RCAF Station Debert
| CFS Debert | |
|---|---|
| Part of Canadian Forces | |
| Debert, Nova Scotia | |
| Coordinates | 45°25′44″N 063°26′42″W / 45.42889°N 63.44500°WCoordinates: 45°25′44″N 063°26′42″W / 45.42889°N 63.44500°W |
| Type | Military Base |
| Site information | |
| Owner | Civilian: 1996–present |
| Open to the public |
As a museum |
| Site history | |
| Built | ~1940 |
Canadian Forces Station Debert (also CFS Debert) was a Canadian Forces station located in Debert, Nova Scotia. It was most recently used during the Cold War as a communications facility and was home to a "Regional Emergency Government Headquarters" (REGH) complex, more commonly known by their nickname "Diefenbunker."
Originally this facility was developed with an airfield and army training centre, however these facilities were decommissioned in the 1970s and ownership transferred to the Government of Nova Scotia to be operated as the Debert Air Industrial Park. Following decommissioning of the REGH and removal of the last military presence at CFS Debert in the 1990s, this facility was transferred to the Government of Nova Scotia and then the Colchester Regional Development Authority to operate as Colchester Park.
Following the outbreak of the Second World War in the fall of 1939, the first Canadian units began shipping through the port of Halifax however the end of the Phoney War in the spring of 1940 required a massive ramp-up in Canada's land forces in Europe. The sheer volume of soldiers who would be embarking through Halifax required staging facilities for training and marshalling combat units before embarking on the troopships.
To meet this requirement, the government announced that existing facilities at Camp Aldershot near Kentville, Nova Scotia and Camp Sussex near Sussex, New Brunswick would be upgraded to handle the requirements of housing and training brigade-size units. In spring of 1940, the government also began purchasing additional land in Debert for a division-size training and marshalling facility adjacent to those lands previously purchased in 1938 by the Royal Canadian Air Force for an aerodrome.
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