The Secret German Weather Station in Labrador

German Weather Station Kurt set up in Labrador. Source: via Wikimedia Commons

Display of Kurt in the Canadian War Museum. Source: Simon P, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Map showing location of Station Kurt. Source: via Wikimedia Commons

In October 1943, the German U-boat-537 approached the northern tip of Labrador, looking for Martin Bay and quietly anchored in the very isolated bay.

It was important to the Germans to get accurate weather reports. German U-boats constantly patrolled the Atlantic, looking to sink any Allied vessel. This task was dependent on weather. Weather patterns in the North Atlantic generally move from west to east, this gave the Allies a distinct advantage over the Germans. If the Germans could set up a weather station in North America, they could better plan military operations.

Their U-boat had been damaged by a storm while crossing the Atlantic so while men went about setting up the weather station, others repaired the damage to their U-boat.

The Germans took measures to disguise the installation by, misguidedly, labelling the drums ‘Canadian Meteor Service’, even though there was no such agency. They even scattered empty American cigarette packages around the site. Labrador wasn’t even part of Canada at that time. It would only join Canada as a province in 1949.

Just twenty-eight hours after dropping anchor, after confirming the station was working, they slipped out of Martin Bay and made their way home, their mission going totally undetected until 1981. 

Weather Station Kurt never lived up to expectations. The Germans stopped receiving transmissions after about a month. It just sat there, year after year, until 1977 when scientists doing research stumbled upon the site. Nothing was done at that time and it remained unknown until 1981 when a retired German engineer who was writing a history of the German weather service, learned of the station’s existence. He contacted the historian at the Canadian Department of National Defense who sent a team out in 1981 to investigate. They found the canisters had been opened and components strewn about the site.

Weather Station Kurt was removed and is now part of the collection of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. U-537 made the only armed German landing on North American soil in the Second World War.