Telegrapher Martin Boston sends the first commercial message
over the new teletype machine at Port Hawkesbury, in 1961.
Mr. Boston was a telegrapher from 1956 to 1976.
[The Inverness Oran, 8 April 1998]
Chapter 21
1 January 1960 to 31 December 1969
Index with links to the other chapters
The Canadian Angle During
the Cuban Missile Crisis
October 1962
Special interest:
Premier Robert Stanfield Exacts Harsh Revenge
Photographs of the Last Run:
The Last Run, 23 September 1961
http://web.archive.org/web/20000830122232/http://www.geocities.com/
CapeCanaveral/Hangar/8913/10lastrun.jpg
The crew of the last run at Maccan
Hance LeBlanc (engineer)
Harry Melton (brakeman)
Percy MacPherson(superintendent)
Austin Brown(fireman)
Bert Hood(conductor)
Mrs.Norman Avard
N.T Avard (president MCR&P Co)
http://web.archive.org/web/20000830122240/http://www.geocities.com/
CapeCanaveral/Hangar/8913/crewatmaccan.jpg
The family asked that his age not be disclosed, although a friend said Dyer was in his early 80s. No other details were available.
The Cuban Missile Crisis started quietly on 13 October 1962, when American aerial reconnaissance obtained conclusive photographic evidence of ballistic missile sites on the island. The American reaction was swift. Aircraft were alerted, invasion forces quietly assembled, and the USN brought out in force. Four days later the commander of US Atlantic anti-submarine forces flew to Halifax to brief Rear-Admiral Ken L. Dyer, Flag Officer, Atlantic Coast, on the developing situation. Dyer already had four escort squadrons – the 1st of old destroyers, the 5th of Restigouche Class ships, and the Prestonians of the 7th and 9th – either at sea or on short notice. Bonaventure, less her Banshee squadron, which had disbanded on 30 September, was in British waters with the Tribal Class destroyers of the 1st Escort Squadron. The other east-coast squadron, the 3rd of old destroyers, was on reduced manning. The only active west-coast squadron, the St. Laurents of the 2nd, was alongside at San Francisco. Dyer also had operational control of the RCAF's maritime patrol squadrons and, should the crisis escalate, he could deploy the two British training submarines assigned to his command.
On the night of 17 October, Dyer's forces made their first contact with a Russian submarine 300 miles off the Canadian coast. Eleven more contacts followed over the next three weeks. While the submarine was tracked by both Canadian and American forces, the tension between Washington and Moscow over the missiles in Cuba heated up. Canadian maritime forces, both naval and air, were on a high state of alert and actively engaged in the preliminaries of the crisis when Kennedy's speech of 22 October shook the world. Certainly, as Peter Haydon observed, “Kennedy's speech that evening was a complete surprise to the Canadian political system and to the population as a whole.” Kennedy demanded the unconditional withdrawal of the missiles, and established an quarantine around Cuba to stop further shipment of military equipment.
With the crisis now in the open, the American government pressured Canada to raise its state of alert and to deploy forces in support of the quarantine, Diefenbaker dithered. The American ‘quarantine’ was technically illegal, but his government was never convinced that it was necessary to go to the state of military readiness and activity that the Americans demanded. It was not until 24 October, two days after Kennedy's speech, that the Naval Board authorized the recall of Bonaventure and the 1st Squadron from Europe, and Dyer was allowed to go to a higher state of readiness. He deployed his forces in accordance with the existing plans. While theAmericans established a barrier operation southeast of Newfoundland along the line of their SOSUS field, intensely supported by RCAF aircraft, RCN ships patrolled key areas off Nova Scotia and in the approaches to New York. The 5th squadron patrolled southeast of Halifax, the 7th rotated into Sydney for fuel, while the 3rd, brought to a full state of manning, was sent to watch the Georges Bank. The two Royal Navy submarines were deployed to patrol areas on the northeastern of the Grand Banks. The public explanation for all this activity was on-going fleet exercises with the United States Navy. In reality, the navy was deployed for war and was actively pursuing Russian submarine contacts. If there was any doubt about the presence of Russian submarines, Dyer had only to look out his office window. There, lying in Halifax harbour, was the Soviet submarine replenishment ship Atlantika. She sailed on the 27th for Georges Bank.
With the bulk of USN forces committed to the quarantine around Cuba, the RCN was soon asked to extend its patrols further south. Dyer obliged. But he got little firm direction from Ottawa, and no authorization even for the additional fuel allocation required. As Haydon writes: ‘Dyer's problem was that he could not convince Ottawa that the Soviet submarines still presented a potential threat to North America, and he remained frustrated by Ottawa's refusal to see the situation in a tactical light.’
