Talk:Ernest Harmon Air Force Base

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If someone reads this,

I wrote the information for the US Military Bases in Eastern Canada (Ernest Harmon AFB and Pepperrill AFB) back in 1988. Everything was referenced and sources cited. The historian who wrote the introduction had given me his permission to put it in the booklet (unpublished) and I am the author and copyright holder. Perhaps someone can let me know what is wrong. I am new at this and am trying to read your instructions for submissions

Wayne Ray Author / Poet / Publisher POB 340 Station B London Ontario N6A 4W1 materia@live.ca 519-661-0583

Hi Wayne,

first, I would note that you are the author of this material at WP:CP under this page's listing there. Since you are the copyright holder it was automatically released per the gfdl when you submitted.

second, I would rewrite at the /Temp link provided in the copyright violation notice (read the instructions). Remove (or rewrite) the stuff by John W. Chambers, he needs to give permission or submit it himself. Remove the copyright notices (of course).

third, please format per Wikipedia's manual of style WP:MOS.

In a week or so an administrator will review the article and restore the rewritten page if everything looks ok. --Duk 16:29, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Restored--Duk 14:41, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wayne and others:

I tripped over this article while doing some editing on the Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador page. I hadn't read this discussion section beforehand so I had mentioned in my edit summary that it "appeared to have been copied". Now that the contents are verified and okay, please disregard my previous comment. I've listed this article for "wikifying" so that it might get worked up a bit quicker. Cheers,Plasma east 1 July 2005 02:10 (UTC)

I hope the author doesn't mind but I took most of the passages relating to school faculty changes. I thought these parts would be of little interest to info seekers. Please reinstate if you disagree.

Removed:

Mrs. Barnett moved to the high school and (the late) Hap Holander was promoted to teacher-principal in the junior high. In 1962/63, Mr. Robert Keefaurer joined the staff as assistant principal.

the administration offices were staffed by Mrs. Toon, Mrs Perdue and Mrs Betty Coroner

with the help of Shirley Vincent, Patricia Sudsbury and Julia Reid in clerical positions. Cyril Alexander was the supply clerk at the time. Mr Kidd (elementary school principal) was transferred to Japan and Mr L.E. Davis was the new Principal. In 1964/65 John Middleton became the assistant high school principal and in the administration offices were Mrs. Saul, Mrs. Title, Miss Barnes and Cyril Alexander.

In 1964/65, Greg Hastings was the physical education teacher and coach at the high school and his bride to be was a fourth grade teacher in the elementary school. They were married shortly after leaving the base and are now living in Wilson, North Carolina where Greg is Director of Teacher Education at Atlantic Christian College and Connie is Director of the Children's Center at Wilson County Technical College.

Mrs Edith Raymond taught in the high school in the late 50's and later taught for three years (grade 7&8) in Indiana and 16 years in West Point, Mississippi where she retired in 1980 and is now living on a small farm. Mrs. Barnett returned and Mr. Steve Davis joined the elementary middle school as the audio-visual director.

lots of issues | leave me a message 20:27, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from a mention that engineers from the base used a beach for equipment storage and that one of the people mentioned in this section was stationed on the base, there is no connection of this section to the main article. This is about a private land dispute that occurred over 50 years ago. Even though storage space may be virtually unlimited, this is not a justifictation for the length and level of detail in this section. For example: What value is there in knowing the size of the camping lots, or where the flower shop and tailor shop were located? This section should be removed. Silverchemist 18:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your note, this was orignally a unpublished manuscript written in a more persanlable manner trying to bring in personal stories and local events that people on the base/town would be interested in knowing. I will endeavour to work on it again. WayneRay 22:34, 7 August 2007 (UTC)WayneRay[reply]

