| CAMP- I IN 1953 |
| The pages of Camp-I and Camp-III are dedicated to the memory of Norman Simons who was our crew chief at Camp-I, Camp-III and the winter of 1953 - 54 at Pepperrell Air Force Base. December, 1927 - September, 2002. |
| This hill overlooks Camp-I. The Shoal Harbour river is behind camp. Our sleeping huts were on the eastside of the track with mess, kitchen and supply tents on the westside. Joe Louie Photograph |
| In this view Camp-I is three miles further north beyond the curve. The white building is the Shoal Harbour repeater station. The road from McAndrew AFB ends here, so, we all unload here and ride the speeder out to Camp-I. The telephone pole line we maintained is on the right side of the track. Other repeater stations were at Pepperrell AFB, Gander, Grand Falls, Millertown Jct., Howley, Corner Brook, Stephenville, Table Mountain, and St. Andrews. Joe Louie Photograph |
| From the left; supply tent, kitchen tent and then the mess tent. The two generators were for power. The track crew from Clarenville installed a siding for our speeders and trailers. Joe Louie Photograph |
| One of two speeders assigned to Camp-I. They were built in Kalamazoo, MI. From the left; Tech Sgt. Everett "Red" Wilkerson, Domenick Iacovelli and Staff Sgt. Alfanso "Pancho" Aranda. Our camp had two Newfoundlanders on loan from the Canadian National Railway as speeder operators, Fred Rose and LeRoy Hawco. It was a thrill riding on them. When they got up to speed on a straight piece of track they would "hunt" which caused everyone on board to rock back and forth. The railroad had a lot of curves and many of them were through deep rock cuts and you couldn't see very far ahead for a moose or anything else that would be on the track. Joe Louie Photograph |
| Jerome Young captured train No.52 passing the local freight here at Camp-I. No.900 was built in 1952, so here in the summer of 1953 she still looks pretty new. |
| When the crews got to far from camp with their work, " Rocky," our cook, brought lunch out by speeder. Thats him at the head of the line with his white hat on. Jerome Young Photograph |
| From left- Harold Rideout, George Merritt, M.Scharnweber, Don McCarron. We are on the hill above camp. On weekends we went on hiking excursions. McCarron had an experience one day, when he took a short break from digging his hole for setting a pole. We usually took our breaks on the railroad track to get away from the black flies and mosquitoes. As he was smoking his cigarette, he looked down the track and thought he saw a switch stand in the distance, but knew there was no switch there. So he grabbed up his shovel and headed down the track to check it out. It turned out that the switch stand was a black bear and fortunately for him, it lumbered off into the bush. Joe Louie Photograph |
| In this view, our two speeders are double headed with a load of telephone poles to be spotted along the railroad. Tech / Sgt. Wilkerson and M / Sgt. Anniable are conferring with Fred Rose and LeRoy Hawco, the two speeder drivers, on strategy. Tip, the squadron mascot, is ready to go. Jerome Young Photograph. |
| End of a days work. Norm Simons crew being pickup to head back to Camp-I. Ben Craft and Simons have their pole climbers in hand. Photograph Jerome Young. |
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