There is no record that any ‘unofficial’ authorization emerged from Ottawa. Dyer signalled his intentions, and went ahead with them when no one objected. When Khrushchev seemed publicly to back down on 28 October, the crisis was officially over, and Ottawa, never as fully committed as Washington, went back to its normal routine. Unfortunately for Dyer, a high level of Soviet submarine activity in his zone remained. Only on 30 October did Dyer receive an equivocal direction not to exceed his annual fuel allocation. Like Nelson at Copenhagen, Dyer turned a blind eye to Ottawa's indifference and kept his ships and aircraft at sea. The peak of operations came on 5 November, with the ‘the carrier, some twenty-four escorts and two submarines... deployed across an area over 1000 miles long and about 250 miles wide’ [1600km long and about 400km wide]. Two days later Kootenay made contact with a Soviet Foxtrot Class submarine near Georges Bank, one of eleven being tracked by plotters. Confirmation that it was a submarine came when two Soviet trawlers nearly charged the destroyer in an attempt to break contact. Kootenay held on and passed the Foxtrot off to the United States Navy for further prosecution. In the end, between 23 October and 15 November, some 136 Soviet submarine ‘contacts’ were made in the Atlantic in or near the Canadian zone. The navy prided itself on its effective response to the crisis and the smoothness with which existing North American and NATO defence preparations worked. In contrast, the government and even the senior leadership of the navy seemed paralysed by the crisis. As Tony German concluded, Dyer ‘was a courageous leader who had done what had to be done when Canada's political leadership had so shockingly failed the test.’ Haydon concurred: ‘One cannot find fault with Admiral Dyer's decision to take action without direction from Naval Service Headquarters; he merely did what he believed was in the best interests of the fleet and national defence. That the national headquarters was frozen with inaction was a systematic problem.’ Decades after the Cuban crisis, naval officers recalled with pride the time when the navy went to war because the government lacked the will to do so.
Not everyone shared the navy's sentiment. A few years after the Cuban crisis the dean of Canadian historians, the irascible Donald Creighton, lauded the government for its reluctance to respond to the American lead. ‘The Canadian divisions of NORAD were not placed on an advanced state of alert,’ he wrote, ‘and, in the Commons, Diefenbaker suggested an impartial inquiry into the state of affairs in Cuba, thereby impiously questioning the dogma that the voice of the President of the United States, speaking ex cathedra, was the voice of God, revealing God's perfect truth.’ Politicians and senior civil servants seem to have learned their own lessons about independent naval action in the fall of 1962. As for Diefenbaker, his failure to follow the American lead blindly resulted in an unprecedented intervention by the United States in subsequent Canadian domestic politics.
The political fallout of the Cuban crisis profoundly shaped the history of the Canadian navy. The crisis itself deepened divisions within the country. By the end of 1962 the Liberal and New Democratic parties were boisterously anti-nuclear, and Diefenbaker's minority government was divided. The Tories had bought weapons systems, but many in Cabinet could not bring themselves to buy the warheads. ‘Upon this divided people and its divided government,’ Creighton wrote, ‘the full weight of American reprimand and injunction now fell with shattering force.’
Source:— http://www.navy.forces.gc.ca/marpac/10/10-w_eng.asp?section=0&category=79&id=398
Reference:— HIE 208: A Canadian Military History from Confederation to the Present
Lesson 10 - Week 10, 1945-65 pages 27, 28
...International law is clear in stating that warships (including submarines) may use the territorial waters of another state for the purposes of innocent passage and, in the case of submarines, that they be on the surface... In 1962, the law was not clear on the use of ocean areas contiguous to territorial waters by foreign submarines in nonwartime situations, and this was a major concern for American and Canadian naval staffs. The right to attack unidentified submarines lurking offshore had never been a problem in the Second World War (1939-1945) when their purpose was unambiguous. However, for the first decade (late 1940s to mid 1950s) of the Cold War the presence of an unidentified submarine off-shore conducting surveillance from international waters presented no immediate threat; it merely remained a potential threat should the international situation deteriorate. The advent of strategic weapons, essentially nuclear weapons and missiles and their adaptation to submarine use, led to re-appraisal of the policies for dealing with unidentified submarines.
In August 1955, the chief of the Canadian Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral H.G. DeWolf, proposed a change in the rules of engagement, explaining the need to do so:
In view of the size of the Soviet submarine fleet and the large proportion of ocean patrol submarines comprising it, it must be considered probable that in the preliminary phase of a nuclear war Soviet submarines will be deployed to positions in Canadian coastal waters from which nuclear armed missiles can be launched against targets within their range to coincide with air attacks on other targets. To achieve simultaneous attacks by sea and air would necessitate the submarines being sailed some days previously in order to make the transit to their launching positions. It is conceivable, therefore, that the first indication of the enemy's war intentions may well be the detection by sound surveillance systems, ships or aircraft of a number of submarines approaching the coasts of Canada.
The proposed change, which reflected the earlier shift in NATO strategy to acknowledge Soviet nuclear capabilities, and which was to be sent to the Cabinet Defence Committee, went on to state that the existing rules were inadequate in light of recent submarine developments. Recommendations for changes in the rules, however, did not include RCAF maritime patrol aircraft which had become key antisubmarine warfare (ASW) forces in the integrated concept of maritime defence.
Central to the new procedure was the initial interrogation of the submarine contact to establish its identity where possible, and when it could not be identified positively, and contact was only made acoustically (by any underwater detection system), then it would be deemed “hostile” only if a hostile act was committed. The meaning of “hostile” act on the part of a submarine was, or so it seemed at the time, fairly straight forward:
• diving without identifying itself;
• clearing away its gun armament on the approach of a ship or aircraft;
• preparing to fire a missile;
• attacking any ship or aircraft; or
• firing a missile.