I'm pretty sure that the agreement that lead to the establishment of the US bases in Newfoundland was the Destroyers for Bases deal not Lend Lease. --Shimbo (talk) 10:29, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, as there were no objections, I've changed it.--Shimbo (talk) 13:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I realize anyone can edit Wikipedia articles but this is so far removed from my original book manuscript I wish sometimes people would just leave it alone (OK I stopped venting and whining) I am puttting in the original introduction by John Chambers which I left out in the first place. WayneRay (talk) 18:53, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

U.S military role in Newfoundland and Harmon Field in WWII. by John W. Chambers

The origins of Ernest Harmon Air Force Base in Newfoundland, Canada, can be found in the early years of World War II with the concerns of the Government to protect the sea and air approaches across the North Atlantic Ocean. That became a crucial matter in the spring of 1940 when Nazi Germany conquered France and the Low Countries with unexpected rapidity and began its air and naval attempts to force Great Britain into submission. With American public opinion increasingly supporting rearmament and aid to the Allies, the governments of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and of the new British Prime Minister Winston Churchill negotiated a defense agreement providing for the transfer of fifty U.S. destroyers to England in exchange for 99-year leases for U.S. military bases on eight British territories1. Among these was Newfoundland which had relinquished dominion status as part of Canada and which was a British Territory from 1934 until 19492.

Negotiations in regard to the U.S. bases on Newfoundland were complicated by the varying interests of London, Ottawa, St. John's, and Washington, but the details of implementing the bases agreement were completed in London England in march 1941. The United States obtained authority to build and operate bases and maintain control of the U.S. forces on Newfoundland and the other British territories without significant interference by local governors3.

Given the increased German threat in the North Atlantic, President Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King had already initiated joint U.S. Canadian defense planning in August 1940. In the same month, Ottawa reached an agreement with the Newfoundland Government under which Canada assumed responsibility for the security of Newfoundland. Roosevelt was particularly interested in establishing U.S. air and naval bases in the region, and the initial focus of the new Permanent Joint Board on Defence, Canada-United States, was the defense of the coastline, particularly Newfoundland which guarded both the entrance to the St. Lawrence River and Gulf and the western reaches of the North Atlantic sea lanes4.

A joint U.S. Army-Navy Board visited Newfoundland and recommended specific base sites, and after the signing of the bases implantation agreement in London on March 27, 1941, the Commission of Government of Newfoundland leased several sites to the United States Government. Construction began almost immediately on the three major sites. Fort Pepperrell on 198 leased acres near Quidi Vidi Lake would be the main army base, housing a regiment of infantry as well as anti-aircraft guns and coastal artillery to protect the capital city and harbor at St. John's. The main naval base would be on 3,392 acres at Argentia on the southern coast of the island and would be protected by a military installation, Fort McAndrew. The U.S. Army Air Corps would use both Newfoundland International Airport (redesignated Gander Airport, after a nearby lake and town in the north central part of the island) and Ernest Harmon Field which was to be constructed on 867 acres at Stephenville on the western coast of Newfoundland5.

Initially, the U.S. Army Air Corps urged that Gander Airport be included as one of the U.S. leased base areas for it was already an operating international commercial airport. However the Canadian Government wanted to assume major control of the recently completed airport, mainly to prevent the Americans from doing so. This Ottawa was able to do, with the approval of St. John's, largely by providing for U.S. military needs at Gander, defending the base and constructing five hangers for the Americans, at Canadian expense6. As a result, the main Air Corps base constructed in Newfoundland by the Americans themselves - by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - was Harmon Field7.

Named after Capt. Ernest E. Harmon, an Army Air Corps pilot who was killed during a test flight in l933, the airfield near Stephenville had been initially conceived of as an emergency landing strip. However, due to dramatically increased activity in the Battle of the Atlantic, initial estimates for the U.S. bases in Newfoundland were substantially expanded. The projected garrisons of U.S. troops were increased from 6,000 to 16,000. Furthermore, it was decided to make Harmon Field a permanent and more substantial facility, with three 6000-foot concrete runways. Construction of the U.S. bases in Newfoundland was designated complete in March 1943, with actual final cost of construction being $6O,300,0008.

