Pottie, Lee Ellen

Windsor, Lee A.

English

Scholars Commons

Canadian Military History
Volume 16 | Issue 2 Article 3
4-26-2012
Fighting Time: Gregg Centre and Royal Canadian
Engineers Join Forces to Record New Brunswick’s
Past
Lee A. Windsor
University of New Brunswick
Lee Ellen Pottie
University of New Brunswick
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military
History by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation
Windsor, Lee A. and Pottie, Lee Ellen (2007) "Fighting Time: Gregg Centre and Royal Canadian Engineers Join Forces to Record
New Brunswick’s Past," Canadian Military History: Vol. 16: Iss. 2, Article 3.
Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol16/iss2/3
21© Canadian Military History, Volume 16, Number 2, Spring 2007, pp.21-26.
On 18 and 19 April 2005, members of 41 and 42 Squadrons of 4 Engineer Support 
Regiment (4 ESR) from Canadian Forces Base 
(CFB) Gagetown and employees of the City 
of Saint John joined forces with faculty and 
graduate students from the University of New 
Brunswick’s Gregg Centre for the Study of War 
and Society.1 The task was to remove the thick 
blanket of time from the 19th century Red Head 
coastal defence battery that once guarded the 
vital harbour at Saint John, New Brunswick. 
The blanket consisted of over 100 years of dense 
underbrush, including tangles of alder bushes, 
thick belts of weeds, brambles, and thorny sharp 
raspberry cane. As the growth was removed, 
what had looked to be only a small hill with a 
few stones lying scattered about transformed into 
a large carefully-constructed earthen, brick and 
cut-stone coastal fort, some 150 metres long and 
40 metres wide. 
 Since 2000, the Gregg Centre has run study 
tours for UNB graduate students of NB battlefields 
and military heritage sites, in a local adaptation 
of the Canadian Battlefields Foundation Study 
Tour program. The Red Head Battery stand was 
part of the “Saint John Coastal Defences From 
1640 – 1950” tour, run with the help of Roger 
Sarty, a history professor at Wilfrid Laurier 
University. After two visits in three years, the 
threat of erosion to the site was clear, launching 
Gregg Centre Director Marc Milner and his staff 
into action. 
 Only the Red Head Battery remains as a 
reminder of the time when the British North 
American colonies began to unify for collective 
defence and take their first steps towards 
protecting their sovereignty (see Sarty, Milner, 
Knight article in this issue for more on Red 
Head’s remarkable history). Unfortunately, in the 
140 years since the Battery was built, the world-
renowned, powerful tides of the Bay of Fundy 
have battered the loose gravel bank beneath the 
headland. Each winter loose stones and more 
of the bank fall 40 to 50 feet down to the beach 
below and are swept away by the surf. By 2005, 
the bank had eroded all the way to the fort’s 
earth parapet. It is only a matter of time before 
the entire Red Head Battery falls into the bay. 
 Therefore, the aim of the “Red Head Battery 
Project” was to clear the site of brush so that 
it could be surveyed and photographed. Few 
period plans remain of this one-of-a-kind fort. 
In addition, all other gun positions of the same 
vintage on both Canadian coasts were either 
dismantled to make room for more modern 20th 
century defences or built over as port cities grew. 
This made the task of recording the site all the 
more imperative and valuable, not just for New 
Brunswick’s history, but for Canadian military 
history also.
 Thankfully, John Flood and Sons (1961) Ltd, 
the land owners who are well known in the Saint 
John community and construction world, were 
most eager to help, and granted complete access 
to the site. Former UNB student and archaeologist 
Chris Blair joined the team to determine how to 
clear the Battery without disturbing the integrity 
and ecosystem of the delicate coastal bank, and 
Fighting Time
Gregg Centre and Royal Canadian 
Engineers Join Forces to Record New 
Brunswick’s Past
Lee Windsor and Lee Ellen Pottie
1
Windsor and Pottie: Fighting Time
Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2007
22
to help dig archaeological “test pits” to reveal 
clues about the fort’s construction. Once he had 
determined that trimming back the choked and 
dead alder growth would actually help regenerate 