Interestingly, “North American waters” were not defined or delineated. It seems an operational assumption was that the rules of engagement applied to unidentified submarines found within their theoretical maximum weapons range and to those contacts found closing to within such a distance from shore. The emphasis, it was stated, was on attempting to make early identification. In other words, resolving the ambiguity of an unidentified contact as early as possible was paramount, which made sense from both political and tactical perspectives.
The Naval Staff's strategic logic, however, was not supported completely by the officials of the Department of External Affairs who foresaw political rather than legal problems in the proposal particularly in that part of the definition of “hostile act” concerning non-identification. Here, they argued, it might be prudent to give the submarine the benefit of the doubt. Essentially, the view was that sinking a Soviet submarine outside territorial waters on the basis of non-identification paralleled questionable Soviet actions in shooting down unidentified aircraft outside the territorial airspace of their country. Moreover, External Affairs lawyers and the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Charles Foulkes, believed that the procedure and rules should be consistent with those used by the Americans. In terms of response within territorial waters, no doubts existed because an attack on an obviously hostile submarine was “self-defence.” As the legal brief attached to the Department of External Affairs' memo to DND stated, “[s]ome writers of international law go even further and assert the existence of a much wider right than that of self-defence, namely the right of selfpreservation which they claim is one of the fundamental rights of states and takes precedence over all others.”
Overall, the legal opinion concurred in the right of the state to take action against unidentified submarines, especially as similar concepts already existed for unidentified aircraft. The problem lay in the definition of a “hostile act,” a matter that would remain a highly contentious issue for many years. In trying to change the rules for dealing with potentially hostile submarines close to Canadian waters, DeWolf and his staff had inadvertently opened a legal pandora's box.
The next step was to work with the Americans in drawing up a set of coordinated bilateral rules for dealing with unidentified and hostile submarines in North American waters. This was done through the Military Cooperation Committee (MCC) of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense (PJBD), and in March 1958 draft instructions for “The coordination of Canada-United States ASW operations in defense of North America” were submitted to the Canadian Chiefs of Staff. Unfortunately, DeWolf's fairly uncomplicated criteria had been massaged into a broader policy statement that would require further amplification if it was to have any operational value. However, the statement clarified one potentially confusing issue by establishing that:
The maintenance of surveillance and control of the North American and North Pacific
Oceans both before and during war requires the following to be accomplished:
A) The acquisition, evaluation and exchange of information concerning the pattern of action by non-friendly submarines within the setting of the international situation as it may exist at any time.
B) Prior to the outbreak of war, the detection, tracking, surfacing and identification of non-friendly submarines in North American waters, and the prevention of hostile action by such submarines, or the destruction of a submarine which commits a hostile act.
C) After the outbreak of war, the detection and destruction of enemy submarines.
The proposal continued in establishing the responsibilities for developing operational plans and procedures including a concept for avoiding mutual interference between Canadian and American submarines. After the usual discussion, the proposal was concurred in by the Chiefs of Staff who directed that interlocking national plans be drawn up.
This was done, and the Chiefs of Staff reviewed the new national plan on 28 August 1956. DeWolf and the chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal C.R. Slemon, were concerned that the plan did not provide enough guidance but they accepted the necessity of such limitations in striking a balance between American and Canadian requirements. The Chiefs of Staff also debated, at length, the political implications of attacking missilefiring submarines when the location of the target was not known. Eventually, the decision on approving the plan was deferred pending further review by the Naval Staff. The process became stalled.
In April 1959, the Naval Board reviewed a draft of the “Canada-United States Rules of Engagement for Defense Against Submarines” passed on from the Chiefs of Staff Committee. Not surprisingly, there were reservations to the proposal; documents prepared under political constraints seldom meet all operational requirements. Also not surprisingly, one of the contentious areas was the definition of a “hostile submarine” which the draft rules had left to “competent shore authorities” to define rather than to the operational commanders who naturally wanted to keep the decision at the operational level to prevent valuable time being wasted. Also, there was concern that the precise criteria for deeming a submarine “hostile” needed to be spelled out very clearly because there could be no room for doubt. On top of this, the admirals rightly wanted a mechanism for requiring that a submarine identify itself. Revisions were made and the new set of rules were approved by the Canadian Chiefs of Staff on 28 January 1960, and forwarded to the minister of National Defence for approval before being sent back to the MCC for discussion in the bilateral arena. The rules duly came back with further amendments, and the Chiefs of Staff yet again fiddled with the text. DeWolf, however, made one important point: irrespective of the existence of a set of bilateral rules of engagement, a need for a purely Canadian rules for Canadian situations still existed.