During World War II, Harmon Field served initially as a base for aerial reconnaissance of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. However, its major role soon became a main stopover point on the trans-Atlantic route from the United States to the United Kingdom. This included the Air Ferry Route over which thousands of war planes, constructed in American factories, were flown across the North Atlantic to participate in the air war in Europe. It also included the route of the U.S. Air Transport Command, which in the last two years of the war, used Harmon Field as its main trans-Atlantic staging site to carry passengers and cargo across the sea as part of preparations in England for the D Day invasion and the liberation of Western Europe. After the victory in Europe, Harmon Field was also a major site through which the U.S. Army Air Force returned 240,000 American soldiers and other passengers to the United States9.

References

1. On the destroyer-bases agreement of Sept. 2, 1940, see Waldo Heinrichs,(1988). Threshold of War: Franklin D.Roosevelt and American Entry Into World War II. N.Y.: Oxford, University Press; Martin Gilbert,(1983). Winston S. Churchill, Vol. VI, Finest Hour, 1939-1941. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., pp. 732-33,743, 1044; David Reynolds, (1981).Competitive Cooperation: The Creation of the Anqlo-American Alliance,1938-1941. London; and Philip Goodhart, (1965). Fifty Ships That Saved the World: The Foundation of the Anqlo American Alliance. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.

2. David MacKenzie, (1986). Inside the Atlantic Triangle: Canada and the Entrance of Newfoundland into Confederation, 1939-1949. Toronto:University of Toronto Press.

3. Stetson Conn, Rose C. Engleman, and Byron Fairchild, (1964). Guarding the United States and Its Outposts. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, pp. 360-75, in the series, Office of the Chief of Military History, The U.S. Army in World War II.

4. Fred E. Pollock, (1981). "Roosevelt, the Ogdensburg Agreement, and the British Fleet: All Done with Mirrors", Diplomatic History, (Summer), pp. 203-19; Stanley, W. Dziuban, (1959). Military Relations between the United States and Canada, 1939-1945. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, pp. 430, and Stetson Conn, and Byron Fairchild (1960), The Framework of Hemisphere Defense. Washington,D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, pp. 364-89, both volumes in The U.S. Army in World War II. From Canadian perspectives, see MacKenzie, Inside the Atlantic Triangle, pp. 46-51, and J.L. Granatstein, (1975). Canada's War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 1939-1945. Toronto: Oxford University Press, pp. 114-51. A Newfoundland view is presented in Malcolm MacLeod, (1986). Peace of the Continent: The Impact of Second World War Canadian and American Bases in Newfoundland. St. John's: Harry Cuff Publications Ltd., pp. 8, 18-30.

5. Dziuban, Military Relations, pp. 96, 167; Mackenzie, Inside the Atlantic Triangle, pp. 53-54. On the U.S. Naval Base at Argentia, see Paolo E. Coletta, ed., (1985). United States Navy and Marine Corps Bases, Overseas (Wesport, Conn: Greenwood Press, pp.13-17.

6. Dziuban, Military Relations, pp. 96 97, 167-68, 172. On the role of Canadian forces in Newfoundland during the war, see Desmond Morton, (1985). A Military History of Canada Edmonton Hurtig Publishers; C.P. Stacey, (1970). Arms, Men and Governments: The War Policies of Canada, 1939-1945. Ottawa: Department of National Defence; Gilbert Norman Tucker, (1952). The Naval Service of Canada, Vol. II, Activities on Shore during the Second World War. Ottawa: King's Printer; G.W.L. Nicholson, (1969). More Fighting Newfoundlanders: A History of Newfoundland's Fighting Forces in the Second World War . St. John's: Government of Newfoundland.

7. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was the construction agency for the U.S. Army and the U.S. Army Air Corps; Lenore Fine and Jesse A. Remington,(1972). The Corps of Engineers: Construction in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History. For its work at Harmon Field: see Dziuban, Military Relations, pp. 127, 166-68, 193, 1978, 192; and the more detailed account in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, North Atlantic Division, "U.S. Army Bases: Newfoundland" unpublished typescript monograph, 1946, on file in the Office of the Chief of Military History, Washington, D.C.

8. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, North Atlantic Division, "U.S. Army Bases: Newfoundland", cited in Dziuban, Military Relations, pp. 167-68; see also ibid., pp. 175-75. Mackenzie, Atlantic Triangle, p. 79. Developments in the naval war in the Atlantic are also recounted in the official history of the U.S. Navy by Samuel E. Morison, (1947). The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939-May 1943, Boston: Little, Brown; and with broader perspective and more recent documentation by Dan van der Vat, (1965). The Atlantic Campaign: An Epic History of World War II's Struggle at Sea, N.Y.: Harper and Row. On the name of Harmon Field, see Air Force Bases: A Directory of U.S. Air Force Installations, Harrisburg,Pa.: Stackpole Co., (1965), p. 145.

9. Wesley F. Craven and James L. Cate, eds., (1948). The Army Air Forces in World War II: Plans and Early Operations, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, I, pp. 313-49; U.S. Army Air Forces, Air Transport Command, "History of the North Atlantic Division", II, pp. 308-10; IV, pp. 205, 337, 368, unpublished, typescript monograph, 1946, on file at Headquarters, Military Air Transport Service, cited in Dziuban, Military Relations, p. 192. On the history of the Air Transport Command, see Reginald M. Cleveland, (1946). Air Transport at War, N.Y.: Harper and Brothers; and Oliver La Farge, (1949). The Eagle in the Egg, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Ernest Harmon Air Force Base: I (Allen W Davis) was stationed there with A Co 347th Eng Avn Bn from Aug 1954-June or July 1956. I was regular Army attached to the Air Force. We finished bulding the Engineer site an a 13 mile road.It was called SCARWAf.The artical doesnot show the shoulder patch we wore. Only Air Force. The unit went to regular in June 1956. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.55.55.18 (talk) 21:13, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Additional information for anyone doing historical research: List of names of EHAFB airmen and families living at Ray’s Trailer Park (aka Ray’s Trailer Haven) on Queen Street in Stephenville, Newfoundland between 1956 and 1959. Boon, Sporlock, A1C Clarke, A1C Spangenbough, Bloomfield, M.Sgt.Paul, M.Sgt. Bevelle, Dovako, Doll, DeAngelis, Ernst, Graham, Adams, Peterson, Coomer, Robinson, McCorkin, Hood, Sgt. Allen, Cpt. Butls, Cpt. Thompson, Cpt. Bradshaw, Sgt. Todd, Sgt. Keeler, Lt. Ebb Higdon, S. Dollard, J.F. Peters, D. Ottman, R. Dennis, M. Luttrell, T. Bloominger, Sgt. Hartman, Cooper, Darg, J. Keith, R.K. Johnson, Bill Blake, Hayden, R. Zelch, J.P. Millard, B.E. Peter, Patton, Weatherpond, Bill Arrington, Flanagan, Louis Brooks, G.S. Gibson, B. Allred, George Mark, G.F. Stevens, O.N. Sample, Hertell, L.M. Parshall, Lloyd Munson, Claxton & Gay Ray. Drexal N. & Libby Mattox.J.E. Dawson, G.J. Tenant. Francis J. Hertel, Edward M. Fulmer 1st Lt. Adjutant, Junior Lee Graley Pvt 2nd Class, J.E.R. Simms Customs and Excise Tax, Heber Rose, Stella Wilton, Florence Tippet, Cecelia Davis, Gus Russell, Evelyn Young, Steve and Ray O’Quinn, George and Francis Pickering (Corner Brook), Leo Bruce, Joe White. WayneRay (talk) 00:49, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]