Canada Under Attack (24 page)
Despite the frustration of the pilots forced to track balloons that did not exist, the danger to Canadians did not end once the Japanese suspended their balloon campaign. During the six month campaign the fire balloons managed to cover most of the Canadian west. They landed or were shot down in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, which saw the most balloons â over 57 recovered during the six months of the fire balloon invasion. Hundreds of balloons remained undetected in western Canada's woods, fields, and mountains. In fact, one of the last was discovered in British Columbia in the 1990s. Others may still be lying somewhere deep in the Canadian bush.
By the end of the 19th century, most Canadians were confident that the United States had abandoned the concept of manifest destiny and its acquisitive interest in Canada. Certainly the Americans had provided a lukewarm response to the activities of the Fenians, but they had vindicated themselves in the First World War, coming slowly but decisively down on the side of the Allies and Canada. Relations between the two countries, frequently strained by disagreements over land and alliances, had matured. The longest undefended border in the world was safe. But in 1974 the U.S. government routinely declassified documents. They had done the same thing many times before with little fanfare, but that time a Duke University history professor named Richard A. Preston was busy sorting through a variety of historical documents as research for a book he was writing on Canadian American Relations.
1
In the U.S. Military History Collection, located in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, he discovered one of those recently declassified documents. It revealed that the U.S. had not given up on plans to invade Canada. Far from it. They had, in fact, prepared an elaborate researched plan that outlined how an invasion of Canada could successfully be carried out.
Stored in a dusty vault,
The Joint Army and Navy War Plan: Red
, had been written in the 1920s, accepted by the United States Secretaries of War and of the Navy in 1930, and updated in 1934 and 1935. The 95-page document, with “secret” stamped across its cover, laid out a complex plan in for the invasion of Canada. The invasion plan was part of a war plan known as
War Plan Red
, ostensibly a plan for a preemptive strike against Britain via Canada in the event that the two countries went to war. War Plan Red was part of a larger series of war plans drafted between 1918 and 1939 by the U.S. Department of War Planning. Those plans also included War Plan Orange, a plan to invade Japan, and War Plan Green, a plot to invade Mexico.
While it was designed to cover contingency plans for a war with Great Britain, War Plan Red contains very few references to that country. The only theatre of war mentioned in the plan was Canada, referred to as “Crimson.” There was also nothing defensive about the plan. The goal of the plan, its authors wrote, was, “ultimately to gain control of Crimson.”
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The earliest draft of the plan, approved by the U.S. cabinet in 1924, went further, suggesting that all territory gained during the operations (that is, all Canadian lands) would be held in perpetuity by the United States. The Government of Canada would be abolished. The capture of Canada was not expected to be easy on the Canadian population. The plan authors expected “consequent suffering to the population and widespread destruction and devastation”
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in Canada. The United States intended to start the war and even if Canada declared neutrality it was to be invaded and occupied.
The plan contained a detailed analysis of Canada's geography, population, and, most importantly, the country's military strength. It concluded with this stark statement: “Crimson (Canada) cannot successfully defend her territory against the United States (Blue).”
4
In fact, espionage reports from the period on Canada's defensive readiness were often as stinging as they were blunt. Canada acknowledged no known enemies, had failed to maintain a proper air force, and was, therefore, largely unprepared to defend itself.
Halifax was to be the first target. The capture of that port city would logically prevent the arrival of reinforcements from Great Britain and would leave the rest of Canada vulnerable. Several routes were considered, but in the end War Plan Red called for a seaborne surprise attack from Boston. The attack would have to take place even before war was declared, to maintain the element of surprise and ensure that the city would fall quickly. The next stage of the plan called for the immediate capture of power plants in the Niagara region. Once those were secure the U.S. Army would launch a three-pronged attack. They would take Montreal and Quebec via Vermont, seize the rail lines in Winnipeg from bases in North Dakota, and then swing up through Michigan and Sault Ste. Marie to take the valuable nickel mines in Sudbury.
In 1935 the plan was altered and the newer version called for an immediate and massive pre-emptive bombing of Vancouver, Quebec, and Montreal, in order to ensure a quick victory over those cities. The amendment further recommended the use of poison gas against Canadians prior to the actual invasion by U.S. troops. Interestingly â and in an echo of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima â American authorities felt that the tactic was a humanitarian act, as it would end the war more quickly and save both American and Canadian lives in the end. The newer version of the plan also authorized the strategic bombing of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the event that U.S. troops were unable to defeat and occupy it. While the army invaded by land, the navy would seize control of the Great Lakes and establish blockades of both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
In February 1935, the U.S. Congress appropriated $57 million on behalf of the U.S. War Department. The money was to be used to build three air bases along the Canadian-U.S. border that could be used for pre-emptive air strikes on Canadian airfields. The bases were to be disguised as civilian airports and were supposedly a well-guarded secret. Then, in February 1935, Brigadier General F.M. Andrews, Chief of the General Headquarters force, and Brigadier General Charles E. Kilbourne, former of head of the Army War Plans Division, testified in a secret meeting of the Congress Military Committee. The testimony revealed the provision for “camouflaged” air bases on the Canadian border and suggested that the United States “must be prepared to seize nearby French and British Islands in an emergency.” The testimony provided by military experts to the committee was explosive and could even be considered slightly hysterical. There are, the experts testified,
[C]ountless operating bases within a radius of action of this country in the vast number of sheltered water areas that are available deep in Canada ⦠from which pontoonequipped aircraft could operate at will ⦠There is no necessity for starting with an observation in order to know what they are going to bomb. They know now what they are going to bomb. They know where every railroad crosses every river. They know where every refinery lies. They know where every power plant is located. They know all about our water supply systems. Their location is most difficult for us to learn, for our own air force to learn. We have to hunt them up. We have to find out where they are before we can attack them.