the root structure and stabilize the headland, 
the plan to clear and survey the site was put in 
motion. Arrangements in Saint John, with the 
Floods, the City and local media were all handled 
deftly by Bob Lockhart, a UNB graduate student 
who is also the former mayor of Saint John and 
a one-time local media mogul.
 One large problem remained – clearing the 
thick brush required workers skilled in the use 
of chainsaws, and enough fuel, trucks, safety 
equipment, and time to commit to the project. 
Fortunately, the Gregg Centre’s close ties with the 
Army at CFB Gagetown meant that when the call 
for help went out, the Royal Canadian Engineers 
of 4 ESR quickly volunteered two days of their 
valuable time. (They also helped the UNB’s 
Geodesy and Geomatics Department survey the 
site once it was cleared.) The City of Saint John 
reinforced the brush cutting “combat team” with 
a chipper, tractor, and an able crew, while UNB 
graduate students made valuable coffee runs.
 The project at Red Head Battery was a 
key part of the Gregg Centre’s New Brunswick 
Military Heritage Project (NBMHP), which 
promotes local and national awareness about the 
province’s role in national military history. The 
two days’ work at Red Head drew tremendous 
local and regional media interest. The coverage 
led a local teacher to incorporate the story into a 
social sciences lesson for his grade five students. 
After a class session, they visited the Battery 
site and put their “boots on the ground” – young 
historians in the making. The media coverage of 
the Red Head project prompted a visit by Parks 
Canada’s regional archeologist in the days after 
the clearing. Apparently the site was completely 
unknown to them, and UNB was complimented 
for its work. Later that summer a field camp from 
the UNB Department of Geodesy and Geomatics 
Engineering surveyed the site, and Dr. Peter 
Dare and his department processed the data to 
produce the plan.
 Another positive result of bringing attention 
to what is soon to be lost was to raise the profile 
of other military heritage sites in Saint John, 
which still can be saved. In particular, Partridge 
Island, on the opposite side of the harbour, 
contains defensive works dating from the 1790s, 
and which were operative through to the Cold 
War, in addition to a major quarantine station 
and an immigrant hospital. Plans are now being 
discussed to protect and to develop the island 
into a major historic attraction.
 What follows is the photographic record of 
the battle fought by the Royal Canadian Engineers 
and the Gregg Centre to liberate the Red Head 
Battery from the underbrush, revealing its 
protective ramparts to the sun and the eyes of 
New Brunswickers one last time.
Notes
1. The Gregg Centre was created in 2006 by unifying the 
University of New Brunswick’s Military and Strategic 
Studies Program and the Centre for Conflict Studies. 
The Red Head Battery Project began in 2004 as an MSS 
Program initiative. 
The battle begins! Before getting to the Red Head Battery position itself, sappers from 4 Engineer Support Regiment 
and City of Saint John workers cut a path to the site through dense, tangled, and often thorny, underbrush.
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W
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2
Canadian Military History, Vol. 16 [2007], Iss. 2, Art. 3
http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol16/iss2/3
23
Dr. Lee Windsor is Deputy Director of 
UNB’s Gregg Centre for the Study of War 
and Society. Lee Ellen Pottie is a UNB 
graduate student and long time Gregg 
Centre volunteer.
P
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P
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Top left: Making progress slowly. Once cut, the 
heavy alder bush cover on the battery had to be 
disposed of safely. To clear the site for survey and 
to prevent the threat of fire from brush piles, the City 
of Saint John crew ground the cuttings into wood 
chips, which were then spread evenly across the 
site to compost.
Centre left: Pieces of the fort slowly begin to appear 
out of the obscuring blanket of brush and scrub.
Below: Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Dickson (left), 
Commanding Officer of 4 ESR, surveys the first 
