Military
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In 1940, the American and Canadian Joint Board of Defence decided to protect the approaches to St. John’s harbour by installing heavy artillery at Cape Spear. Gun emplacements, magazines, and shelters were constructed by 1941, along with barracks, messhalls, canteens, and administration buildings. “A” troop of the 103rd Coast Defence Battery of Royal Canadian Artillery was stationed at Fort Cape Spear, and a small detachment of Americans manned the anti-aircraft searchlights. Enemy submarines attacked Allied shipping in nearby waters, but Fort Cape Spear never saw action, and many of the troops were transferred to the European front by mid-1943. Home defence personnel manned the site until May 1945, and the last troops departed a month later, leaving it as they found it, “cold, clammy, foggy and miserable.”
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Newfoundland and Labrador · Canada