These were developed and eventually approved on 31 August 1961. Those rules, it seems, remained in force for the next three years, which included the period of the Cuban Missile Crisis. A copy cannot be found now and so the key issue of how Canadian forces were to demand that a suspected non-friendly submarine identify itself remains unclear. However, the use of five small explosive charges in quick succession became the adopted practice to call a submarine to the surface within NATO and for Canada-US forces. Getting submarines to identify themselves was an important issue during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
On 24 October 1962, the US State Department sent a telegram to the US embassy in Moscow telling the Ambassador to inform the Soviet government that the US Navy would use a procedure to have unidentified submarine contacts come to the surface. The message stated that “Quarantine Forces will drop four or five harmless explosive sound signals which may be accompanied by the international code signal ‘IDKCA’ meaning ‘rise to the surface.’ This sonar signal is normally made on underwater communications equipment in the 8 KC (kHz) frequency range. Submerged submarines, on hearing this signal, should surface on an easterly course. Signals and procedures employed are harmless.”
The message was delivered but rejected by the Soviets. As the various accounts written by the captains of the four “Foxtrots” of their confrontation with the US Navy attest, they were completely surprised by the use of sound signals and believed they were under attack. The Soviet government's rejection of the advisory note on the surfacing procedures was dangerous if not reckless, especially as it left the submarine captains unsure of what to do under the circumstances which also led them to consider using their nuclear torpedoes in self-defence. A controversy still exists over whether the “Foxtrot” captains would have used their nuclear torpedoes in self-defence. According to Svetlana Savranskaya, one commanding officer believed he was being attacked by something more powerful than a grenade. Unable to reach his higher authority by radio, he discussed the situation with his political officer and second-in-command and wisely decided against using that weapon. Even though the Americans used “scare” grenades to bring the “Foxtrots” to the surface and identify themselves there are no Soviet accounts of this procedure. Those submarines that came to the surface did so because of mechanical problems. It is distinctly possible that the commanding officers, at the urging of their political officers and the members of the Brigade staff who sailed aboard all four submarines, were more concerned over maintaining the secrecy of the operation than in placating the American ASW forces who had the upper hand. On return to Murmansk, the commanding officers and Brigade staff were interrogated and for a while there was concern that they would be severely punished for compromising the mission by surfacing to correct defects. This did not happen.
In summary, it appears that the Soviet submarines were unaware of the standard NATO and Canada-US surfacing and identification procedures and they attempted to remain covert for as long as possible in accordance with their initial sailing orders. That they misinterpreted the “scare” charges for depth charges and were thus forced to contemplate action for self-defence is troubling. However, the refusal of their government to accept the advance notification of that procedure is even more troubling. One is left to draw the conclusion that the Soviet political leaders were knowingly playing a dangerous game and that US and Canadian ASW forces attempted to identify the various Soviet submarines using legally-established procedures in a situation where those submarines could have been deemed “hostile.” The Soviet submarine captains were mere political pawns left to manage a very difficult situation without adequate orders or command and control systems. That the Soviet Navy stayed much closer to home for the next few years is probably the result of this dangerous and humiliating situation.
The problem with the submarines is that no one, save the Russians of course, knows exactly how many Soviet submarines eventually took part in Operation “Anadyr” or were already on patrol in North American waters in October and November 1962. Without knowing the exact numbers, one cannot determine the potential threat (as a function of both actual capabilities and Soviet intentions) posed by those submarines with any accuracy, but that does not mean that we cannot re-examine what we do know and see if the submarine threat can be assessed with greater accuracy...
The first indication of a higher-than-normal level of Soviet submarine activity in the North Atlantic came on 13 October (1962) when a submarine was sighted in the Caribbean. Suspicions were raised higher by the arrival in the western Atlantic of the Soviet Northern Fleet auxiliary oiler Terek later that week. Soviet submarines were known to rendezvous with the electronic intelligence-gathering trawlers and use oilers like the Terek to refuel and get other supplies during their North American patrols. Keeping tabs on all potential support vessels thus made sense. The problem was to find them because they often took shelter within the various fishing fleets using North American waters.
Finding the submarines and their support vessels was the responsibility of Vice-Admiral E.B. “Whitey” Taylor, US Navy, Commander US ASW Forces Atlantic, but he did not have enough ships and aircraft to cover both the area around Cuba as well as the Northwest Atlantic. Taylor and his naval aviation commander, Rear-Admiral Koch, flew to Halifax on October 17 (1962) to explain the severity of the situation and to seek Canadian assistance with surveillance in the Northwest Atlantic (which was the Canadian area of responsibility under bilateral defence plans). Rear-Admiral Ken Dyer, commander of the Canadian Atlantic Fleet, agreed to do this as it was within his terms of reference to increase surveillance at sea without political approval. It is almost certain that some of this had been discussed between Dyer's and Taylor's staffs by phone earlier that week because the tempo of RCAF ocean surveillance, which came under Dyer's operational control, had been increased the day before. What Dyer and Taylor agreed to was not unusual and under the bilateral defence plans Taylor was Dyer's superior under a naval command relationship similar to that within NORAD...
...From a Canadian perspective, each maritime commander had a very clearly defined geographic area of responsibility with precise instructions on what he could and could not do in various
situations in those areas.
[Footnote 51] On the Atlantic this area extended from the Canadian shoreline to 40 degrees of latitude south and 40 degrees of longitude west. This was a huge body of water. The corresponding area of American responsibility extended north to 40 degrees of north latitude but further out into the North Atlantic. These areas were integrated into national, bilateral, and NATO plans...
