War in my backyard!

" When we arrived in Anticosti in June, 1917, the guards told me that they had spotted several German submarines near the island, and we feared that the inhabitants of Ellis Bay had been attacked. And here we were with no means of defence!

Did danger lie ahead?

Probably, since no one but me was armed, except for the guards with their rifles. And what could these thirty stalwarts possibly do against a submarine attack in Port Menier? The port would be under siege within minutes, and all our food supplies would be commandeered, along with what little coal and fuel we had. We would lose control of our hotel, our large camps, our workshops, harbour and railroad etc. Our town would become a submarine base, effectively blocking all ships in the St. Lawrence River and Gulf, blockading Quebec City and Montreal. The following year, 1918, became more critical. A visit from Captain Stuart, of HMCS Canada, confirmed my worst fears."

Bearing out the rumours circulating since World War I, military and government authorities doubted, from the very beginning of World War II, the necessity of protecting the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. At the start of 1940 Gaspé Bay, strategically situated to protect the river and gulf, was chosen as a base for part of the British fleet in the event of an attack on Great Britain. Because of its shape, the bay was ideal for establishing and protecting a deepwater naval base.

Needless to say, military presence in Gaspé and the Lower St. Lawrence was impressive during World War II. The landscape was quickly transformed by military installations serving to monitor and protect the coast, to escort convoys and to train the armed forces. This military presence was evidenced by the construction of a naval base in Gaspé, coastal batteries all along the St. Lawrence, a military airport in Mont-Joli and coastal outposts in the Gaspé Peninsula, the Lower St. Lawrence, not to mention those along the North Shore, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland.