Secretary of War
Patrick J. Hurley (1929-33) was largely
instrumental in the formulation and approval of Plan Red by the US administration.
The plan to invade Canada consisted of a 94-page document “with the word SECRET stamped on the cover. It had been formulated over a period of more than five years (
See full text in Annex of my earlier article).
In February 1935, the [US] War Department arranged a Congressional appropriation of $57 million dollars to build three border air bases
for the purposes of pre-emptive surprise attacks on Canadian air fields. The base in the Great Lakes region was to be camouflaged as a civilian airport and was to “be capable of dominating the industrial heart of Canada, the Ontario Peninsula” (from p. 61 of the February 11-13, 1935, hearings of the Committee on Military Affairs, House of Representatives, on Air Defense Bases (H.R. 6621 and H.R. 4130). This testimony was to have been secret but was published by mistake. See the New York Times, May 1, 1935, p. 1.
In August 1935, the US held its largest peacetime military manoeuvres in history, with 36,000 troops converging at the Canadian border south of Ottawa, and another 15,000 held in reserve in Pennsylvania. The war game scenario was a US motorized invasion of Canada, with the defending forces initially repulsing the invading Blue forces, but eventually to lose “outnumbered and outgunned” when Blue reinforcements arrive. This according to the Army’s pamphlet “Souvenir of of the First Army Maneuvers: The Greatest Peace Time Event in US History” (p.2). ( Professor F.W. Rudmin, Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Comments on “War Plan Red”, see complete text in Annex III)
One of the updates to the 1930 invasion plan
was the use of chemical weapons against Canadian civilians:
“I
n 1934, War Plan Red was amended to authorize the immediate first use of poison gas against Canadians and to use strategic bombing to destroy Halifax if it could not be captured.” (Ibid)
It is worth noting that in the course of World War II, a decision was taken by the War Department to retain the invasion plan on the books. It was shelved.
War Plan Red was declassified 35 years later in 1974.