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Cold War
As tensions grew between the East and West, the freeze on post war expenditures disappeared and an accelerated defence program was initiated to strengthen the forces. Between 1947 and 1955, the RCAF grew from 11,000 to 50,000. CE had to expand rapidly to accomplish the accelerated construction program and to reopen stations. To meet CE staffing shortages, veterans were recruited directly into the RCAF. The construction component of the accelerated defence program became known as Operation Bulldozer. The program involved upgrading 18 of 32 stations. Wartime training airfields were rehabilitated to accommodate renewed aircrew training program, the fighter squadron destined for service in Europe with NATO, and the training and deployment of squadrons committed to continental air defence. This program included upgrading former BCATP fields at Gimli, Portage, Centralia, Moose Jaw and Penhold. Major work also went into extending and upgrading facilities at Greenwood, Comox Winnipeg and Trenton.  Cold
Lake & Primrose Lake Air Weapons Range By far the biggest undertaking was the development of the Primrose Lake Evaluation Range and the development of the base at Cold Lake between 1952-54. The planning phase for the base the location of the buildings and the layout of roads services and utilities were all accomplished using good town planning practices. Each functional area was designed for expansion to permit the station to grow without effecting the operational efficiency. More than a dozen contracting firms and hundreds of tradesmen spent more than two years building the 10 square mile complex. Perhaps fittingly, the first Commanding Officer of the station was a Construction Engineer. When RCAF station Cold Lake opened in 1954, it was one of the most self-contained training and fighter bases in the Commonwealth. The RCAF selected an area of dense bush and muskeg near Primrose Lake for the Air Weapons Range. To access the Primrose Lake facility, a 42 mile, sand and clay access road was constructed through dense bush and muskeg. Long sections of corduroy construction and wooden bridges were needed to overcome the terrain. Beaver soon turned the bridges into dams and the road was often swamped by two feet of mud. Cargo trucks and bulldozers had to winch themselves or each other through areas that when not frozen were swamp like muskeg. They often had to carve new roads through the dense bush. Land access was so difficult that five layers of corduroy had to be put down in some areas. In one instance, crews of 2 CMU had to carry 600 bags of cement up Primrose Mountain on their backs as the vehicles could not climb up the slippery grade. To move supplies across the lake a locally made barge, the "Primrose Queen" was constructed. Unfortunately, it was never quite water tight, as a result, on two separate occasions the crews arrived at the dock to find the barge and all equipment at the bottom of lake. With the introduction of the CF-100 all-weather Canuck fighter in 1952, extensive upgrading of facilities in Canada and Europe was required. In Canada, existing runways had to be expanded and new ones constructed and alert facilities and arrester gear had to be installed at all fighter stations. In Europe, the introduction of the CF-100 changed the alert capability from daylight only to a 24-hour operation. To meet this new capability, construction of dispersal hangars and alert hangars was required, along with installation of improved arrestor gear, construction of rocket storage and a flight simulation building and extensive modification to other operational facilities.
Housing and Recreation To meet the RCAF Cold War expansion, additional housing and recreation facilities were urgently required. To solve the housing shortage in Canada an average of 1000 married quarters per year were constructed for next ten years. By 1956, the number of RCAF MQs in Canada had increased from 1,000 to 10,212. The NATO commitment in Europe also created a need for married quarters. What little housing was available was substandard and expensive. A program was initiated in 1952 to provide housing and schools for dependents of RCAF personnel in Europe. After negotiations with the host nation, construction began in 1954 and was complete by 1956. During this period, extensive recreation facilities were also provided. As funds were often limited projects were approved under many guises. The favourite for indoor pools was to provide a facility for maritime aircrews to practice dinghy drills. Steelox Buildings were approved as erected storage how the curling rinks and bowling alleys wound up inside of them is still a mystery.
