MY FIRST POSTING
H.M.C.S Cornwallis
H.M.C.S Cornwallis Pictures
MUSEUM
Situated on the southern shore of the Annapolis Basin, HMCS Cornwallis was the latest and largest of a succession of military installations which have occupied this general area for almost four hundred years. The name originates in recognition of one Edward Cornwallis, the founder of Halifax and governor of Nova Scotia from 1749 to 1752. Cornwallis was located in Clementsport N.S., a portion of which is now Deep Brook. The surrounding land was part of a Loyalist grant to a Captain Douwe Ditmars in 1783. Maps drawn in 1609 show a small chapel where Cornwallis now stands, the first record of any development in the area. Had WW11 not occurred there would be no Cornwallis. This conflict therefore had a profound effect on both the geography and economy of the entire area. In the early 1940s the Battle of the Atlantic dictated the necessity for a base large enough to train the number of sailors required to man Canada’s expanding Navy. Thus, in early 1942 The Department of National Defence recommended that a naval training establishment capable of accommodating 10,000 personnel be established in Shelburne. The official transfer date from Halifax was April 14, 1943. The actual transfer took place between April and July. Final cost of construction, excluding equipment, was about $9,000,000.00. The Navy was expanding rapidly at this time and the training space, then in Halifax, was urgently required by HMCS Dockyard. From a Naval viewpoint Shelburne was adjudged the place most suitable for such an establishment, but for reasons of speed, economy, and perhaps politics, Deep Brook was chosen. This location was certainly closer to the transportation arteries required to feed in materials and men, and JL Ilsley, a powerful member in the MacKenzie King cabinet and MP for Digby, Annapolis and Kings, may well have influenced the decision. At any rate, a $15 million ceiling cost was approved and the end of June 1942 found construction under way. The actual commissioning of HMCS Cornwallis occurred in Halifax on May 1, 1942. By early 1943 the first buildings in Deep Brook were ready and HMCS Cornwallis, with a complement of 2,539, was officially transferred here in April 1943. Expanding rapidly, the wartime strength of the base exceeded 11,000 officers, men and women. During the war years HMCS Cornwallis was the largest naval training base in the British Commonwealth. Length of training for new entries varied from six to eight weeks and included instruction of a general military nature with a naval emphasis added; such things as boat-pulling, seamanship, knots and splices, marks of respect, rifle-drill, assault courses, self-defense, and many other events necessary to train young men and women for war in the short time allotted.Then it was off to sea, the requirement for men being so urgent. In those early years it would not have been unusual for a newly commissioned ship to have as few a four to six experienced sailors in its crew. With the end of the war, Cornwallis was made a Discharge Transit Centre to process thousands of naval personnel returning to civilian life. The base was finally declared surplus and, on February 28, 1946, was paid off by the navy and turned over to War Assets Corporation for disposal. With the post-war re-appearance of the threat of force, it was realized the navy again might have use for Cornwallis. In June, 1948, a “stop sale” order was issued, and in September the navy reclaimed possession. Renovations got under way in December, 1948, and on May 1, 1949, Cornwallis was recommissioned. Immediately following re-commissioning 148 recruits, the first of many, arrived for a five month new entry course. Further drafts, each numbering 74 men followed at bi-weekly intervals until the Korean war brought even greater mobilization and a quickening training pace. Where original plans would have 800 men training at any one time, the spring of 1951 saw that figure doubled. The Korean War brought a quickening of the training pace. New entries poured in, and where it had been planned to have 800 under training at any one time, by the spring of 1951, that figure had been doubled. On October 2, 1951, training for wrens was started, with 25 young women arriving to become the first wrens to serve full-time in the post-war navy. Then, approximately 100 regular force wrens a year went through the eight week new entry course. During the summer, the distaff side was augmented by the presence of many wrens of the RCN Reserve, taking time off from their civilian pursuits to train with the navy for two or more weeks. Also in October, 1951, what is now know as the Sea Cadet Training and Weapons Cadre building, became the Communication Division of the Fleet School, transferred from Halifax. Where, those entering the communications trade, both seamen and wrens, were taught Morse code and elementary communication procedures, while advanced courses were conducted for officers and senior men returning from the fleet. At any one time, there were 180 to 200 under instruction. Cadets from the University Naval Training Divisions, between 300 and 400 each summer, trained here as well. Another component was the Leadership Division, now CFRS Headquarters building, which provided training for all RCN officers early in their careers, and for selected men in the rank of petty officer second class. The purpose, essentially, was to enhance the leadership qualities of those on whom the weight of responsibility was destined to fall. The motivation of the Navy however, was that HMCS Cornwallis would exist primarily as a training facility for new entry seamen. At the rate of about 65 per week they arrived there for their first taste of navy life. February 1968 saw the unification of Canada’s Armed Services. This ill-conceived decision dictated there would no longer be a Navy, an Army and an Air Force; simply one Canadian Armed Service with three elements: Sea, Land and Air, all wearing a hated green uniform. HMCS Cornwallis then became CFB Cornwallis. No longer a purely naval training station, CFB Cornwallis then became home to the Canadian Forces Recruit School (CFRS) where English-speaking recruits of all three elements trained (French-speaking recruits trained at St Jean, Quebec). And so it continued until the end; an end which finally came when political cutbacks directed closure of the base in 1994. The last new entry training course, number 9426, graduated on August 18 of that year. Actual closure took place in May, 1995. Training in Cornwallis left a variety of impressions on the trainees. Some wanted to share their joys and sufferings of that period in their life and others probably just wanted to forget. Whatever their feelings, whatever conclusions you might draw from your visit to the former base, we cannot forget, it played a strategic role in the “Battle of the Atlantic”. Where once nearly 500,000 men and women marched, Cornwallis is now an industrial park. More than three score business organizations occupy the buildings which, save for the foresight of a progressive few would have been destroyed. The former permanent married quarters on the hill to the south which would have suffered the same fate now house one of the largest communities in Annapolis County. Cornwallis Park employs more civilian personnel than when it was a military base. In terms of progressive development it is recognized internationally as a model of innovative development, a fact recognized by an international gathering at The Annapolis Basin Conference Centre during the summer of 2003. Echos of the former military presence still remain in this historic place:, HMCS Acadia, a sea cadet training centre where during the summer months upwards of a thousand sea cadets still march; the
HMCS/CFB Cornwallis Military Museum
which seeks to perpetuate the memory of this historic place, and the Lester B. Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, a unique organization which caters to representatives of the nations of the world who come here to study the arts of peacekeeping.
