EvanL
05-20-2004, 11:37 AM
By BILL POWER / Staff Reporter
It was a Second World War mission so secret the Canadian teenagers involved have only in recent years started talking about it.
About 5,000 high school graduates from across Canada shipped out quietly from Pier 21 in the early stages of the war, under strict orders of secrecy.
"It was completely hush-hush. We could talk about it only to the people we trained with," Robert Linden of Ottawa remembered Wednesday, as he and a few dozen surviving wartime radar technicians soaked up memories at the immigration memorial.
The electronic surveillance equipment employed by the British to fend off the Nazi aerial armada was extremely rudimentary by today's standards.
"Radar was in its infancy. Hell . . . it was crude," said Mr. Linden, chairman of the Canadian Radio History Project in Ottawa. "We had a range of perhaps 100 miles. The German bombers traveled at about 300 miles per hour. . . . You do the math . . . but it was all we had.
"It gave us time to get the Spitfires and the Hurricanes (Royal Air Force fighters) into the area. That was the important thing."
High school graduates, some hankering for wartime adventure, answered mysterious advertisements offering "radio work" to support the war effort in the early 1940s.
What few knew was the new technology called radar was gobbling up operators and technicians at an amazing rate.
The British were desperate for new talent but could not talk about it publicly.
Canada agreed to secretly train 5,000 specialists and get the young people overseas as quickly as possible.
Secrecy was taken extremely seriously, said Mr. Linden.
"We could say we were in the air force. That was all. Sometimes people did not believe that."
At covert training centres across the country - usually at universities, but also at independent centres operated by the military - the young people were subjected to a gruelling four months of intellectual and mechanical training.
Veteran William McLauchlan, who resides in Ottawa but spends summers in the Yarmouth area, said the trainees had to commit to memory a daunting amount of information relating to the operation and maintenance of radar installations.
"There were no textbooks . . . taking notes was absolutely forbidden."
Not surprisingly, the training program had a 40 per cent dropout rate - women would also train as radar specialists for Canadian locations - so many more than 5,000 suitable applicants had to be found.
Thanks to the advent of radar, and its rapid development during the war, Nazi aircraft were soon falling in flames into the English Channel, instead of bombing English cities.
The Allies quickly deployed radar to other theatres of the war with similar results.
As the Allies celebrated the defeat of the Nazis, the Canadian radar technicians (and Allied counterparts) remained true to their oaths of secrecy.
"We said we did some radio work, that was all," veteran Charles Brunger said of his work on the thin electronic line.
Mr. Linden said details of all activities of the radar specialists remained sealed in government archives for 30 years.
Thanks in part to the Canadian Radio History Project, the remarkable story of the radar technicians and their electronic efforts is finally being told.
The radar specialists, who have held annual reunions at various Canadian locations since 1996, are gathering in Truro. They were in Halifax to visit a radar exhibit at Pier 21 that explains some of the covert work they did.
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It was a Second World War mission so secret the Canadian teenagers involved have only in recent years started talking about it.
About 5,000 high school graduates from across Canada shipped out quietly from Pier 21 in the early stages of the war, under strict orders of secrecy.
"It was completely hush-hush. We could talk about it only to the people we trained with," Robert Linden of Ottawa remembered Wednesday, as he and a few dozen surviving wartime radar technicians soaked up memories at the immigration memorial.
The electronic surveillance equipment employed by the British to fend off the Nazi aerial armada was extremely rudimentary by today's standards.
"Radar was in its infancy. Hell . . . it was crude," said Mr. Linden, chairman of the Canadian Radio History Project in Ottawa. "We had a range of perhaps 100 miles. The German bombers traveled at about 300 miles per hour. . . . You do the math . . . but it was all we had.
"It gave us time to get the Spitfires and the Hurricanes (Royal Air Force fighters) into the area. That was the important thing."
High school graduates, some hankering for wartime adventure, answered mysterious advertisements offering "radio work" to support the war effort in the early 1940s.
What few knew was the new technology called radar was gobbling up operators and technicians at an amazing rate.
The British were desperate for new talent but could not talk about it publicly.
Canada agreed to secretly train 5,000 specialists and get the young people overseas as quickly as possible.
Secrecy was taken extremely seriously, said Mr. Linden.
"We could say we were in the air force. That was all. Sometimes people did not believe that."
At covert training centres across the country - usually at universities, but also at independent centres operated by the military - the young people were subjected to a gruelling four months of intellectual and mechanical training.
Veteran William McLauchlan, who resides in Ottawa but spends summers in the Yarmouth area, said the trainees had to commit to memory a daunting amount of information relating to the operation and maintenance of radar installations.
"There were no textbooks . . . taking notes was absolutely forbidden."
Not surprisingly, the training program had a 40 per cent dropout rate - women would also train as radar specialists for Canadian locations - so many more than 5,000 suitable applicants had to be found.
Thanks to the advent of radar, and its rapid development during the war, Nazi aircraft were soon falling in flames into the English Channel, instead of bombing English cities.
The Allies quickly deployed radar to other theatres of the war with similar results.
As the Allies celebrated the defeat of the Nazis, the Canadian radar technicians (and Allied counterparts) remained true to their oaths of secrecy.
"We said we did some radio work, that was all," veteran Charles Brunger said of his work on the thin electronic line.
Mr. Linden said details of all activities of the radar specialists remained sealed in government archives for 30 years.
Thanks in part to the Canadian Radio History Project, the remarkable story of the radar technicians and their electronic efforts is finally being told.
The radar specialists, who have held annual reunions at various Canadian locations since 1996, are gathering in Truro. They were in Halifax to visit a radar exhibit at Pier 21 that explains some of the covert work they did.
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