NATO & 1 Air Division NATO came into existence on 24 August 1949 and provided the means to develop a united military force to be deployed against an armed attack on any of its members. As a signatory of the agreement, Canada committed military forces to the defence of Europe and its allies and agreed to provide a contingent for overseas service. The original commitment consisted of an army brigade and four fighter wings organized into 1 Air Division. The Air Div HQ was located at Metz, France with the four fighter wings located in Grostenquin, Marville, Zwebrucken and Baden-Soellingen. In 1950 to support our NATO role, Construction Engineering was tasked to provide the facilities required to support the four wings in France and Germany, the Air Division HQ in France and a logistics support base in England. The logistics base was established at an old unused RAF Station at Langor. The 1 Air Div HQ was established where else but on a 35 acre estate complete with an elegant French Chateau known as Chateau-de-Mercy! Extensive renovations and construction of 10 new buildings were required before they could move in. The HQ staff were not terribly inconvenienced by this delay since their temporary headquarters was located in Paris. Between 1952-53, all of the sites except for Marville were operational. With the arrival of the CF-104 in 1962, additional support needs and improved arrestor gear systems were required.
NORAD Concurrent with the development of NATO was the development
of an extensive collective continental air defense system by Canada
and the US to counter the threat of Soviet Long Range Bombers. To
coordinate Canada's involvement, the Air Defence Group was established
in St-Hubert in 1949. In 1950, a combined Canada-US command was established
in St. John's. To support the mandate to defend the Atlantic approaches
to the Continent, Long-Range Radar Installations were built by the
Americans along Labrador's coast. For Canada, the CADIN program involved upgrading existing long range radar constructing new radar sites, Bomarc missile sites, a combat direction centre in North Bay and 32 ground-to-air transmitter and receiver sites. These systems were integrated into the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) control system. To improve the defence of the continental US and Canada against air attack and to better coordinate a total air defence system for both countries, an international command was required. As a result, in 1958 the North American Air Defence Command (NORAD) was established. By 1960 NORAD could call on some 2000 interceptor aircraft, 600 surface-to-air missiles and 480 radar installations. To provide early warning and co-ordinate air defence against a potential Soviet bomber attack, three electronic systems were constructed in Canada in the 1950s the Pinetree Line, Mid-Canada Line and DEW Line. The construction of these defences required extensive pioneering in engineering and electronics. Logistics problems of shipping material by land, sea and air and construction under extremely adverse weather conditions made the project extremely challenging for the engineers. Construction of the Pinetree Line began in 1951 and by 1955, 35 stations were operational and 24 were manned. However, the Pinetree Line was not completed until 1963 with the construction of prime radar sites at Penhold, Alsak, Dana Yorkton and Gypsumville. During construction, activities were so compressed that base camps and access roads were constructed before the actual building plans were delivered. At the early sites, foundations were poured before the overall dimensions of the buildings and the final selection of the equipment were known. Construction of the second line of defence the Mid Canada Line (MCL), began in 1953. The MCL ran three hundred miles north of the Pine Tree Line and was completed in 1958. To support the construction of the MCL, tractor trains operated along the 55th parallel. These trains consisted of caterpillar tractors hauling office accommodation, cooking trailers, dog teams, snowmobiles and ski-equipped aircraft. The eight main section control stations had airstrips as well as accommodations for the full time staff. The third line of defence was the DEW line. This line was constructed by the USAF and was designed to provide a two hour warning against manned bombers for the populated areas of Canada and the US. The line was situated 600 miles North of the MCL and extended 2400 miles across the northern rim of the continent from Alaska to Cape Dyer Baffin Island. The final component of the air defence system in Canada was the construction of the Bomarc B surface-to-air missile sites. The bomarc missile was a nuclear capable weapon with a range of 400 miles it was intended to intercept incoming enemy bombers. A squadron of missiles was located at North Bay and La Macaza, Quebec. These sites were chosen to defend the Northeast US seaboard industrial and population