Blowing Smoke
I count myself incredible fortunate whenever I receive submission from fellow veterans to be able to post them on Unbloused. It’s an honour to be able to use this platform as a way to bring these stories to out into the open for others to read, enjoy and relate to.
Maybe one of these stories will jog a memory of one that you’d long forgotten, and if it did then this blog project is doing exactly what it set out to do. Hopefully you’ll take the time to write it down and share it here so others can enjoy it, learn from it and remember their stories matter too.
This was exactly the case for me when I read the story below submitted by Douglas Bannerman, MWO (ret) from Perth Ont. While his story takes place before I was born, it jogged a memory for me.
I grew up on a farm near Alsask, SK which was home to RCAF Station Alsask, a part of the Pinetree Line of NORAD radar stations. This particular base fell under 44 Radar squadron and had a call sign of November Jade Ring and was part of a coordinated radar system for early detection of a Soviet bomber attacks on North America
(Side note…that is an amazing call sign and would make an excellent title for a novel…in fact I call dibs, copyright, patent pending…don’t steal it, watch for it as major motion picture in the near future!)
CFD Alsask as it was later called consisted of three radar domes, personnel married quarters (PMQ’s), school, chapel, hobby shop, pool, rec centre, bowling alley and several other support and logistics buildings. It was practically a part of the village of Alsask, all that separated it was a fence. However, if you drove down the back road which also served as the border between Saskatchewan and Alberta you’d see a military like building on a hill about 3 km from the main radar site all by itself. My folks and all the locals called it the gator site. Now as a kid growing when I was told it was called a gator site it stirred my imagination into overdrive. It wasn’t until later that I realized there were no alligators there (it never made sense to me even as a 5 year old why they’d keep alligators there or for what purpose) but that it was some sort of alternate control site for the radar domes.
Fast forward a lifetime, or at least a full career in the CAF later, and I learn in thanks to Douglas’s story it’s not Gator…but GATR, an acronym for Ground Air Transmit Receiver Site.
I always wondered what happened behind those thick cement walls and now, thanks to Douglas I have a bit of insight.
Please take a read of Douglas’s story below, I know you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.
All the best,
John
——————————————————————————————————
53 AC&W Station Holberg, 1973.
Working in the Ground Air Transmit Receiver (GATR) Site, one of the pieces of equipment there was a CB10 Shore to Ship ten channel transceiver used for emergency communications to West coast ships. Hardly ever used, our Sgt, to keep his skills up to date, took it upon himself to do all monthly preventive maintenance on it. The workbench he usually used was against the Faraday cage which was festooned with a multitude of spare coax and test cables hanging from numerous hooks.
One day the Sgt had the transceiver on the bench and was carrying out the preventive maintenance and was called to his phone. During his absence a couple of the Cpls decided to play a trick on him. They unrolled a long length of clear 1/4" plastic hose, called spaghetti, and fed it around the Faraday cage under the hanging cables and inserted into the back of the transceiver. Hiding behind the opposite side of the cage, they waited for the Sgt's return. When he returned the Cpls lit up a couple of cigarettes (this was in the early 70s when smoking wasn't restricted as it is now) and waited until the Sgt turned on the power to the transceiver and began tuning the power outputs. At that point they started to inhale the cigarettes and blowing the smoke into the spaghetti which in turn began coming out of the transceiver. With two of them blowing smoke like crazy, the transceiver was spewing smoke like a volcano. The Sgt backed away from the bench with a wild look and began frantically shutting down the power to the radio. At this point they began to really blow smoke into the spaghetti and the Sgt began to panic even more and raced towards the nearest fire extinguisher. At this point, the whole GATR crew began laughing, even the two instigators, considering they were hacking up lungs due the the amount of cigarette smoke they had inhaled.
The Sgt suddenly realized he was a patsy to a practical joke, made a decision that was beneficial to myself and the other junior private. In the culture of life in a GATR site, the junior privates had to take the early site bus and have the coffee ready and the equipment room floor freshly washed before the rest of the crew arrived at eight o'clock. For two wonderful months, the two of us had the luxury of getting a extra hour of sleep and walk into a glistening equipment room with a fresh cup of coffee due to two very contrite Cpls.
Douglas Bannerman, M.M.M.;CD MWO Retd, Perth, Ont.