URGH:

Goose Bay is the airfield that NATO forces use to fly into the interior of Labrador, to do low level high speed training, whch cannot be done in Europe, due to the massive restrictions placed by the EU. Wainright Alberta is the CF base used for long range artillery fire exercises, again to get past EU regulations. The British Army maintains a year round staff there to do up keep on their guns and vehicles .

Cold Lake Alberta is the CF's fighter aircraft training school and lots of EU and or NATO flyers go there to train. The annual Red Flag North exercise is held there each winter.

Alll of the bases in that deal are now closed and the land is returned to local control.

The 50 old WW1 USN destroyers were clapped out and in some cases, they never went to sea at all. One that was sea worthy didn't have a very long RN career, she was renamed HMS Campbelltown, and was used in the St Navare raid. She was filled with Torpex HE and was driven into the lock gates, and later blown up, by a time delay device, killing a large number of Nazi officers who were on board, taking photos of her.

Yes they were a gift but not a very useable gift as it turned out. On the other hand the land deal was a really good deal for the US, as it allowed them to expand their range on the east coast and in the Carribbean. Long after WW2 ended , the USN had a submarine listening post at Bimini in the Bahamas that could "hear " a really long distance across the Atlantic.

Jim Bunting. Toronto.