centres. The sites were constructed between 1959 an 1962 and operated and maintained by CE personnel. Support facilities existed at North Bay but complete base facilities had to be constructed at La Macaza. With the formation of Northern NORAD Region HQ, a hardened facility to accommodate its Combat Control Centre, Sector Direction Centre, the Ottawa Air Defence Sector and the staff of the Regional Headquarters, was required. The design criteria required that the HQ be capable of operating after a nuclear attack. To meet this requirement, the $50 million facility was built near North Bay, 560 feet below ground in the precambrian rock. The installation consisted of two large caverns reached by two tunnels two miles apart, almost a mile long and could be sealed off by 10-ton steel blast doors. Inside the caverns, a three storey free standing structure was constructed to withstand shock waves and completely independent of the walls and roof of the cavern. The facility was self sustaining with its own power plant and water reservoir. Construction began in 1959 and was completed in 1963 and officially opened in 1964. Referred to as "the hole", it was recognized as one of the major engineering accomplishments of the CE Branch. The March 1964 White Paper on Defence outlined a major restructuring of the separate services. The White Paper described a reorganization that would include the integration of operations, logistics support, personnel and administration of the sperate services under a functional command system. Finally the three services would be unified into a single force with a common uniform. On 1 February, 1968, Bill C-243, The Canadian Forces Reorganization Act became law. Although Bill C-243 formalized the restructuring of the three services into a single Canadian Forces, it failed to address how each Branch was to be organized and structured. There was however general agreement by the senior military engineers of the three separate services that the entire military engineer component of the new single service should belong to one family. On 3 February, 1971, after considerable and often intense debate, it was announced that the Canadian Military Engineering Branch (CME) had been approved. Of course, the beaver was retained as the branch symbol because of its national symbolism and its industrious and creative nature. CE was the function most effected by integration. Prior to integration, CE establishments of the three services had more than 16,000 military and civilian personnel deployed in support of more than 160 installations and controlled by 17 command and area headquarters. The similarity in work presented an obvious opportunity for standardization and consolidation while the duplication and proliferation of headquarters was a target for reorganization of command and control elements. On April 1, 1966 several hundred units, camps and stations were consolidated into 39 Canadian Forces Bases (CFBs). Construction engineering services were integrated into an effective streamlined organization with the elimination of triplication in the implementation of projects. To streamline operations, Construction Engineering was reorganized into a regional system which became operational in 1965 with five Regional Construction Engineer Officers (RCEOs). Due to the perception of a lack of control by the functional commanders, the RCEOs were disbanded on 1 April 1970 and their staffs absorbed into the functional headquarters to form the new Command Engineer organization.
In March of 1972, CFHQ and the Deputy Minister Group
were combined into National Defence Headquarters (NDHQ). With the
completion of the reorganization in 1972, the military engineer functions
at NDHQ were grouped much as they had been prior to 1964 and again
had a military engineer staff providing advice and support as part
of the operations
Technology, War & Budget Cuts North American Air Defence Modernization, Infrastructure Rationalization Program Infrastructure Adjustment Program, the Gulf War, Contingency Capability, reengineering, downsizing, OPRAM I-IV - these are the buzz words of the 80s and 90s. The first of these dramatic changes occurred in the mid-80s by then technological advances had made the need for the CADIN/Pinetree Radar Line and manned DEW Line sites obsolete. As a result, the CADIN-Pinetree radar sites were closed down between 1985 and 1987. The DEW Line sites were replaced by unmanned radar as part of the North Warning System. This impacted not only infrastructure but the establishment of the air force engineers. Then, from 1991-1994 a series of budget cuts forced the closure or reduction of additional air bases and consolidation of assets and units at Summerside, North Bay, Penhold, Edmonton, Shearwater and, Ottawa. A further consolidation occurred between 1997-98 when the NORAD North Regional Headquarters was relocated from North Bay to Winnipeg.
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