QUÉBEC

Canadian Forces Base Montreal – Lasalle Detachment:

(Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship Hochelaga)

Originally established as a Naval Supply Depot, it was constructed between 1951 and 1953 at 2555 Dollard Street in Lasalle.  The depot was officially commissioned on 1 October 1955 as HMCS Hochelaga. The depot took over functions previously handled by small depots in Rockcliffe, St. Hubert and Outremont.  Six large warehouses were constructed, along with administrative buildings, workshops and a heating plant.

Although staffed by RCN Officers, most of the depot staff were civilian employees, so no barracks were built at that time.  The depot was also home to the Aviation Supply Depot, which supplied the RCN aircraft carriers.

The H.M.C. Supply School re-located to HMCS Hochelaga after outgrowing their facilities in British Columbia.  Barracks, messes, classrooms and administrative buildings and a recreation hall were constructed for the school at the north end of the property.  Re-named the Naval Supply School, the school provided instructor on cooking, butchery, supply, accounting and civilian and military management.

The Naval Supply Depot, Aviation Supply Depot and the Naval Supply School were known collectively as the Naval Supply Centre.

With the Unification of the Forces, the HMCS Hochelaga was downgraded to a Detachment of CFB Montreal in 1966 and re-designated as No. 4 Supply Depot.  The Canadian Forces School of Management was established at the centre in September 1966.

In September 1968, the Naval Supply School merged with the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps School and the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps School to form the new Canadian Forces School of Administration and Logistics at CFB Borden.

Also as a part of the Unification, No. 4 Supply Depot closed on 1 September 1970, with its functions being taken over by No. 25 Canadian Forces Supply Depot at Longue Pointe.

The CF School of Management relocated to CFB St-Jean in 1971 and the Lasalle base closed.  The property was sold to the Lasalle Industrial Development Corporation.

Today, the site is an industrial complex and a bus terminal for Montreal Transit.

All the supply depot buildings remain, along with the administrative building fronting onto Dollard Street, currently occupied by Cite Industrielle.  The former Naval School buildings are gone, replaced by the Montreal bus terminal.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak, Servire Armatis – 1972-1997, the personal observations of the author (2016) and Google Maps (2014).

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Naval Radio Station Chelsea:

Established in 1941 by the Royal Canadian Navy in co-operation with the National Research Council to test how radio communications were affected by the ionosphere.  A single building was constructed, along with several radio masts.

The station closed in 1947 and its functions were taken over by the Defence Research Board’s new Radio Propagation Laboratory in Ottawa.

Nothing remains of the former station today.  It was located on the north side of Old Chelsea Road a few hundred yards west of Highway 105.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak.

Established on 1 May 1942 at Sandy Beach, on the southern shore of Gaspé Bay, the “ship” was established for convoy protection, ship control and area defence.

The base consisted of barracks, administration buildings, mess halls storage buildings and fuel tanks, along with a dedicated rail-line for delivery of supplies.

The RCAF and Canadian Army also shared the base, with a hangar for seaplanes and coastal-defence anti-aircraft batteries for protection, such as Fort Prével, Fort Haldimand and Fort Péninsule.

The army departed Fort Ramsay in August 1944.  When the RCAF established a coastal radar network, Fort Ramsay became an important part of the network.

The RCN paid-off the base on March 31, 1946.

Some of the former Army and RCN buildings remain; the naval buildings still retaining their standard white and green paint colours.  The property is now a commercial-industrial area, the Sandy Beach Terminal of the Port of Gaspé.

The former naval administration building is now an apartment building, with an extra living floor created in the attic.

The former gun emplacements at Fort Peninsula remain, located at Forillon National Park.

The large RCAF hangar burned down years ago.

Source Material:  “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak.

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Royal Canadian Air Force Station Lachine:

Opened in September 1941 as a staging point for ferrying aircraft and supplies overseas for the war, as well as the home of No. 5 Manning Depot until 1943. The station remained open after World War II, becoming part of the post-war RCAF.

426 Transport Squadron re-formed at Lachine in March 1947, remaining until moving to Trenton 1 September 1959. 436 Transport Squadron re-formed at Dorval on 1 April 1949. Air Transport Command moved to RCAF Station Lachine from RCAF Station Rockcliffe in August 1951.

436 Transport Squadron moved to RCAF Station Downsview on 1 July 1956.

The station also provided support to No. 5 Communications Unit,  a communications relay station in the RCAF’s communications network located near St.-Jacques-Le-Mineur.

RCAF Station Lachine closed on 12 September 1959. Air Transport Command re-located to RCAF Station Trenton on 12 September 1959. The former station became the Dorval Airport.