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Interestingly, the U.S. military already knew an extraordinary amount about Canada and its resources. In 1919, they had gathered substantial information on Canada's railroads and highways and a few years later the U.S. Army War College led a study of Canada's airports, harbours, and radio stations. Shortly before Captain George gave his incendiary testimony, a secret mission in the Canadian wilderness had searched for the location of air bases and float planes.
The supposedly secret testimony was mistakenly published with the rest of the committee's proceedings in February 1935. In April 1935, a
New York Times
reporter stumbled on the revelations and revealed them. The article was reprinted in newspapers around the world, and outraged the citizens of numerous countries including Canada, Great Britain, and France. The administration of then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt immediately attempted damage control and the president issued a stinging rebuke of the Military Committee, in which he wrote, “I call your special attention to the fact that this government not only accepts as an accomplished fact the permanent peace conditions cemented by many generations of friendship between the Canadian and American people but expects to live up to, not only the letter, but the spirit of our treaties relating to the permanent disarmament of our 3,000 miles of common boundary.”
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Despite Roosevelt's assertions, in March 1935 General Douglas MacArthur suggested an additional amendment adding Vancouver to the list of priority targets. The latest amendment even included a list of the best possible roads for the invasion route. For Vancouver that was Route 99.
In August 1935 over 35,000 U.S. troops converged on the Canadian border just south of Ottawa for a series of war games. The scenario designed for these war games was a massive invasion of Canada. The war game plan called for the Canadian forces to repel the initial attacks. It then called for an additional 15,000 reinforcements to be brought from Pennsylvania, which was expected to outnumber and outgun the Canadian forces, who would eventually capitulate. The games were considered to be a resounding success by the U.S. military and were one of the largest peacetime manoeuvres in history.
Following the success of the war games, the U.S. military purchased additional lands around Fort Drum and greatly expanded the base. The expansion received a tremendous amount of attention and many Canadians along the border nervously eyed the buildup of troops and weapons to the south. If they had also learned of the existence of extensive plans for the invasion of Canada their reaction would have been much stronger â unless they had also learned that the Canadians had developed their own plan for invading the United States, nine years before War Plan Red was developed.
Defence Scheme No. 1 was the creation of Canada's Director of Military Operations and Intelligence, James Sutherland “Buster” Brown. It was presented to Canadian military strategists in April 1921. Like War Plan Red, Defence Scheme No. 1 was a wellguarded secret. Te. Also like War Plan Red it was to be launched prior to any official declaration of war. However, Sutherland's scheme was less strategic and based more on the twin premises of surprise and strength, a
levee en masse
as he termed it. “The first thing apparent then in the defence of Canada is that we lack depth,” wrote Brown. “Depth can only be gained by Offensive Action.”
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From bases along the border, thousands of Canadian troops would pour into Washington, Montana, Minnesota, New York, and Maine and overwhelm specific cities in those states. Brown did not expect that his plan would allow the Canadians to conquer America. Instead, his goal was to slow an American attack until Canada's allies could arrive to help. Therefore, the plan also included contingency plans for a retreat in which the Canadian Army would burn bridges and railways to hinder an American pursuit. Brown and several other military men even conducted reconnaissance to support their plan, travelling through a variety of U.S. states dressed in civilian clothing. Brown's plan initially received a considerable amount of support from the Canadian military before being officially abandoned by Canadian authorities a few months before the United States began work on its own invasion plan
In 1939 War Plan Red also faded in importance as the world's attention was captured by the image of the great German Army bearing down on Poland.
Chapter One
1
. L'abbé Ivanhoe Caron, ed.,
Journal de l'expédition de chevalier de Troyes
(Quebec:
La Compagnie de L'Eclaireur, 1918).
2
. D.W. Prowse,
A History of Newfoundland
(Portugal Cove: Boulder Publications, 2002), 216.
3
. Jean Baudoin,
Journal du voyage que j'ay fait avec M. d'Iberville, Capitaine de
Frigate de France en l'acadie en l'isle de terre-neuve, November 10, 1696.
4
. John Clapp et al, in a petition sent to William III in 1697 begging for relief and for armed forces to defend the settlers of Newfoundland.
5
. Baudoin, November 17, 1686.
6
. Baudoin, November 30, 1686.
7
. Baudoin, November 30, 1686.
8
. Baudoin, November 30, 1686.
Chapter Two
1
. Ben Franklin to his brother, John Franklin, Philadelphia, 1745.
2
. Estimates vary. Some put the cost as high as $200 million dollars, others report that it cost barely half of the 30 million livre estimate. £30 million is, however, the most commonly quoted figure and can be found in such sources such as William Wood's
The Great Fortress (A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720â
1760)
, and Robert Emmet Wall in the
New England Chronicle
. Interestingly, the reconstruction of barely one- fifth of the fortress, begun in the 1960s, cost over $25 million Canadian, and took 20 years to complete.
3
. Quoted in William Wood,
The Great Fortress (A Chronicle of Louisbourg
1720.â1760)
(Toronto: The Hunter-Rose Company, 1920), 34.
4
. Lettre d'un Habitant de Louisbourg, 36.
5
. Wood, 30.
6
. Lettre d'un Habitant de Louisbourg, 15.
7
. Letter of Monsiery DuChambon to the Minister at Rochefort, September 2, 1745.
8
. Louis Effingham DeForest, ed.,
Louisbourg Journals 1745
(New York: Heritage Books, 1998).
9
. Lettre d'un Habitant de Louisbourg, 35.
10
. An anonymous soldier in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment quoted in Louis Effingham De Forest, ed.,
Louisbourg Journals 1745
(New York: Heritage Books, 1998), 27.