...During the Cuban Missile Crisis, both national and bilateral procedures were used by default because NATO was not part of the crisis management process. However, national control was maintained through the established chain of command: Dyer (as both a Fleet and a Maritime Commander) was accountable to the CNS, Vice-Admiral Rayner, who was in turn accountable to the minister, Douglas Harkness. The chairman of the Canadian Chiefs of Staff Committee was not part of the operational command structure at that time. Dyer's task was complicated by the fact that he also had to coordinate operations with his US Navy counterparts to ensure maximum information flow and, as importantly, to avoid mutual interference where Canadian and American units were operating together or in close proximity.
This was not difficult; Canadian and US naval and maritime air forces exercised combined ASW procedures frequently. In many ways, the ships and aircraft of the two countries were more comfortable working with each other than with NATO warships, save for the Royal Navy which remained the Canadian “mother” service despite a marked trend to home-grown training and operational procedures. Today, one would say that the maritime forces of the United States and Canada had developed a high degree of interoperability, especially in antisubmarine operations. In fact, bilateral procedures were almost identical to Canadian national procedures other than for the command structure which ensured that Canadian ships remained under overall Canadian control. So, as far as the admirals were concerned, the Cuban Missile Crisis was merely another combined ASW exercise; a point made by the fact that the official records refer to the crisis as “CUBEX.” That little post-exercise analysis took place and that little was even said about the exercise afterwards is perhaps not as remarkable in hindsight as some believe. Operationally, it was just another incident involving Soviet submarines outside Canadian territorial waters. The crisis was largely political even though those submarines presented a potential threat. Yet, no formal alerts were issued; rather, operational readiness was increased prudently as a contingency against the possible escalation of the incident. In all of this, Dyer acted prudently and completely within the established criteria for exercising operational command of RCN and RCAF units assigned to him.
Was it the RCN's finest hour of the Cold War, as some claim? That is hard to answer. What is absolutely clear though is that in responding quickly to an uncertain but potentially threatening situation, the RCN and the RCAF performed well. They conducted complex ASW operations in conjunction with the US Navy as well as could be expected under difficult circumstances.
In hindsight, three things still stand out. One, we still don't know exactly how many submarines were on patrol in North American waters before the four “Foxtrots” sailed in early October. It would be interesting to know that number. Two, procedures for dealing with potentially hostile submarines found in North American waters were tactically sound but inherently difficult politically. It would be interesting to know how the politicians would have dealt with the RCN prosecution of the Soviet submarine found on Georges Bank had they been asked to approve those actions. Three, we can only speculate in what ways the Canada-US response to the Soviet submarines would have been different had we known about the nuclear torpedoes.
Overall, the RCN and the RCAF Maritime Air Command were not found wanting when called upon to carry out the mission they had trained long and hard to master. If there is still criticism of Canadian command and control procedures, then we need to look at the political level. Those who remain sceptical or critical of the Canada-US response to the Soviet submarines should bear in mind that the procedures in place in late 1962 were very different to those of today. To assess the appropriateness, or even legality, of 1962 ASW procedures one needs to do so from the position of the 1962 concepts and not those of today.
It may not have been the RCN's finest hour, but how would one make such a judgement? The basis for comparison needs to be established carefully beforehand. Can one actually compare Second World War convoy duty, with gun actions off the coast of Korea, with operations in the high Arctic, with the Cuban Missile Crisis, or with more recent operations in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea? Of course not. They are all classic examples of the fact that modern navies are superbly versatile political instruments always ready to do the bidding of their political masters in any corner of the world at short notice. Armies and Air Forces cannot make that claim; navies are unique in this respect. In summary, what we can say is that in the fall of 1962 the RCN and the RCAF Maritime Air Group rose to a challenge and carried out the various tasks for which they had trained in an exemplary manner...
Source: Canadian Involvement in the
Cuban Missile Crisis Re-Reconsidered
The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord,
XVII No. 2 (April 2007), pages 39-65
by Peter T. Haydon
An 18-month campaign to convert the province's dial telephones to seven-digit numbers is nearly complete. Cornwallis and seven other exchanges in western Nova Scotia are about to be assigned numbers to complete the campaign. The Dominion Atlantic Railway station at Cornwallis, which until now has been reached at telephone number 759, would become 638-8759 (last three digits same as before) under the new plan.
[50 Years Ago in the Digby County Courier, 9 February 2012]
The conversion of all of Nova Scotia's dial telephone exchanges to a uniform seven-digit numbering system was an essential step in the preparations to implement Direct Distance Dialing (DDD). Before the introduction of DDD, all long-distance calls had to be set up by a switchboard operator, an employee of the telephone company whose job was to ask the caller the geographical location (anywhere in the world) of the person or company he/she wanted to speak to, and the local telephone number there, and then to make the necessary arrangements for the calling party and the called party to talk to each other.
CBC Documentary
Racism in Halifax
Broadcast Date: June 24, 1962
YouTube
•
Racism in Halifax 2:37
Racist attitudes responsible for the miserable conditions of Africville are prevalent in the city of Halifax in the 1960s. In this footage, narrated by J. Frank Willis, from a 1962 CBC documentary called Close-up: Figure Your Colour Against Mine, a CBC reporter talks to "folks on the street" about racism in Canada. During an interview with a young black man, the reporter uses a derogatory term for black residents.
