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

The US military has used the province as a staging ground since the Second World War

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........

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