day’s progress with the Detachment Commander on 
the job site, Sergeant David Camp. Currently, Sgt. 
Camp is serving with Task Force Afghanistan.
Bottom left: Dr. Marc Milner, briefs 4 ESR’s 
command team on the cutting work still required. 
From left after Dr. Milner are LCol Dickson, 
Sgt. Camp, Captain John Timmerman, Officer 
Commanding of 41 Engineer Squadron, which 
provided most of the sappers and equipment. 
With his back to the camera is the ever-watchful 
Regimental Sergeant Major of 4 ESR, Chief Warrant 
Officer Paul Hartinger.
3
Windsor and Pottie: Fighting Time
Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2007
24
Left: As the first day of work wears on, the 
battle against the New Brunswick alders turns 
in the Sappers’ favour and the Red Head 
Battery begins to appear from under the brush 
encasement. Visible on the right is one of two 
heavily overgrown expense magazines. The 
clear, warm weather of April in New Brunswick 
enabled the workers to make relatively fast 
work of clearing the brush.
Below left: A 4 ESR Sapper, armed with a 
chain saw and protective gear, mounts one of 
the two expense magazines to continue the 
battle with the brush.
Below right: At midday of day one, this shot 
from the centre of the beachhead of cleared 
land reveals not just the work done already, 
but also the work remaining to liberate the fort 
despite intense alder resistance.
P
ho
to
 b
y 
Le
e 
E
lle
n 
P
ot
tie
P
ho
to
 b
y 
Le
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E
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P
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P
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Left: Red Head 
Battery’s front line 
with Mother Nature 
and the powerful tides 
of the Bay of Fundy. 
Built in the 1860s, 
the fort originally 
was several dozen 
yards from the edge 
of the bank. Nearly a 
century and a half of 
Fundy tides and surf 
battered the bank so 
that the number 1 gun 
position is now on the 
verge of collapsing 
into the Bay. 
4
Canadian Military History, Vol. 16 [2007], Iss. 2, Art. 3
http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol16/iss2/3
25
Day two - A fort appears: Sgt David Camp stands in front of expense 
magazine number 2 between the fourth and fifth gun positions.
By day two, the struggle against the alder bushes is nearly won. 
Visible in this photo are the multitude of stumps left on site. Surface 
growth cut from the Battery was nearly all dead. The hardened dead 
wood ground down saw blades, forcing two skilled Sappers to work 
constantly at sharpening saws and to rotate them into the hands of 
the cutting crew. 
P
ho
to
 b
y 
Le
e 
E
lle
n 
P
ot
tie
P
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 b
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Le
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P
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5
Windsor and Pottie: Fighting Time
Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2007
26
At the end of the first day, sappers from 4 ESR and Gregg Centre staff take a history break. They are gathered in gun 
position number 4 in the midst of the increasingly visible fort to listen to Dr. Roger Sarty explain the significance of the 
unique site and the importance of surveying and recording its existence.
The Red Head Battery Project Team including Sergeant Camp’s detachment from 4 ESR, the City of Saint John chipper 
crew front and centre, UNB’s Gregg Centre Director, Dr. Marc Milner in brown on the right. On the far left stand authors 
Lee Ellen Pottie and Lee Windsor. Dr. Roger Sarty, project historian and specialist in the maritime defence of Canada, 
stands in the centre. In the rear is 52 Charlie, a 4 ESR Light Support Vehicle Wheeled which, like many of the sappers, 
recently returned from the Canadian mission to Haiti.
P
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R
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kh
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t, 
LC
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 (r
et
.)
P
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P
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6
Canadian Military History, Vol. 16 [2007], Iss. 2, Art. 3
http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol16/iss2/3


