough) to handle the largest nuclear bombers including B-52's and the British Vulcan. There was a rotating SAC (Strategic Air Command) unit there and enough fuel supplies to get the bombers to Europe or Russia in case of an unfortunate nuclear event..
This excerpt, from de-classified Canadian documents, tells the story.
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| .......Mr. Arneson explained that the Secretary of State had received on January 2nd a formal request from the Secretary of Defense that the Canadian Government be approached at the highest political level in order to reach a general agreement to govern the deployment of the units of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, the storage of weapons including atomic weapons, the construction of facilities for their storage, and the over-flight of Canadian territory which this deployment involves. Specifically, the proposal involves the use of Harmon Airfield as well as of Goose Bay. Before the eventuality of war, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff desire to use Harmon and Goose Bay for training purposes, as well as to make necessary preparations for their use as staging bases for actual missions in wartime. | |||||||
As I kid I appreciated that the "American side" of the base (with check-point and all). When mom and dad felt like taking us out for a fancy dinner they'd take us there.
The "berm" you see in the picture (above) was designed to pacify local (current) residents complaining about the noise of jets taking off. We never had no berm. We never needed an alarm clock back then as the jets would take off on their morning exercises at approximately 6:30AM. The tremendous energy these jets exhausted was enough to crack a few dishes during our stay there.
And here are a picture of the barracks with a Vulcan bomber (British) overhead. We lived in the barracks until our house ( at Spruce Park) was ready. I have fond memories of that time, and my entire time in Goose Bay. If you look closely you'll see a "slide" (covered with snow) coming out of the middle of the barracks. That was the fire escape!
What are the odds of finding a picture on the internet of a house that you lived in when you were a kid?
Found it.
Here it is.
13 Park Road. Goose Bay, Labrador (population 8,900)(nearest town 300 miles away - population 13,500).