• In the 1960s black Canadians found it difficult to get the most basic services such as renting and buying houses, finding employment and getting haircuts.
• While the majority of Halifax's black population did not live in Africville, it was home to those who wanted to live relatively free from the racist attitudes of the predominantly white population.
|
In the 3 June 2002 item, the Chronicle-Herald stated that this 12-mile limit |
"The use of the sea and air is common to all. Neither can title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons for as much as neither nature nor public use and custom permitteth any possession thereof..."
In 1609, Hugo Grotius, a Dutch lawyer, published Mare Liberum in justification of Dutch resistance to the Portuguese claim, maintaining that the sea was res communes, that is, belonging to all and could not be made the property of any State.|
The Wayback Machine has archived copies of this document:
Archived: 2001 April 13
Archived: 2001 July 2
Archived: 2001 November 24
These links were accessed and found to be valid on 4 August 2012. |
Date: 17 March 1965
Time: 9:22am
Type: Handley Page HPR-7 Herald 211
Operator: Eastern Provincial Airways
Registration: CF-NAF (160)
Total airframe flight time: 4135 hours
People on board: 3 crew and 5 passengers, 8 fatalities
Location: Upper Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia
Nature: Scheduled Passenger
Flight: Halifax - Sydney (Flight number 102)
The Herald departed Halifax runway 33 at 0910h and was instructed to turn right and climb to FL130. Last radio communication was at 0915h.
On this day, Studebaker of Canada, a long-time automobile manufacturer, stopped producing cars. The Studebaker company began in 1852 when brothers Henry and Clem built three covered wagons in South Bend, Indiana. Producing horse-drawn wagons and carriages, starting in 1854, was a profitable business. All in all there were five Studebaker brothers and over the years they all participated in company affairs. Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company of South Bend supplied the North during the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) and the British during the Boer War (1899-1902). They also supplied the British and American governments during World War One. In 1902, Studebaker built 20 electric automobiles that were designed by Thomas Edison. Studebaker began building combustion-engined automobiles in 1904. They built electric vehicles until 1912 and ceased building horsedrawn implements in 1919. The United States factory in South Bend, Indiana, where Studebaker had built automobiles and trucks since 1902, was closed in 1964 and production was moved to Canada, but the company's losses continued. The final Studebaker car was produced in Canada in 1966, although the Avanti continued as a low-volume independent into the 1980s.
Sources:
The National Post, 4 March 2000
and http://www.detnews.com/1998/autos/9809/27/09270043.htm
and http://www.ktsmotorsportsgarage.com/ault97/kt.cde97-studebaker.html
References:
Antique Studebaker Club website at
http://www.dochemp.com/9stude.html
Studebaker Clubs website at
http://www.studebakerclubs.com/
Studebaker Drivers Club, Atlantic Canada Chapter website at
http://www.car-list.com/carclub/studebakeracc.html
Studebaker Drivers Club, Ontario Chapter website at
http://www.studebakerclubs.com/ontario/
Studebaker Drivers Club, B.C. Coastal Chapter website at
http://www.graphex-inc.com/~istvan/studebaker/index.html
More than 1,000 Studebaker pictures online
http://home1.swipnet.se/~w-85663/main.htm
More than 650 Studebaker advertisements online
http://home1.swipnet.se/~w-85663/project/adverts.htm
The Governor in Council on the recommendation of the Minister of Highways dated the 31st day of March, 1966 and pursuant to Section 17(1) [subsection 25(1)] of the Motor Vehicle Act, is pleased to determine that all motor vehicles operating on highways on Pictou Island, Big Tancook Island, Little Tancook Island and Ironbound Island shall be exempt from registration as from January 1, 1966.
Source: (Posted online 1 July 1999)The Islands of Ironbound, Big Tancook, and Little Tancook are located in the Atlantic Ocean off Lunenburg County. Pictou Island is located in Northumberland Strait off Pictou County.
This month, network colour broadcasting arrived at CBHT, the CBC's television station in Halifax. This meant that colour television programs could be brought in from Toronto and broadcast in Nova Scotia, but there was no production of colour TV shows here. In December 1966, CBHT broadcast its first locally-produced colour show, Christmas Eve with Catherine MacKinnon.
The first transmission of colour television in Canada was on 1 July 1966, from CTV's CFTO-TV in Toronto. These transmissions were in the NTSC analog format — for the next four decades all broadcast television in Canada would be analog NTSC. [The official interpretation of “NTSC” was “National Television System Committee”, but colloquially it was often mockingly interpreted as “Never The Same Colour” – referring to the notorious inability of NTSC to reproduce colours accurately.]