On 29 November 1975, Montréal-Mirabel Airport opened north-west of Montreal to handle an expected growth in international traffic and, eventually, to replace Dorval. That extra traffic never materialized, and due to its closer proximity to downtown Montreal, all scheduled air services have now returned to Dorval/Trudeau, while Mirabel ceased passenger operations in 2004.

In 2004, the airport was re-named Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

Source Material: 8 Wing Trenton News Releases – http://www.8wing.trenton.dnd.ca/archives/news110897.htm, “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak & History of the 400 Series Squadrons – http://www.airforce.dnd.ca/airforce/eng/history_400s/rcafsqns.htm.

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No. 5 Royal Canadian Air Force Manning Depot/Royal Canadian Air Force Station Lachine Detachment:

Opened on 1 December 1941 as No. 5 “M”  Depot.  The purpose of the manning depot was to introduce recruits into life in the RCAF, with lessons of drill, care of uniform, small arms training and physical training.

The Depot was a large RCAF establishment, with around 40 buildings, including administration, messes, quarters, recreation, medical, lecture huts, a central heating plant, and two drill halls.

As manning needs declined in 1943, the Depot transitioned into No 1 Embarkation Depot, or “Y”  Depot, previously located at RCAF Station Debert.  This was a temporary stop-over station for personnel rotating overseas.

On 26 October 1944, the Depot once again transitioned into No. 2 Release Centre, for airmen transitioning back to civilian life.

After the war ended, the Depot was used by a Royal Canadian Electrical Mechanical Engineer reserve unit.

The RCAF began using the Depot again in July 1950, as an over-flow for units at nearby RCAF Station Lachine.  When RCAF Station Lachine closed in September 1959, the Depot also closed and the land was sold.

Nothing remains of the former Depot today; not even a plaque.  A residential community now occupies the area.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak.

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Royal Canadian Air Force Detachment Casey:

Opened as an emergency airfield in 1952, it was used in the construction of the Pinetree Line.  Detachment Casey also supported RCAF Station Parent, one of the Pinetree stations, under control of the Lac St. Denis Air Defence Control Centre.

The original 6000-foot runway was later extended to 8200 feet and the Detachment was once considered as the home of an RCAF squadron and as a BOMARC missile base.

Detachment Casey closed in November 1964 and the airfield abandoned.

In the early 1970s, the airfield was used occasionally by crop-dusters for refueling and loading up on larvacide.  One of these crop-dusters crashed on take-off on 9 June 1973.

In 1993, a Convair 540 aircraft transporting drugs was forced down at Casey by RCAF CF-18 fighters.

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Emergency_Airstrip.

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Royal Canadian Air Force No. 5 Communications Unit:

In the mid-1950s, the RCAF established a new communications network, with one of the stations being located at RCAF Station Lachine in Dorval, west of Montreal.

The No. 5 Communications Unit St.-Jacques-Le-Mineur transmitter site was opened in late 1955 on Chemin du Ruisseau-des-Noyers, north of St.-Jacques-Le-Mineur, to act as a relay transmitter station for communications between RCAF Station Lachine, other parts of Canada, and trans-Atlantic.

The receiver station was located on Rue de l’Église in Saint-Rémi.

Both No. 5 CU sites were equipped with 15 FRT-501 transmitter units.

This location proved so ideal for radio communications as it was away from urban build-up that the Canadian Army opened the Delery Wireless Station within close proximity to the No. 5 CU site.

No.5 CU was declared redundant after only 9 years and the transmitter and receiver sites were closed in December 1964.  It’s unknown exactly why No. 5 CU was slated for closure, but it likely was a combination of the closure of RCAF Station Lachine in September 1959 and the amalgamation of the individual service branch communications systems into the Canadian Forces Communications System in the run-up to the Unification of the mid-1960s.

Both the No.5 CU sites and Delery Wireless Station properties were sold to a Mr. Bertrand of DeLery a few years after the closure.

The former St.-Jacques-Le-Mineur transmitter building is still standing, but is sealed up and abandoned.  One large transmitter tower remains standing behind the building, but none of the other antennas remain.

For several decades the letters “Royal Canadian Air Force Transmitter Building” remained on the front of the building, but they were stolen by vandals sometime in the early 1990s.

The Saint-Rémi site was sold to the Department of Communications in 1971, for use as a Spectrum Observation Centre for the Montreal area, along with being a training centre for radio inspectors and technicians.

Advances in technology and automation eventually made monitoring stations obsolete, as as a result, Industry Canada, the successor to the federal Department of Communications, closed the Saint-Rémi site in June 2016.  The only active monitoring station remaining in Canada is in Acton, Ontario.

An interesting side-note to the story of No. 5 CU is on 14 May 1963, the unit received orders to stock firearms for both their transmitter and receiver sites.  It’s unknown why this order was issued.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak and the personal observations of the author (2016).

