[Granville-Hough] 6 Dec 2009 - Ellesmere Island and Canadians

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Sun, 06 Dec 2009 07:31:01 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Ellesmere Island & Canadians - 6 Dec 2009

   I was able to get to church today, this second sunday of Advent, and 
no one mentioned Pearl Harbor.  I suppose I was the only one there born 
before that time, and certainly the only one whose life was forever 
changed by that day.  We went on to a normal service.    As I was 
considering the kinds of things which happened at Thule, Greenland; I 
recalled an incident and discussion with a Canadian officer about our 
troubles with cold weather.  To back up a bit, the Cuban missile crisis 
happened while I was in Thule.  I had premonitions it would happen just 
about the way it did when we placed intermediate range ballistic 
missiles at Dyabakir, Turkey.  I had prepared a thesis for the Air War 
College on the probable effects of placing Soviet intermediate range 
ballistic missiles in Cuba.  Then it happened.    Security suddenly 
tightened, and one of the requirements became visual identification of 
visitors.  Some high-ranking Pentagon civilian had scheduled a visit to 
Thule and to the Canadian base on Ellesmere Island  to the northeast of 
Thule.  The question became: How can we identify this fellow, who has 
ever seen him?  Well, it happens I had seen him at briefings I had given 
in the Pentagon, so I felt confident I could identify him.  So I found 
myself waiting with a Canadian Liaison Officer for the plane to land 
with the visitor.  I was to meet the Pentagon visitor and introduce him 
to the Canadian Liaison Officer from Ellesmere.  That was all I had to 
do.  I had no clearance for any information about what the Canadians 
were doing, so I simply was to disappear after the identification.
   While we were waiting, the Canadian officer was quite free in his 
remarks about what he considered the waste and inexperience of the 
officers and men at Thule.  The various measures we took to handle 
vehicles and men were things everyone in Canadian service considered 
normal.  After all, the conditions on the northern Labrador shores and 
in Hudson Bay were even more extreme than those at Thule.  Goose Bay, 
Labrador, and Churchill on Hudson Bay were places he mentioned.  I 
really had no defense for his comments, except that we had no one serve 
more than a year.  Canadians apparently sent families for two or three 
year tours to their posts, and they developed a great deal of working 
knowledge about how to get along.  This was passed on to new people.  
What I gathered from him was that he considered the Canadians could run 
the whole BMEWS, along with its Air Force and Army protection, at about 
one tenth the cost.  Well, the plane finally arrived, I did my chore, 
and left the party, which went on to Ellesmere Island.
   My understanding about the Ellesmere operation was that is was mainly 
to monitor activity in  and over the Arctic Ocean.   It was later that 
nuclear-armed U. S. and Soviet submarines began to cross the Arctic 
Ocean under the ice, so far as I know.  I never learned what other 
activities were going on.  I never learned what the Pentagon visitor was 
going there to see.  Apparently we had a very present interest after the 
Cuban missile crisis to coordinate with the Canadians.
   I did not forget the Canadian viewpoint that we wasted a lot of money 
and human effort in our approach to the Thule operations.  The Canadians 
were probably mostly correct.  We did not catalog what worked and what 
did not work.  Every year, we started with practical neophytes who had a 
lot of learning to do as no one had left a record.
   With love to all, Grampa.
------------------------------------------------
Mohandas Gandhi:  "We must learn to live simply, in order for others to 
simply live."