“Far more dangerous to Bell than anyone thought possible”
Special Session of the Legislature
On 18 August 1966, Bell Canada, the largest telephone company in Canada, made a surprise offer to buy control of the telephone companies that served the three Maritime Provinces. On 24 July 1962, Bell Canada had acquired 99% of the shares of Avalon Telephone Company [later named the Newfoundland Telephone Company, in 1998 known as NewTel, and in 2012 a part of Bell Aliant]. In 1966, Bell decided it wanted control of both Maritime Telegraph & Telephone (MT&T) of Halifax, which served most of Nova Scotia, and the New Brunswick Telephone Company [in 1998 known as NBTel, and in 2012 a part of Bell Aliant] of Saint John, which served New Brunswick. MT&T owned 56% of the Island Telephone Company of Charlottetown, which served Prince Edward Island. If Bell's offer to buy shares was approved, it would increase its stake in each of the two companies to 51%, from the 35% it already held in NBTel and the 6% it held in MT&T. That 51% share ownership would give Bell complete control of the telephone services in all three provinces (except for the insignificant territories then served by the 124 independent telephone companies then operating in Nova Scotia, all of which were tiny companies typically serving from 10 to 50 customers each). It was estimated the deal would cost about $60,000,000 and would require about 1,190,000 common shares of Bell; the proposal was to swap three Bell shares for five MT&T shares, and five for eleven of NBTel's shares.
This sudden decision, to buy control of the Maritimes telephone companies, was the result of Bell's humiliating failure, in its attempt to buy Quebec Telephone of Rimouski, which served 109,000 customers along both sides of the St. Lawrence River downriver from Quebec City, including the Gaspe Peninsula on the south shore, and the north shore up to the Labrador boundary. While it was deep in negotiations with Quebec Telephone, Bell was taken completely by surprise when, on 17 March 1966, Quebec Telephone signed a deal to sell control to Anglo-Canadian Telephone Company of Montreal, which was owned by General Telephone & Electronics Corporation (GTE) of Stamford, Connecticut, the second-largest telephone company in the United States. Through Anglo-Canadian, GTE then owned 50.3% of British Columbia Telephone Company, Canada's second-largest telephone company. [In 1998, GTE still controlled BCTel]. Bell had been trying to buy control of Quebec Telephone, "to take them out of play for GTE," according to Robert Scrivener, then vice-president of finance at Bell, and later president and chairman of both Bell Canada and Northern Electric.
In a public statement made at the time of the offer to buy control of MT&T and NBTel, Marcel Vincent, Bell's president, said: "The directors of Bell Canada feel strongly that, in the best interests of the progressive development of this essential Canadian industry, we must do all we can to insure that as many as possible of the key elements of the telephone industry remain permanently under Canadian ownership and control." The offer to buy control of MT&T and NBTel was made on 18 August 1966, and was set to expire on 8 September. Bell did not expect any significant resistance.
But Robert Stanfield, then premier of Nova Scotia, was livid at Bell's attempt to acquire control of MT&T. Contrary to Stanfield's popular image as a meek politician known for his underwear business, he proved to be far more dangerous to Bell than anyone thought possible. With the Nova Scotia Legislature as his weapon, the premier was determined to use the force of law to stop Bell in its tracks.
Stanfield also had a second weapon which turned out to be even more potent in what became a bitter and intense campaign against Bell's scheme. In 1962 Bell had bought 100% of the shares of Northern Electric, the large Canadian telephone equipment manufacturer. [In 1976, the company name was changed to Northern Telecom Limited. For its 100-year anniversary in 1995, the company's name was changed again, this time to Nortel.] Immediately following the announcement of Bell's bid for MT&T, the federal anti-combines watchdog D.W.H. Henry, Director of Investigation Research (DIR) under the Combines Investigation Act, received complaints about Bell's purchasing practices and relationship with Northern Electric. Henry used that complaint as the pretext for launching an extensive investigation. He obtained search warrants, and a team of investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided Bell's executive offices on 29 November 1966. The investigators remained on the premises collecting and copying documents until 9 December. This raid marked the beginning of a legal battle that lasted sixteen years. The DIR's target was Bell's relationship with Northern Electric and the goal of the investigation was to force the breakup of the two companies. Henry's investigation was initiated on the grounds that he had "reason to believe" that Section 33 of the Combines Act was either being or was about to be violated. But the investigation was precipitated by the flurry of acquisitions of independent telephone companies, launched by Bell early in 1966 to expand its system. Bell's intent was to become dominant in the telephone business in Canada, and, except for Quebec Telephone, it had been successful in buying several independents.
Stanfield linked the two events — the DIR's investigation of Bell and Bell's offer to buy control of MT&T — in his statement released on 22 August 1966:
It is important that the Maritime Telegraph and Telephone Company Limited be free to acquire telephone equipment that is best suited to our needs and will give the best service. MT&T should be free to buy telephone equipment from any supplier. Clearly, therefore, MT&T should not be controlled by a company which manufactures telephone equipment, either directly or through a subsidiary... If the Bell company were to acquire control of MT&T, MT&T would not long be free to exercise any independence of decision in acquiring telephone equipment.
