Canadians shut down early warning radar for the weekend

[snopes]

Comment: Closing down for the weekend seems the norm in Canada.

During WWII, my father, radar officer in the Army Air Corps, went Canada
to check out their Early Warning radar. He discovered that the Canadians
shut down the early warning facility on Fridays and went home for the
weekend. Fortunately, no Russians got the information that the way was
wide open to bomb the U.S.

[ASL]

Ummmm... were we particularly worried about (non-nuclear) Russian strategic bombers (did they have long-range strategic bombers yet?) flying over the artic ice during WWII?

[Mateus]

The last I checked, the Russians weren't planning on bombing us in World War II, whether or not they had the capability to.

[FullMetal]

yeah a few things, 1, Russia wasn't a threat in WWII, early and post WWII yes, but more for eastern Europe than the US and Canada in early WWII.
2, My grandfather was in the Canadian Army Artillery corps on homefront security. weekends were when they had their drills generally. and they were more interested in Japan. than Russia.

3. Radar was in its infancy in WWII, early warning radar in Canada wasn't constructed until the 50s. the mid-canada line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Canada_Line wasn't constructed until the mid 50s, the DEW line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEW_Line was built shortly afterwards. now as for weekends off on the DEW line? nope... my father (civilian) manned a radio station for the the DEW line. weekends off? nope! it was a 24 hr operation, mostly very boring work, ensuring that the radios were working, and info was transfering from the DEW line south. If they were paying techs working in radio stations for the weekends I'm sure they had someone manning the radars on weekends.

I don't think the pinetree line really qualifies as an early warning system, as it's pretty much on the border of the US...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinetree_Line
it started the process of being designed in '46, AFTER WWII... and around half was run by the US..

[jimmy101_again]

I don't see anything unusual with the radars being shutdown over the weekend. Heck, in1941 the US military shut down its radar installations in Hawaii at night.

So it certainly wouldn't have been unusual. It might not have been a good idea but that is a different thing all together.

[Nick Theodorakis]

Originally Posted by jimmy101_again

I don't see anything unusual with the radars being shutdown over the weekend. Heck, in1941 the US military shut down its radar installations in Hawaii at night.

So it certainly wouldn't have been unusual. It might not have been a good idea but that is a different thing all together.

Did the IJN do any night carrier-based operations at that time?

Nick