Camp Meaford
In 1942 the Department of National Defence purchased 800 km2 (17,500 acres) of private lands along Georgian Bay in the St. Vincent Township. The southern edge of this property is 5 km northwest of the town of Meaford and its western boundary is 15 km northeast of the city of Owen Sound. The property is centred on Cape Rich, a headland extending into Georgian Bay which divides Owen Sound from Nottawasaga Bay.
The Meaford Military Camp (also known as Camp Meaford) was intended for tank warfare and artillery gunnery training. Its landscape included limestone cliffs, dense forest and rolling open agricultural land, as well as swamps all based on a topography of heavy clay broken up by a vast distribution of rock, Mountain Lake, and a 22 km shoreline. The facility was administratively an annex to Camp Borden.
From its inception during World War II until the late 1960s when the Canadian Forces were unified, Camp Meaford was used extensively by regular force Canadian Army units assigned to Camp Borden. It hosted the following training schools for exercises and driver training:
- Royal Canadian Armoured School
- Royal Canadian School of Infantry
- School of Intelligence and Security
- School of Administration and Logistics(formerly the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps School)
- School of Medical Services
The integration of the modern-day Canadian Forces saw the transfer of the Combat Arms School from CFB Borden to CFB Gagetown in 1969-1970, dramatically reducing the requirement for Camp Meaford. In 1970 it was decided to mothball the entire facility, reducing staffing from 153 military and civilian personnel to a 5 person security staff of Commissionaires.
- "...when Meaford Range is dormatized...it will no longer be used for military purposes, including Regular Force and Militia exercises, training and field firing." (April 1970 DND internal communication)
During the early 1970s, units of the Canadian Forces Primary Reserve began to make unofficial use of this large DND property only 180 kilometres north of Toronto, rather than face the 380 kilometre drive to CFB Petawawa for training.
Read more about this topic: Land Force Central Area Training Centre Meaford
Famous quotes containing the word camp:
“There was a deserted log camp here, apparently used the previous winter, with its “hovel” or barn for cattle.... It was a simple and strong fort erected against the cold, and suggested what valiant trencher work had been done there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)