How America’s “Friendly Invasion” of Newfoundland and Labrador Could Turn Sour

Ask Newfoundlanders of a certain generation what they remember about the twentieth century, and chances are they’ll have stories of American soldiers. Perhaps they worked on an American base, danced with a Yankee sailor—even married one and moved down to the States to raise a family.

• Newfoundland saw a surge of US soldiers on its soil starting in the Second World War
• The presence of foreign troops reshaped the economy and culture in the province
• This historical relationship complicates the views of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians on recent threats from the US

In the Second World War, when it looked as if Great Britain might fall to Nazi Germany, Newfoundland became a staging ground for troops heading off to Europe. At the time, Newfoundland and Labrador was still a British Dominion, run by an unelected Commission of Government. While the Canadian government saw Newfoundland as within its sphere of political influence, the Dominion was still controlled by the dictates of London—and coveted for its location by the United States.

Perched high in the North Atlantic, the easternmost gateway to North America, its coves and bays were especially vulnerable to German attacks. During the war, German submarines patrolled Newfoundland’s rugged coastline, occasionally sinking British supply ships and killing Allied soldiers. By war’s end, Labrador remained the only place in North America where Germans had made actual landfall, setting up a clandestine weather station at Martin’s Bay.

By the time the US joined the war, the American government was already taking steps to bolster Newfoundland’s security, recognizing its importance to continental defence. Under an agreement with Great Britain, the Americans traded a fleet of aging warships in exchange for the right to put US boots on the ground. In short order, four major American military bases sprang up around the island. Tens of thousands of American troops flooded into Newfoundland’s quiet outports and into the streets of St. John’s. In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill met on the USS Augusta in Placentia Bay to discuss their respective war aims and to outline a postwar international system in what came to be known as the Atlantic Charter.

Wartime Newfoundland would ultimately witness a buildup of nearly 100,000 American troops stationed on local bases, with a further 750,000 American soldiers passing through the island en route to Europe. This massive American presence was dubbed the “friendly invasion,” and its wide-ranging influence still lingers across the province.

The Second World War was an opportunity for the US to expand its military footprint in the North Atlantic, says Steven High, a history professor at Concordia University who has written extensively about the American military’s role in Newfoundland and Labrador. Beginning in the early 1940s—before they had formally entered the war—the Americans began to build a substantial military presence in Newfoundland, Iceland, and Greenland to ward off potential German threats and help defend the continent’s northeastern flank. “The same reasons they’re going to Greenland and Iceland are the same reasons they’re coming to Newfoundland,” says High. During the Second World War, there was a fear that “Newfoundland is an undefended stepping stone.”

Under the “destroyers-for-bases” agreement, the Americans gave a desperate British government fifty military destroyers in exchange for ninety-nine-year leases on sprawling parcels of land in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the British Caribbean. In Newfoundland, the Americans constructed army bases outside St. John’s and Argentia, a navy base in Argentia, and an air base in Stephenville. They added dozens of smaller radar stations and other installations on the island and in Labrador. The bases were vital hubs for protecting Atlantic convoys, monitoring the waters for German U-boats, and ferrying thousands of aircraft to Europe.

High says the daily impact of seeing the war dead and the constant fear of invasion left a deep scar on Newfoundlanders’ psyche. “They felt like they were on the front lines. It’s a place where home front and battlefront were together. People are being fished out of the ocean and brought to St. John’s, and you saw survivors of sunken ships. So there was a proximity there that you don’t see anywhere else in Canada.”

The presence of so many foreign troops radically reshaped the economy and culture of the island. High describes Newfoundland as a poor, largely isolated place before the war. “The Americans brought their culture with them,” he says. American bases were symbols of modernity, with golf courses and cinemas, popular music and movies, not to mention scores of handsome young men—the latter of which eventually became the topic of a National Film Board documentary about Newfoundland’s so-called war brides.

The bases became a powerful economic driver, providing thousands of decent jobs and a whiff of glamour. High says the scale of the American presence meant the Americans could impose their sovereignty on Newfoundland by using their power to change local regulations, such as requiring milk to be pasteurized or trying to implement racist Jim Crow laws in neighbouring communities.

Nevertheless, most locals welcomed the friendly invaders. Friendships and relationships were formed that continue to this day. Between 1941 and 1966, during the height of the American presence, tens of thousands of Newfoundland women married American soldiers. While not an American base, Gander’s airport was one of the world’s largest during the war and was used extensively by American troops. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Gander airfield welcomed dozens of flights and thousands of passengers diverted from the US, an event immortalized in the musical Come from Away.

After the Second World War, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians voted to become part of Canada in a closely fought referendum between securing independence as their own nation, remaining a British possession, and entering Confederation. Joining the US was not a referendum option, despite the pro-American sentiment among some locals. Nevertheless, Canada’s newest province remained central to America’s geopolitical strategy. As the Cold War emerged, Labrador became an important training ground for North Atlantic Treaty Organization pilots. Under the Americans, the North American Aerospace Defense Command built radar stations all along the Newfoundland and Labrador coast to detect incoming Soviet attacks, beginning in the 1950s.

At the height of the Cold War, the Canadian base in Goose Bay became a critical transport route for American nuclear weapons shuttling between the US and Europe. During the 1950s and ’60s, Canadian governments, worried about growing public fears of weakening Canadian sovereignty, tried to keep these nuclear transports secret, lest they be perceived to be bending to the political and military will of the US.

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All this history might explain why the spectre of the American military looms larger in Newfoundland and Labrador than many other places in the country. The province’s proximity to Greenland has ignited recent debates about its possible role in supporting an intensified American (or NATO) presence in the region should the Americans decide to expand their existing air base in Greenland—or build a new base somewhere else.

In a popular Facebook group called NL Proud, many are frightened by what American aggression could mean for the province. One poster suggests that if the Americans invade Greenland, Newfoundland could be next on the list: “People in this province are looking at the Greenland incident as if it can’t happen here . . . Can anyone here, amidst the jokes & dramatic statements, assure me that I’m actually safe from a U.S. invasion here on the Northeast Coast?”

Others support the idea of the province becoming part of the US, claiming annexation by the Americans would fix the province’s financial situation. “Mr. Trump come and make this a better place,” one user writes. “Only the rich can afford to eat here, it’s ridiculous.”

While a US invasion might seem unlikely, it’s something the Canadian military has been modelling recently, for the first time in a century. Their modelling suggests American forces would overcome Canadian positions on land and sea in as little as two days. Now, many in the province hope the federal government’s renewed focus on defence spending will include fortifying places like Newfoundland and Labrador.

In a recent swing through Northern Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that the air base 5 Wing Goose Bay is among four Northern communities to benefit from $32 billion in new federal funding aimed at boosting defence infrastructure in the far North. While details around exact funding for Goose Bay are forthcoming, Garry Best, president and chief executive officer of Nunatsiavut Group of Companies, said last year that an increase in defence spending for the region could allow communities in Labrador to upgrade airstrips and ports and provide employment opportunities, as reported by the CBC.

Canadian bases in Gander and Goose Bay already employ hundreds of soldiers and civilians. Radar installations still dot the Labrador coast. Whether or not fears of US aggression materialize, it’s clear any military buildup will pay dividends for local economies. It’s a paradox that High says is woven deeply into the province’s identity.

“There’s no question that Newfoundland was, per capita, one of the most militarized places around for a period in World War II. The number of soldiers, sailors, and airmen that were stationed there is just massive. It has to have an impact,” High says. “I do think that the past imprints itself on the present in all kinds of ways.”