The comms bunkers were designed in the 1950s and built in the '60s as part of a Canadian Army project called
Bridge and they were, perforce, known as
Bridge Sites. The centrepiece of Project Bridge was a computer, at Carp, what would, for the first time in Canada, provide automatic telegraph (teletype) routing for DND - this was a pioneering step in the military's use of computers, on a par with the RCAF's SAGE (Semi Automated Ground Environment)/BUIC (Back Up Interceptor Control) system that were designed and built in the same era.
The big computer - a feeble giant compared to anything on your desktop today - in Carp was one of the few members of a family of UK machines that were, originally, designed for airport terminal approach control.
Project Bridge then formed the backbone for the
integrated Canadian Forces Communications System, which became Communications Command which became ...
The first generation computer at Carp, and its eventual successors, replaced dozens, then many hundreds of TelOps
manning staffing old fashioned, slow and error prone torn tape relay stations.
A torn tape relay station
The "new" telegraph system was mated, in the same era, with a new, leased automatic telephone system that replaced the old manual switchboards.
A manual switchboard
The army field force caught up, with automatically switched systems, about 20 years later, at the end of the 1970s.
