Within a stone’s throw of the main highway
at Pennfield Ridge, the finishing touches are being added to a remarkable new
development which will soon take its place in the defence scheme as No.2 Air
Navigation School of the Empire air training plan, where in due course hundreds
of young fliers will further their studies of the intricate science which is
modern aviation.
Through cold and snow and mud, swarms of men have worked all the long months of Winter in
order to bring the project - the Pennfield Airport, as it is popularly known - to
its present stage of near-completion. Rigorous weather was no deterrent to the
crews who toiled on excavations, foundations, carpentry and steel work, pipe-fitting
and the thousand and one details involved in such a contract. Work went ahead
although the thermometer on some days read 15 below zero. There was only one day
when work had to be suspended. And 15 below on the shores of the Bay of Fundy can
be cold! It is a tribute to the men, and to the efficiency of hulking masses of machinery,
that there is now nearly finished a model town complete with landing field where last
September was nothing but a broad, flat expanse of wood and farmland.
Carefully Planned
Typical of the driving speed
with which the whole of the enormous air training plan is being rushed into full
operation, Pennfield’s rows of drab green buildings none the less reflect meticulous care
in planning and construction. When they move in, officers and men and maintenance staff
will find that no reasonable precaution his been overlooked to assure them of clean, warm,
safe, and comfortable quarters, complete with automatic controls wherever these can be
efficiently used.
The development is aptly described as a model town. Its streets -
named after such illustrious aces of the last war as Barker, Bishop, McLeod, and
Collishaw - are to be paved this year, and it has its own water and sewerage systems
and a network of fire alarm boxes. Water for drinking and general purposes is obtained
on the property from a well drilled during the Winter. An electric pump forces it into a
storage tank whence it is distributed under pressure to all parts of the airport,
including hydrants, located at strategic points. When completed it will have its
own telephone system, connected by trunk lines with the St. George exchange.
Electric power is used very extensively throughout, supplied by a special high
voltage transmission line from the Power Commission’s plant at Musquash.
Excellent Runways
The long, smooth runways,
permitting a landing from as many as six directions, are an outstanding advantage
of the site. A deep bed of gravel underlying the whole development provides ideal
drainage, with the result the pavement laid last Fall by the Dexter Construction
Company has come through a tough Winter without a wrinkle or crack to mar its smooth
surface. Now the order has been given to lengthen the runways, and the Dexter Company
is already at work on the preparatory stages of the work which will result in doubling
the original runways and adapt the school to use the largest planes now building.
The site so far has been virtually free of fog. A record of weather conditions
since ground was broken last November 7 shows that fog has not been a factor at
any time, evidently because of the location of the school on "the Ridge"
as Pennfield people call it, which although close to the waters of Fundy is some
200 feet above sea level and hence but little affected by the soupy mists for
which the bay is infamous.
Nearly 40 Buildings
No mere words can convey an
adequate description of the enormous amount of work performed here in the space of
six months. Even photographs were they permitted could not impress the picture of it
- nearly as well as a personal visit, and these are now severely restricted. If you can
get inside, it will take you half a working day to walk around and inspect all the
buildings. There are nearly 40 of them - hangars each occupying nearly an acre of ground -
blocks of barracks to be used as living quarters; a huge building cut up into classrooms,
offices and so on; drill hall, hospital, dental clinic, two canteen buildings, and a
complete recreation hall.
As a visitor to the station you will be treated with the utmost courtesy by
everyone, from the resident engineer, William J. Walsh, right down the line
to the last water-boy. Contractors, inspectors, foremen, assistant engineers,
workmen, Air Force guards - all alike are proud to have a part in creating here
another impressive unit of the huge air training plan which is being relied upon
to help establish and maintain Britain’s mastery of the air.
Well Equipped
Your reporter had the
advantage of seeing the whole development in company with Major Ernest S. Hill of
St. Stephen, who has been on the site in the capacity of inspector virtually since
the work began, and has seen it shaped into its present form. He can show you living
quarters that are models of good taste, comfort and convenience; classrooms especially
soundproofed for particular branches of study; hangars so roomy that men inside them
look like mere dwarfs; a hospital fully equipped to deal with any reasonable contingency
and including x-ray and surgical departments; a dental clinic; a recreation hall fitted
for stage shows, movies, basket ball and other sports; a maze of electrical and radio
equipment, especially in the control tower of the landing field; mess halls large enough
to seat the whole school at one time; and huge steam-heating plants to keep all the buildings
comfortable in the most severe weather.