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Canadian Forces Station Val d’Or:

The Royal Canadian Air Force established RCAF Station Val d’Or in 1954 as a fighter-interceptor base intended to protect Montreal and the St. Lawrence River valley and Great Lakes basin against Soviet bomber aircraft. The airfield was topped with asphalt by the mid-1950s as RCAF Station Val d’Or became a key component in NORAD.

During the early 1960s, RCAF Station Val-d’Or was considered as the site for one of the Regional Emergency Government Headquarters, commonly known as a “Diefenbunker”, but this was put at CFB Valcartier instead.

By 1964, the flying mission at RCAF Station Val-d’Or had changed to see all aircraft based at RCAF Station North Bay and RCAF Station Bagotville but were deployed to the base in rotations; in essence, RCAF Station Val-d’Or was now a forward operating base.

During the 1960s, RCAF Station Val-d’Or became home to numerous airborne nuclear weapons as RCAF CF-101 Voodoo interceptors were fitted with the AIR-2 Genie.

The rise of the FLQ terrorist group during this period saw the Canadian military devise strategies to safeguard nuclear ordnance primarily stored at RCAF Station Val-d’Or against being seized by the group’s members.

The Unification of the Forces resulted in the station being renamed CFS Val-d’Or.

CFS Val-d’Or saw its mission gradually decrease during the 1970s and it was closed in 1976.

Today, the airfield operates as the Val-d’Or Airport.  Besides the airfield, the firehall and the blue-roofed buildings on Rue Bleriot appear to be of RCAF design. Also, the two hangars beside Chemin du Lac-Langis appear to be RCAF quick-reaction hangars, similar to ones that still stand at Uplands in Ottawa.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak, Google satellite photos (2013).

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No. 4 Elementary Flying Training School:

Opened near Windsor Mills on 24 June 1940 under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. The school closed on 25 August 1944.

All that remains of the former school is a hangar pad and a small section of the taxi-way.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak and Google Maps.

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No. 11 Elementary Flying Training School:

Opened near Cap de la Madeline on 14 October 1940 under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.  The school closed on 11 February 1944.

Other than one h-hut, nothing remains of the aerodrome today.  It was located in the Rue St Maurice – Rue de Grandmont area and is now a residential area.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak.

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No. 13 Service Flying Training School:

See Saint-Hubert Garrison – 5 Area Support Group in “Closed bases that still have a military presence“.

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Royal Canadian Air Force Station Sept Iles:

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Royal Canadian Air Force Detachment Saint-Honore:

Opened in June 1942 as Relief Landing Field for No. 1 Operational Training Unit at Baggotville under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

The Detachment closed on 5 January 1945.  The airfield now operates as the Chicoutimi/Saint-Honoré Aerodrome.  All three runways remain in use, one expanded to 6000 feet.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak, Google satellite photos (2014).

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Royal Canadian Air Force Detachment Pontiac:

Opened as the Relief Landing Field for No. 3 Flying Instructors School at Arnprior, Ontario, using grass runways.  The Detachment closed in 1945.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak.

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Central Equipment and Proving Establishment Detachment Ancienne Lorette:

No. 22 Elementary Flying Training School / No. 8 Air Observer School:

Opened at Ancienne Lorette, outside of Quebec city, in 1941 under the British Commonwealth Air Training plan.  The two schools were both opened on 29 September 1941 to train student pilots from all over the British Commonwealth and other allied countries, along with the United States, prior to America’s entry into WWII.

The two schools had all the usual amenities of an RCAF station including barracks, hangars, mess hall, hospital, stores recreation, drill hall and classrooms, but unlike most RCAF fields, did not have any Relief Landing Fields.  Instead, student pilots used the runways at No. 11 EFTS at Cap-de-la-Madeline for their circuit training.

By July 1942, an increased need for navigators lead to the consolidation and closure of a number of EFTS across Canada.  Those EFTS co-located with AOS were closed to allow the latter to expand their facilities.

As a moral-booster, HRH Princess Juliana of the Netherlands made a visit in October 1943.

No. 8 AOS closed on 30 April 1945 as the war was winding down.  No. 503 Reserve Equipment Maintenance Satellite was established for the storage of Canso aircraft.

In 1946, the aerodrome was turned over to the Department of Transportation.  The Hospitaliers de St. Jean de Dieu and the Municipalite de la Petire-Riviere bought some of the former RCAF buildings and moved them off-site.

The aerodrome then became known as the Aéroport de l’Ancienne Lorette.

The RCAF returned to the aerodrome six years later when the Central Equipment and Proving Establishment Detachment Ancienne Lorette was established on 15 July 1952, to support the Canadian Armament research and Development Establishment at Camp Valcartier.  The staff consited of twelve officers, seventy-one airmen and one civilian.