"They looked at it as... an invasion of Atlantic Canada," Jean de Grandpre said of the Nova Scotia government twenty-four years later. "You have no idea how vicious it was... You would think there was a war between Ottawa and Halifax," he said, referring to the front-page headlines of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. De Grandpre was Bell's corporate counsel at the time, and did much of the legal work for all the acquisitions that summer. The souring of the MT&T deal led Scrivener and Vincent to turn to de Grandpre as a trouble-shooter in their abortive eleventh-hour attempt to get the deal pushed through. Out of anger, and believing they had no need to negotiate with the provincial government, Bell's officials spurned Stanfield's request for a meeting to work out a compromise, leading the premier to recall the Nova Scotia Legislature into session on Friday, 9 September 1966. He made good on his threat to introduce special legislation severely curtailing the voting rights of MT&T shareholders, which could be done legally because MT&T had been incorporated under an Act (chapter 156, 1910, 10 Edward VII) passed by the Legislature on 22 April 1910. MT&T was incorporated under provincial legislation, and the Legislature could revise that legislation as it saw fit. The amendment, to the Act to incorporate the Maritime Telegraph & Telephone Company Limited, was passed on Saturday, 10 September, and received royal assent the same day. The legislation allowed Bell to buy any number of MT&T shares, but it prevented Bell from voting more than one thousand shares. Outside the Legislature, Stanfield declared: "During my ten years as premier, I have never encountered men who pursue their own interests so ruthlessly while expressing patriotic sentiments."
After the dust settled, Bell had acquired 52.4% of MT&T's shares. De Grandpre threatened to challenge Stanfield's legislation in court, but this was never done. But the legal problems Bell encountered for years afterward, from the Combines Investigation and related developments, were enough to prompt Bell historian Lawrence Surtees to write: "Stanfield could not have exacted a harsher revenge on Bell. The complaints to the DIR over the MT&T acquisition not only provided ammunition for the combines inquiry, but also jeopardized Bell's objectives in Parliament."
[Excerpted from pages 109-111, Pa Bell: The Meteoric Rise of Bell Canada Enterprises by Lawrence Surtees, Random House, 1992, ISBN 0394221427.]
Date of
first run
1 Mar 1898 The Maritime Express Montreal - Halifax
3 Jul 1904 Ocean Limited Montreal - Halifax
26 Jun 1927 The Acadian Montreal - Halifax
28 Jun 1929 Down Easter New York - Halifax
28 Jun 1929 Pine Tree Acadian Boston - Halifax
2 Mar 1930 The Gull Boston - Maritime Provinces
16 Mar 1941 The Scotian Montreal - Halifax
14 Jul 1956 The Bluenose Edmonton - Halifax
1 Jun 1967 The Cabot Montreal - Sydney
This was Cunard's third ship named Carinthia. Here are some details about this ship, from the
Cunard history website. 21,947 tons gross tonnes; dimensions 173.7 × 24.5m (570 × 80.3 feet); one funnel; steel hull; powered by steam turbines driving twin screws through double reduction helix gears; service speed 21 knots; built by John Brown & Co., Glasgow, Scotland; launched 14 December 1955; passenger accommodation, 154 first class, 714 tourist class.
Short history:
After the Second World War the vessels that Cunard had been using on the Canadian route were becoming outdated. In 1951 it was decided to build a completely new class of ships to serve the Liverpool to Montreal route. Despite financial problems Cunard persisted and completed all four vessels, Saxonia, Ivernia, Carinthia and Sylvania. All of the new ships were built by John Brown & Co., Glasgow. Carinthia was completed late in 1955 and then, after being fitted out, made its maiden voyage, from Liverpool to Quebec and Montreal, on 27 June 1956. During the coming years the number of passengers crossing the Atlantic by sea remained static, but the number of those travelling by air grew steadily. Once the four sisters were in service Cunard provided six sailings a month to Canada. In April 1959 Carinthia buckled one of its propellers on the ice in the St. Lawrence River. Then in June there were two fires on board which, although easily extinguished, were obviously the work of an arsonist. Strikes in July meant that Cunard was compelled to cancel a voyage and assist the passengers in making alternative arrangements. In November 1960 Carinthia was chartered by the Canadian Government to undertake trooping voyages. These continued until mid-December and then the ship returned to the Liverpool to New York route. On arrival in Liverpool for its annual overhaul the ship's problems continued as the shipyard engineers went on strike. It was over four months before it sailed to Montreal. On 30 August 1961 Carinthia collided with Tadoussac, a Canadian ship, in the St. Lawrence River during heavy fog. Fortunately both ships only suffered slight damage. Losses suffered by the company meant that a rescheduling of services left only Carinthia on the Liverpool-Montreal route. By October 1967 it was announced that Carinthia, along with several other Cunard vessels, was to be withdrawn from service. By December it was laid up in Southampton and on 1 February 1968 it was sold to the Italian Sitmar Line. The ship was renamed Fairland, but little else was changed. In January 1970 it sailed from Italy for refurbishment. It was now registered in Liberia and could carry 925 passengers. It was completely rebuilt and now had a large theatre, five nightclubs, three swimming pools and 11 passenger decks. It was soon based in North America. The ship operated profitably for its new owners before passing back into British ownership in 1988 when P&O bought the Sitmar Line, at some point being renamed Fair Princess. In 1996 the ship was sold to Regency Cruises, but reverted to P&O when this company went bankrupt. In 1997 it was transferred the P&O Australia.
Index with links to the other chapters
 |
W3C CSS Validation Service |