The construction was carried out by three principle contractors - the Dexter Company
which built the landing field and runways; the Acme Construction Company which erected
most of the buildings; and the Storms Contracting Company, Limited, of Toronto, which
put up the hangars and drill hall. The fact that excellent quality gravel is available
on the site not only makes for perfect drainage, but also simplifies concrete mixing
and filling operations, as the material has only to be trucked across form the other
side of the highway.
Big Contracts
Plumbing and heating were two
of the outstanding sub-contracts. The plumbing in 23 of the buildings was done by J.V.
MacPherson of Halifax under the immediate supervision of Jack Mahar of Milltown, who has
been highly complimented on the excellence of the workmanship. He also had charge of installing
the low pressure steam heating system in the airmen’s mess, hospital, and dental clinic,
and high pressure steam for cooking and sterilizing in the mess and hospital. Between 14
and 16 men have been employed most, of the Winter in this work. Among other things they
have installed over 250 wash basins, 63 showers, two 500-gallon hot water tanks, 13 tanks
of 200 gallons capacity and a number of smaller size. Both jacket heaters and electrical
heating devices are used.
Another sub-contract of formidable dimensions was successfully executed by W.E. Emerson
& Sons, Limited, of West St. John, who installed low pressure steam in eight of the
larger buildings involving laying of more then 800 feet of piping underground under the
most adverse weather conditions. Despite handicaps the men turned in an impressive job.
The biggest of the steam plants heats the hangars and drill hall; two others take care
of the two buildings where the officers will be quartered, and the others supply separate
buildings. Unit heaters with fans circulate the air are extensively used on the steam
lines. In addition, automatic coal-building circulating units are installed in some of
the structures. Leonard P. McHugh was the superintendent in charge for Emerson's.
Dislike 44-Hour Week
At the height of activity, as many
as 1,000 men were employed on this development, and all Winter long the number held in the
vicinity of 600 to 700. It dropped off during April as buildings near completion, since the
character of the remaining work required in most instances painstaking fitting and finishing
by highly skilled men, of whom none too many are available at any time.
The forty-four hour week decreed by Ottawa does not find
favor with many of those
connected with the job. To the workman, who live at the site or nearby and whose
living expenses are the same whether they work 44 hours a week or 60, it doesn’t
make sense. For the most part they would welcome the opportunity to work an extra
hour a day and Saturday afternoons. They are there in any event and their free time
is just so much lost. In their normal occupations of farming, lumbering, fishing
and general labor they are used to long hours. Some actually left Pennfield to take
other work where they could put in a longer week and earn more money. And of course,
the cost of machinery is just the same whether it is used eight hours or 24 hours a day.
Would Not Have Helped
However, it is doubtful whether
a longer working week would have hastened completion of this particular job. For example,
the concrete floors in the hangars could not have been laid until the frost was out of the
ground; the number of skilled men who can do interior finishing and fitting is limited at
any time; electric power to operate the plant would not have turned on any sooner, and so on. Parts of it which are still
partly done might have completed, but the school as a whole would probably not have been
ready for occupancy a day ahead of time even if the men had worked 16 hours a day.
Men busy getting a school like this ready for war-time use don’t talk much about what
may come afterward, but it is not hard to see Pennfield as a permanent airport in
commercial use when peace comes again to the world. It is capable of still further
expansion as to length of runways. It is advantageously located for Montreal - Maritime
Province flying and also for Trans-Atlantic service, and it is the closest large field
to Saint John, which because of topographical handicaps has no prospect of securing a
big airport near the city limits. It is not at all impossible that, having served its
purpose well in war-time, Pennfield will be largely salvaged and employed in the years
of peace to follow as a convenient air connection for the whole of southern New
Brunswick.
SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - Thursday, May 15, 1941.
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