Fighting Time: Gregg Centre and Royal Canadian Engineers Join Forces to Record New Brunswick’s Past

Wilfrid Laurier University

Canadian Military HistoryVolume 16 | Issue 2 Article 34-26-2012Fighting Time: Gregg Centre and Royal CanadianEngineers Join Forces to Record New Brunswick’sPastLee A. WindsorUniversity of New BrunswickLee Ellen PottieUniversity of New BrunswickThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian MilitaryHistory by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationWindsor, Lee A. and Pottie, Lee Ellen (2007) "Fighting Time: Gregg Centre and Royal Canadian Engineers Join Forces to RecordNew Brunswick’s Past," Canadian Military History: Vol. 16: Iss. 2, Article 3.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol16/iss2/321© Canadian Military History, Volume 16, Number 2, Spring 2007, pp.21-26.On 18 and 19 April 2005, members of 41 and 42 Squadrons of 4 Engineer Support Regiment (4 ESR) from Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Gagetown and employees of the City of Saint John joined forces with faculty and graduate students from the University of New Brunswick’s Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society.1 The task was to remove the thick blanket of time from the 19th century Red Head coastal defence battery that once guarded the vital harbour at Saint John, New Brunswick. The blanket consisted of over 100 years of dense underbrush, including tangles of alder bushes, thick belts of weeds, brambles, and thorny sharp raspberry cane. As the growth was removed, what had looked to be only a small hill with a few stones lying scattered about transformed into a large carefully-constructed earthen, brick and cut-stone coastal fort, some 150 metres long and 40 metres wide.  Since 2000, the Gregg Centre has run study tours for UNB graduate students of NB battlefields and military heritage sites, in a local adaptation of the Canadian Battlefields Foundation Study Tour program. The Red Head Battery stand was part of the “Saint John Coastal Defences From 1640 – 1950” tour, run with the help of Roger Sarty, a history professor at Wilfrid Laurier University. After two visits in three years, the threat of erosion to the site was clear, launching Gregg Centre Director Marc Milner and his staff into action.  Only the Red Head Battery remains as a reminder of the time when the British North American colonies began to unify for collective defence and take their first steps towards protecting their sovereignty (see Sarty, Milner, Knight article in this issue for more on Red Head’s remarkable history). Unfortunately, in the 140 years since the Battery was built, the world-renowned, powerful tides of the Bay of Fundy have battered the loose gravel bank beneath the headland. Each winter loose stones and more of the bank fall 40 to 50 feet down to the beach below and are swept away by the surf. By 2005, the bank had eroded all the way to the fort’s earth parapet. It is only a matter of time before the entire Red Head Battery falls into the bay.  Therefore, the aim of the “Red Head Battery Project” was to clear the site of brush so that it could be surveyed and photographed. Few period plans remain of this one-of-a-kind fort. In addition, all other gun positions of the same vintage on both Canadian coasts were either dismantled to make room for more modern 20th century defences or built over as port cities grew. This made the task of recording the site all the more imperative and valuable, not just for New Brunswick’s history, but for Canadian military history also. Thankfully, John Flood and Sons (1961) Ltd, the land owners who are well known in the Saint John community and construction world, were most eager to help, and granted complete access to the site. Former UNB student and archaeologist Chris Blair joined the team to determine how to clear the Battery without disturbing the integrity and ecosystem of the delicate coastal bank, and Fighting TimeGregg Centre and Royal Canadian Engineers Join Forces to Record New Brunswick’s PastLee Windsor and Lee Ellen Pottie1Windsor and Pottie: Fighting TimePublished by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 200722to help dig archaeological “test pits” to reveal clues about the fort’s construction. Once he had determined that trimming back the choked and dead alder growth would actually help regenerate the root structure and stabilize the headland, the plan to clear and survey the site was put in motion. Arrangements in Saint John, with the Floods, the City and local media were all handled deftly by Bob Lockhart, a UNB graduate student who is also the former mayor of Saint John and a one-time local media mogul. One large problem remained – clearing the thick brush required workers skilled in the use of chainsaws, and enough fuel, trucks, safety equipment, and time to commit to the project. Fortunately, the Gregg Centre’s close ties with the Army at CFB Gagetown meant that when the call for help went out, the Royal Canadian Engineers of 4 ESR quickly volunteered two days of their valuable time. (They also helped the UNB’s Geodesy and Geomatics Department survey the site once it was cleared.) The City of Saint John reinforced the brush cutting “combat team” with a chipper, tractor, and an able crew, while UNB graduate students made valuable coffee runs. The project at Red Head Battery was a key part of the Gregg Centre’s New Brunswick Military Heritage Project (NBMHP), which promotes local and national awareness about the province’s role in national military history. The two days’ work at Red Head drew tremendous local and regional media interest. The coverage led a local teacher to incorporate the story into a social sciences lesson for his grade five students. After a class session, they visited the Battery site and put their “boots on the ground” – young historians in the making. The media coverage of the Red Head project prompted a visit by Parks Canada’s regional archeologist in the days after the clearing. Apparently the site was completely unknown to them, and UNB was complimented for its work. Later that summer a field camp from the UNB Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering surveyed the site, and Dr. Peter Dare and his department processed the data to produce the plan. Another positive result of bringing attention to what is soon to be lost was to raise the profile of other military heritage sites in Saint John, which still can be saved. In particular, Partridge Island, on the opposite side of the harbour, contains defensive works dating from the 1790s, and which were operative through to the Cold War, in addition to a major quarantine station and an immigrant hospital. Plans are now being discussed to protect and to develop the island into a major historic attraction. What follows is the photographic record of the battle fought by the Royal Canadian Engineers and the Gregg Centre to liberate the Red Head Battery from the underbrush, revealing its protective ramparts to the sun and the eyes of New Brunswickers one last time.Notes1. The Gregg Centre was created in 2006 by unifying the University of New Brunswick’s Military and Strategic Studies Program and the Centre for Conflict Studies. The Red Head Battery Project began in 2004 as an MSS Program initiative. The battle begins! Before getting to the Red Head Battery position itself, sappers from 4 Engineer Support Regiment and City of Saint John workers cut a path to the site through dense, tangled, and often thorny, underbrush.Photo by Lee Windsor2Canadian Military History, Vol. 16 [2007], Iss. 2, Art. 3http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol16/iss2/323Dr. Lee Windsor is Deputy Director of UNB’s Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society. Lee Ellen Pottie is a UNB graduate student and long time Gregg Centre volunteer.Photo by Lee WindsorPhoto by Lee Ellen PottieTop left: Making progress slowly. Once cut, the heavy alder bush cover on the battery had to be disposed of safely. To clear the site for survey and to prevent the threat of fire from brush piles, the City of Saint John crew ground the cuttings into wood chips, which were then spread evenly across the site to compost.Centre left: Pieces of the fort slowly begin to appear out of the obscuring blanket of brush and scrub.Below: Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Dickson (left), Commanding Officer of 4 ESR, surveys the first day’s progress with the Detachment Commander on the job site, Sergeant David Camp. Currently, Sgt. Camp is serving with Task Force Afghanistan.Bottom left: Dr. Marc Milner, briefs 4 ESR’s command team on the cutting work still required. From left after Dr. Milner are LCol Dickson, Sgt. Camp, Captain John Timmerman, Officer Commanding of 41 Engineer Squadron, which provided most of the sappers and equipment. With his back to the camera is the ever-watchful Regimental Sergeant Major of 4 ESR, Chief Warrant Officer Paul Hartinger.3Windsor and Pottie: Fighting TimePublished by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 200724Left: As the first day of work wears on, the battle against the New Brunswick alders turns in the Sappers’ favour and the Red Head Battery begins to appear from under the brush encasement. Visible on the right is one of two heavily overgrown expense magazines. The clear, warm weather of April in New Brunswick enabled the workers to make relatively fast work of clearing the brush.Below left: A 4 ESR Sapper, armed with a chain saw and protective gear, mounts one of the two expense magazines to continue the battle with the brush.Below right: At midday of day one, this shot from the centre of the beachhead of cleared land reveals not just the work done already, but also the work remaining to liberate the fort despite intense alder resistance.Photo by Lee Ellen PottiePhoto by Lee Ellen PottiePhoto by Lee Ellen PottiePhoto by Lee Ellen PottieLeft: Red Head Battery’s front line with Mother Nature and the powerful tides of the Bay of Fundy. Built in the 1860s, the fort originally was several dozen yards from the edge of the bank. Nearly a century and a half of Fundy tides and surf battered the bank so that the number 1 gun position is now on the verge of collapsing into the Bay. 4Canadian Military History, Vol. 16 [2007], Iss. 2, Art. 3http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol16/iss2/325Day two - A fort appears: Sgt David Camp stands in front of expense magazine number 2 between the fourth and fifth gun positions.By day two, the struggle against the alder bushes is nearly won. Visible in this photo are the multitude of stumps left on site. Surface growth cut from the Battery was nearly all dead. The hardened dead wood ground down saw blades, forcing two skilled Sappers to work constantly at sharpening saws and to rotate them into the hands of the cutting crew. Photo by Lee Ellen PottiePhoto by Lee Ellen Pottie5Windsor and Pottie: Fighting TimePublished by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 200726At the end of the first day, sappers from 4 ESR and Gregg Centre staff take a history break. They are gathered in gun position number 4 in the midst of the increasingly visible fort to listen to Dr. Roger Sarty explain the significance of the unique site and the importance of surveying and recording its existence.The Red Head Battery Project Team including Sergeant Camp’s detachment from 4 ESR, the City of Saint John chipper crew front and centre, UNB’s Gregg Centre Director, Dr. Marc Milner in brown on the right. On the far left stand authors Lee Ellen Pottie and Lee Windsor. Dr. Roger Sarty, project historian and specialist in the maritime defence of Canada, stands in the centre. In the rear is 52 Charlie, a 4 ESR Light Support Vehicle Wheeled which, like many of the sappers, recently returned from the Canadian mission to Haiti.Photo by Robert Lockhart, LCol (ret.)Photo by Lee Ellen Pottie6Canadian Military History, Vol. 16 [2007], Iss. 2, Art. 3http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol16/iss2/3

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Fighting Time: Gregg Centre and Royal Canadian Engineers Join Forces to Record New Brunswick’s Past

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