Dark Object - Don Ledger and Chris Styles-pages

Page 78 of 82

Page 78 of 82
Dark Object - Don Ledger and Chris Styles-pages

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shore. Barry and his friend ran to the shore to offer assistance and discovered some very frightened men dressed in strange, dark military garb. His first thought was that they might have been Russians. This was not impossible, since Russian fishing trawlers were in evidence off the Nova Scotia coast in fairly frequent numbers in the 1960s. In those days there was only a twelve-mile limit around the Canadian coast. No one really believed that these vessels were there to fish, though, since they were usually festooned with antennas and radar equipment that would have been the envy of local fishing boats i nS ee Barry was only slightly relieved to hear some of the five or six men they helped ashore speaking English, even though it was a very British style of English. The men were soaked through and their leader explained that this was a mock commando raid and that they were there to secure the light station and the operators. As an exercise they were to hold the island and control the light station operation and its radio traffic. Barry and his wife Donna recall this crew as having been there for the best part of two days, if not three. They were supplied from the air by helicopters, which Barry and Donna heard but did not see, farther down the island. Though these "commandos" received rations, they were more inclined to eat the food offered by the Crowells, and for a couple of days some even wore pants borrowed from Barry while their own clothes dried out. The strangers asked the Crowells not to tell any other military a4 sat Barry remembers a Piper-Cub-type airplane circling over the area constantly for several days, as well as regular helicopter visits. When I asked how this could be so with so much fog present, Barry explained that it was a peculiarity of the area that fog would build up on the surface of the water to the height of fifty to seventy-five feet, blocking horizontal but not vertical visibility, affecting boats but not planes. We are trying to track down the light station records from that period, which will at least give us some indication as to whether there was fog on the night of October 4 in that area. Our experience indicates that these records probably would not have been kept for thirty years. Barry asked the "commando" leader on one occasion about where their Zodiac had been launched from and was told they had come from a submarine, but he was unable to remember whether he was given a name. When I interviewed him in person, I asked him if he thought these guys were really commandos. He laughed and shook his head and said, "No way. If they were, they were poorly trained. These guys were really frightened when they came ashore. They thought they were going to drown." I said that I thought it peculiar that commandos would fire off flares at night when they were trying to sneak ashore undetected. We asked Barry what he thought this whole adventure had been about. He suggested that it might have been part of some NATO exercise. He may be right. plying those waters. personnel about this. Barry agreed. "These guys did everything but radio ahead. They certainly weren't quiet about it." One notable detail was later brought to light by Chris. Earlier in 1967 the Canadian government had