NYC CASO and wartime

Classic Trains General Discussion
1

Canada was at war with Germany in 1939, 2 years before the US entry into the war. Did this effect the operations of New York Centrals superb Canada Southern Line Detroit-Buffalo? Were there special restrictions and inspections? Was the border a problem? Wabash and Pere Marquette also had routes roughly the same although most of it was trackage rights. How did this effect these railroads?

Once the US jumped into the war it is likely things changed somewhat and I imagine these lines, especially the CASO, were vital and strategically important to the war effort for both Canada and the US.

Does anyone know how busy things got and what problems were faced by the US railroads operating in Canada before the US entry.

2

While the U.S. did not declare war until Dec 1941, they were both supplying others that were already in the war, and were somewhat gearing up for the possibility of becomng involved. Detroit was very involved.

3

Yes I realize that the US was a strong friendly nation ( eg. The lend lease program with Britian), before joining in the war.

My question goes to operations of US railroads in Canada. One country was at war and another was not. I’m sure the US had to take certain precautions so as not to provoke a declaration of war with Germany. Conversely, Canada may have required through freight trains to be sealed, much like they did with through passengers, and special inspections carried out here and there. Certainly the border must have tightened up. ( I’m thinking there was unofficial wink wink nod nod things going on, but strictly unofficial). I’m wondering how this time period before the US entry into the war was dealt with on the railroads running from a US point ( Detroit) to a US point (Buffalo) but all through Canada. It was an unusual situation.

4

I know that Canadian lines in the U.S. like CP’s International of Maine route were forbidden from carrying war material until the U.S. declared war due to neutrality regulations, but then it was full steam ahead. I imagine something similar, but reversed applied on American lines in Canada.

5

SD70M-2Dude- Yes thanks, that’s the kind of information I was looking for. In the case you citied then CP would have to take the long way around the Gaspe to get to the Eastern Provinces or ship up the St. Lawrence in U boat infested waters. At least for wartime material. Yikes!

There likely is no one left from that era that worked on the railroad crossing Southern Ontario and little written about these effects. Maybe a lot of information was classified. The border agencies would have had some kind of special wartime regulations. Certainly traffic would have increased substantially on the Canadian side. Bridges, stations, even whole trains may have been guarded by troops and this must have applied to the Central’s CASO line, even though the US was not involved yet at this point.

6

This would make a very fascinating article. It’s something a lot of us probably never really thought about before.

Becky

7

I can’t say what was going on with US and Canada rail operations in the years from 1939 to 1941, but as a military history buff I CAN say there was a lot of “turning a blind eye” going on by the Roosevelt administration. Even though the US wasn’t interested in getting involved in another European war the FDR administration and the American people had no doubt as to who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.

Look at the young American men who crossed the border into Canada to join the Empire forces. Strictly speaking it’s against American law to join foreign military organizations, you can loose your citizenship if you do, but since those young men were joining the right side the law was never enforced. Also, with FDR and J. Edgar Hoover’s blessing, there were British agents here in the US keeping an eye on and investigating German agents. There were other things too. The US Neutrality Act kept American manufacturers from selling warplanes to Britain, but if those planes were TOWED across the border and not FLOWN over they were considered motor vehicles, and that was OK!

Look at Hollywood films made before the American entry into World War Two like “A Yank In The RAF,” “Captains Of The Clouds,” and “Dive Bomber” for a good insight into the American attitude. Yeah, we knew who the heroes were, and they worked for Winston, and not Adolf.

8

Excerpt from Canada’s Yanks by Hugh A. Halliday

https://legionmagazine.com/en/2006/07/canadas-yanks/

As of Dec. 8, 1941, approximately 6,129 Americans were members of the RCAF. Just over half—3,883—were still undergoing training, but 667 were on operations overseas while others were engaged in flying duties in Canada itself, instructing, flying anti-submarine patrols, etc. With America’s entry into the war, RCAF recruiting there ceased and American volunteers began heading for USAAF offices instead. Americans residing in Canada were still being enrolled, however. Ultimately, the RCAF calculated that more than 8,860 U.S. nationals joined that force.

Within a month of Pearl Harbor, talks were underway for the transfer of Americans from the RCAF to U.S. flying services. In May and June 1942, a board of Canadian and American officers travelled across Canada by special train, affecting the release of 1,759 Americans from the RCAF and enrolling them simultaneously in American forces. Transfers continued throughout the war. The RCAF calculated that 3,797 Americans switched back to their own national forces. That left 5,263 Americans who elected to stay with the RCAF throughout their service careers.

9

Wow. Great stuff Wanswheel,what a great read…and thanks as well to Firelock76…“towed across” that’s the way it went!

Wonder if it’s still an advantage with the ladies, if you’re a single American fellow up here, to say you’re from Texas?

10

There’s a great scene in that film I mentioned “Captains Of The Clouds” you just reminded me of.

Canadian Air Marshal Billy Bishop (the top surviving British Empire ace of World War One with 72 kills, and yes, that REALLY is him!) is inspecting a line of RCAF air cadets. He asks one “And where are you from, son?”

“Texas, sir!” the young man responds.

“Excellent!” says Billy. “One of our best provinces!”

Great aviation film, and in Technicolor too! See it if you get the chance.

11

http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/78131|0/Captains-of-the-Clouds.html

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/21226/Captains-of-the-Clouds-Original-Trailer-.html

Excerpt from Winged Warfare by Maj. William A. Bishop (1918)

When I left for my leave to England, I was not very keen on going. The excitement of the chase had a tight hold on my heart-strings, and I felt that the only thing I wanted was to stay right at it and fight, and fight and fight in the air. I don’t think I was ever happier in my life. It seemed that I had found the one thing I loved above all others. To me it was not a business or a profession, but just a wonderful game. To bring down a machine did not seem to me to be killing a man; it was more as if I was just destroying a mechanical target, with no human being in it. Once or twice the idea that a live man had been piloting the machine would occur and recur to me, and it would worry me a bit. My sleep would be spoiled perhaps for a night. I did not relish

12

Thanks for the post and links Wanswheel. That quote from Billy Bishop pretty much proves what Manfred von Richthofen said makes an ace. The aces aren’t stunt fliers or aeronautical engineers. The aces are combat soldiers, pure and simple.

13

8,860 Americans signed up for the RCAF prior to the US entry into the war…that’s a huge number. I’m sure that was great comfort for us during the dark days of '40 and '41.

I’m still curious about the effects of operations on the Wabash, Pere Marquette and NYC with those big main lines across Southern Ontario. NYC in particular had quite a bit of on line business and branch lines. I’m pretty sure the Wabash was just straight through and little on line business, but they did have a passenger train that operated in Canada only. The Pere Marquette had a branch and their own track as far as St Thomas. They all had substantial locomotive facilities and backshops in St. Thomas as well. This was a short period of time late '39 to late '41. The cooperation would have been substantial but all “under the table”. Very clandestine. I’m sure we could only get good accounts from the actual railroaders of that time period or declassified government records. Then after the US declaration things would have got even more interesting really!

Reading the 1941 NYC Annual Report didn’t reveal anything except that business was way way up in 1941 across the board even though America was not in the war until the last month. War time preparations must have been well underway before Pearl Harbour. The NYC does state in the report that business was up substantially due to the war even though that was less than a months time.

We need someone like Spielberg to make a fact based movie about the railroads role during WWII…all those night trains and headlights in the dark, smokey roundhouses, exhausted men, women and machinery, and a thousand and one stories…rich untapped ground there Steven!

14

I did a little research on the various American Neutrality Acts and how they may have had a bearing on the original topic.

Without writing a dissertation and boring everyone, the whole sequence worked like this…

It’s said that generals alway prepare to fight the last war. Sometimes polititians do as well. As the world in the 1930’s began to heat up the US Congress was trying to prevent a repetition of the chain of events that got the United States involved in World War One, so various Neutrality Acts were passed.

The first in 1935 prohibited the United States from selling munitions to ANY belligerant nations. In 1936 an addition was passed that also prevented loans to belligerant nations.

The 1937 Neutrality Act extended the provisions of the first two acts to civil wars, and also gave the president discretionary authority to restrict NON-munition sales to belligerant nations to a “cash and carry” basis. That meant belligerants had to pay in advance for goods and export them on their own ships.

After the European war started the 1939 Neutrality Act banned American ships from carrying goods to belligerant ports, but allowed the US to sell munitions on a “cash and carry” basis.

Then came the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941. This permitted the president to “sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of” any defense articles to “any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.”

With no doubt as to who the “good guys” were the Neutrality Acts were repealed on November 13, 1941.

How did this effect railroad operations into and out of Canada after September 3d, 1939 when the British Empire declared war on Nazi Germany? I’m going to stick my neck waaaaay out and say it was probably business as usual, unless there were munitions on the American trains, which weren&#

15

Well thank you very much for the research Firelock76. There is not a lot of railfan input from that era as security concerns discouraged taking photos or written articles. Most photos from the war era were official government or company sanctioned and likely subject to censorship. I’m sure that key strategic railroad infrastructure and large stations had a visible troop presence In a security role.

16

Certainly there were security concerns and photography prohibitions, but a railfan photographer could probably indulge himself during the war years if he exercised a little common sense. I’m sure no-one cared if you were out railfanning the local “Puddle Jumper & Western,” but you certainly didn’t want to be caught dead with a camera near a place like Horseshoe Curve, or the New York Central’s West Shore Line, or huge railyards like Enola, Roanoke, or Cheyenne, or any place where troop trains or military shipments were likely to be. Military authorities and Hoovers “G-men” were going to take a dim view of those activities!

17

I am borrowing and quoting phrases from an article written by Conrad Black in the Natiional Post Saturday Aug. 20th/16.

On Dec.29, 1940, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave one of his most famous fireside radio addresses to the nation. It was listened to by 75% of American adults when he said that the United States “must be the great arsenal of democracy”. He denounced what he said was the “pious frauds” of the isolationists and said there would be no agreement with the aggressor states. He warned that if Britian were defeated by Nazi Germany that “we in this hemisphere would be living at the point of a gun…no dictator, no combination of dictators would detract or deter the United States from doing what it’s clear national interest and moral duty required”.

Shortly thereafter Lend-Lease was passed, which allowed Britain and Canada to buy what they needed and pay when they could. The response from Brtain and Canada was to praise Americas “generous and far seeing statesmanship”.

The most powerful democracy had declared that it will devote its overwhelming industrial and financial wealth to ensuring the defeat of Nazism. Churchill stated “The government and people of the United States in fact had written a new Magna Carta that not only proclaims the rights and laws of a healthy and advancing civilization but also proclaims it is the duty of free nations to share the responsibility and burden of enforcing them”.

By this time Roosevelt had extended the US territorial waters from three to 1,800 miles and ordered the US Navy to attack on detection any German ship. Roosevelt then ordered 100,000 war planes and started up the machinery to put America on a war footing. He was waging undeclared war on Germany.

So in light of all of this I doubt that there was any trouble at all with shipments across the border to Canada and to East Coast ports for shipping to Britain. The CASO, Pere Marquette and W

18

Good post Miningman! That pretty much says it all. Here we were in the US, looking somewhat nervously east over the Atlantic wondering what Mr. Churchill called “Hitler and the grisly gang that works his wicked will” were going to get up to next.

And then when the lightning struck, it came from the west over the Pacific.

Oh well.

19

At some time in the thirties, Japana and Germany agreed that if one declared war on the United States, the other one would also declare war on our country. So, after Japan attacked us and declared upon us, Adolf Hitler, even though he was already fighting on two fronts, felt compelled to do the same.

20

Well Deggesty, that’s a bit of a common misconception. The actual pact between Germany-Italy-Japan was a mutual defense pact, not a mutual aggression pact. No party was obligated to come into a conflict started by another party. For example, Mussolini didn’t join Hitler’s war until Adolf was steamrollering all the opposition and it looked like he was going to be a winner. Japan never joined Hitler’s efforts to defeat the Soviet Union, even though they had several hundred thousand occupation troops stationed in Manchuria and could have caused Stalin no end of trouble without to much difficulty.

Why Hitler declared war on the United States when there was no reason for him to do so has been puzzling historians from that day to this. His own people, Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel and Jodl advised him not to do it, but he didn’t listen. He gave a long rambling speech at the time outlining his reasons, but in the end it still didn’t make sense to declare war on an industrial powerhouse nation he couldn’t touch, but with air bases in Britain would have NO trouble getting at him.

His own worst enemy I suppose.