A Secret Task as Operations Officer

Heroes Remember

A Secret Task as Operations Officer

Transcript

I was a military engineer so basically either build it or blow it up and that included airfields in the Arctic, bridges in British Columbia, roads in Quebec and, of course, the usual demolition tasks both of in-training, bridging and mine removal. One of the more interesting projects that I was given was from a commanding officer when I was in one of the engineer regiments and he wanted to have a secret exercise. So he tasked me as his operations officer and I was to keep everything a complete secret. We basically loaded up an aircraft with one hundred and twenty people loaded down with explosives, ammunition, blasting caps and the rest of it and flew off to a location about four hours away. Landed, got off the aircraft, got loaded onto helicopters, dropped off at an old light aircraft landing strip and then infiltrated to an abandoned village and blew it up. It was the largest explosion that I’ve ever taken part in and it was actually a ton of high explosives that we set off. The water tower looked like a rocket starting to take off. Now of course the village was abandoned and had been declared a safety hazard so we were given the task of getting rid of it one way or another. My commanding officer had trained with the Marine Corps in the States so he was very much a fan of doing things the more exciting way.

Description

Mr. Mac Culloch describes a task he was involved in resulting in an entire abandoned village being blown up.

Wayne Mac Culloch

Wayne Mac Culloch was born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in 1953 and grew up in Quebec. He began his studies at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, at the age of 18 and would serve as a military engineer in the Canadian Armed Forces for more than 40 years. During his long and varied career, Mr. Mac Culloch served across Canada and took part in three overseas deployments to the Balkans and one to Haiti before being medically discharged with the rank of major. Still having a passion to serve, he went on to work as a civilian employee with the Department of National Defence. Since 2004, Mr. Mac Culloch has volunteered his time and talents to help deliver the “Peace Module” during the Historica Encounters with Canada program in Ottawa. Week after week, he has engaged with youth from coast to coast and educated them about the sacrifices and achievements of Canadians who have served in uniform over the years.

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