Sub Threat Meant More Oil Wells In Vermilion

With submarines becoming a threat to Pacific oil shipping in 1942, the Canadian National Railways were looking for a new place to get their oil and one place they felt was a good option was Vermilion.

On Oct. 9, 1942, it was announced that 50 oil wells were to be dug in the Vermilion Field by Canadian National Railways to obtain more supplies for the company’s oil-burning locomotives.

The company was already using a great deal of oil from the Vermilion field, and had begun to negotiate with the Western Drilling Company to dig more oil wells.

A representative from the Canadian National Railways was expected to arrive a week later to begin to make further arrangements for Vermilion to help in the war effort in a way that would also benefit the local economy.

A source with the company said that the CNR was using 10 times as much oil as it was getting out of the ground at Vermilion at the moment.

“At present, the railway gets much of its supply from California. The fields and refineries of this state are being heavily taxed by war industries, naval requirements and shipments to Australia.”

Once the deal was to be completed, it was expected that the oil wells would provide many times the amount of fuel being extracted from the ground, greatly helping the company and its needs with its locomotives.

There was also the worry that Japanese submarine activity on the West Coast could reach the same proportions that were being seen on the east coast during the Battle of the St. Lawrence that saw the sinking of many ships and hundreds of deaths during the war years.

As it turned out, that would not be the case. Any submarine activity on the west coast by the Japanese was few and far between and there was no major threat to Canada’s oil shipping from the Japanese.

Nonetheless, the Canadian National Railways were looking to make sure that they had their bases covered, and the Vermilion oil field and its new wells was going to be a big part of that going forward.

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