The aerodrome also doubled as a re-deployment airfield for Air Defence Command, with the main runway being extended to 6000 feet.

The CEPE was disbanded in August 1964 and the RCAF departed from Ancienne Lorette.

All that remains from the RCAF days is one hangar, updated with new siding.  The RCAF still uses the airfield for its C-130 Hurcules aircraft to transport airborne troops.

The airport is now known as the Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak and the Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport web site – www.aeroportdequebec.com.

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Jacques Cartier Barracks:

Originally opened by the Canadian Army in Longueuil in 1940 as the Canadian Army’s No. 4 District Depot.  It served as a holding facility for recruits awaiting assignments and others awaiting transfers.

The barracks had most of the usual amenities of a Canadian Army camp, including quarters, messes, drill hall, medical building, administration, stores and recreation buildings.

The Canadian Provost Corps also established Montreal South Detention Barracks at the camp in April 1941, re-named No. 65 Military Detention Barracks.  As many as 570 soldiers were detained at the barracks by the end of the war.

The barracks was used as a demobilization camp for soldiers being released back to civilian life when the war ended.

Unlike many WWII-era camps, Jacques Cartier Barracks remained an active Canadian Army barracks, becoming No. 4 Personnel Depot (recruiting centre), along with remained a Canadian Provost Corps camp.

Throughout the 1950s, the old-WWII buildings were demolished and replaced with new buildings, some covered in white stucco, which was becoming common at army bases across the county.  The physical size of the barracks was also slowly reduced, with surplus parts sold off.

In October 1965, the barracks became the home of Mobile Command Headquarters, the new designation for the army under the Unification of the Forces.  Less that a year later, in August 1966, Mobile Command HQ re-located to RCAF Station St-Hubert, with Air Defence Command (ADC) moving from St-Hubert to Jacques Cartier Barracks.

Three short years later, ADC HQ re-located again, this time to RCAF Station North Bay.  Jacques Cartier Barracks closed later that year.

Nothing remains of Jacques Cartier Barracks.  The property now contains the Longueuil subway station, Health Canada offices, and commercial operations including a hotel and Place Longueuil shopping centre, which opened in what had been the north end of the barracks, in 1966.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak, Place Longueuil — Wikipédia (wikipedia.org).

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Established in Saint-Jérôme as No. 44 Non-permanent Active Militia Training Centre on 9 October 1940.  The camp was re-named No. 44 Canadian Army (Recruit) Training Centre a month later and originally served as a training centre for the Régiment  de Hull and the Régiment  de Maisonneuve.

The camp, which was also called Carillon Barracks, had all the usual amenities including barracks, lecture huts, stores, mess halls, a drill hall, administration buildings and Officers’ quarters.  Most had a sports field, swimming pool or skating rink.

The camp’s designation was once again changed in March 1941 to No. 44 CA(B)TC.

By November 1941, Carillon Barracks was chosen as one of two officer training schools (the other was in Brockville, Ontario).  Officer cadet recruits trained at Saint-Jerome before being sent to Brockville for a further three months training, in response to a need for French speaking officers to lead Quebec regiments.

The officer school was shut down on 27 July 1943 and Carillon Barracks switched to an instructor training school, S18 School of Army Instruction.

In December 1944, the camp reverted to a basic training centre, this time specifically for infantry, as No. 44 CI(B)TC.  Carillon Barracks continued in this function past the end of the war, re-named the 15th Infantry Training Battalion in January 1946, until the camp was finally shut down on 14 April 1946.  Carillon Barracks was then sold to the Town of Saint-Jérôme.

Today, the only thing that remains of Carillon Barracks is the former drill hall on Rue Fournier, which was occupied by a reserve battalion of the Royal 22e Régiment from 1964 to 1995.

A small park at 70 Rue Labelle was dedicated to the Royal 22e Régiment in 2013.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak and the Ville de Saint-Jérôme web site – www.vsj.ca.

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No. 45 Canadian Army (Basic) Training Centre:

Established in Sorel-Tracy as No. 45 Non-permanent Active Militia Training Centre on 9 October 1940.  The camp was re-named No. 45 Canadian Army (Recruit) Training Centre a month later, and initially served to train members of the Fusiliers Mont-Royal and the Régiment de St.-Hyacinthe.

The camp had all the usual amenities including barracks, lecture huts, stores, mess halls, a drill hall, administration buildings and Officers’ quarters, for a total of around 63 buildings.  Most had a sports field, swimming pool or skating rink.

After the camp closed, No. 45 Internment Camp stood up in its place on 9 May 1945, housing German POWs until they could be repatriated to Germany. This camp closed on 17 April 1946.

The property was sold and by the late 1940s, all the buildings had been removed. Nothing remains of the camp today.

Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol II: Quebec” by Paul Ozorak.

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No. 1 Wireless School: