Article submitted by Col David Burke, CD (Ret'd)

This is a brief story of the Coral Harbour Hook, a presentation trophy made by Sapper officers who served in the Canadian Airborne Regiment (CAR). In July 1977, 1 AB Fd Sqn was removed from the order of battle of the CAR. The Regiment moved from Griesbach Barracks in Edmonton to Petawawa. Engineer support for the Airborne Regiment would no longer be an integral part of the CAR, the mission was assigned to 2 Combat Engineer Regiment (2 CER), collocated with the CAR in Petawawa and part of the Special Service Force. The engineers had been an integral component of the CAR from the beginning in 1968.

With a focus on Defence of Canada operations and rapid deployment to the north, the CAR needed the capability of building expedient runways for any follow-on force deployment and sustainment. To that end the Airborne Sappers developed snow-ice compacted expedient runway building techniques using the necessary air-droppable heavy equipment. The family of equipment included snow-compaction rollers, a grader and a D6 bulldozer. The equipment could be delivered by Low-Altitude Parachute Extraction (LAPES) or High-Altitude Parachute Delivery. Development of the packing and rigging of the equipment for air delivery was a major job for the airborne in the early 1970s.

In 1974 the CAR, used an exercise in Coral Harbour, Nunavat, as a test for deployment of an air-droppable D-6 dozer. At the airhead in Namao the packers and riggers rigged the dozer for parachute deployment. After many hours in the air, flying from Edmonton to the Arctic, the C 130 dropped the palletised load. The drogue chute pulled the dozer from the back of the aircraft and the parachutes opened. First one heavy lift parachute separated from the load, then another and the bulldozer “thundered-in.” The bulldozer was clearly beyond economic repair and was abandoned on the drop zone.

In August 1979, sappers of 2 Field Engineer Regiment (M) from Toronto took part in Ex NORTHERN VIKING. At my request, they removed the vehicle identification plate and the recovery hook. I was serving at Tactics Wing at the Combat Arms School in Gagetown at the time. I have the distinction of being the last of 17 sapper officers who had served in the CAR. Colonel Don Rochester, a sapper officer who commanded a RCE Field squadron engineers in Korea, was the first commander of the CAR. He led the design and creation of the CAR in 1967-68. There were five COs of 1 AB Fd Sqn from 1968 to 1977 and the move to Petawawa. Eleven other junior officers also served in 1 AB Fd Sqn in Edmonton. The recovered hook was destined to be the centre piece of a presentation from the sapper officers to the CAR’s officers for display in the CAR Officers Mess.

The presentation trophy has the chromed “Coral Harbour Hook” mounted at the centre of the base with the Caterpillar D-6 dozer identification plates behind it on an oak backing. On the back of the trophy there is a metal CAR crest with pewter CME and RCE badges on either side. On the underside of the trophy stand is a photo of the derelict bulldozer sitting on the tundra near Coral Harbour and a list of the Airborne Sapper officers who contributed to the cost of the trophy. Maj Burke presented the trophy to the Commander of the CAR at the CAR Officers Mess in the fall of 1979. The Coral Harbour Hook is now in the Petawawa Museum.