Stephenville Air Base and later Ernest Harmon AFB was quite an isolated posting during its early years as a United States Army Air Forces and later United States Air Force base. It was located in the protection of the Long Range Mountains and harbour of the St. Georges Bay area, virtually cut off from rest of the island, except for a few roads and boat and plane traffic. Newfoundland itself was, and still is, considered isolated. But during the 1940s and 1950s, when roads were virtually non-existent and surface travel was limited to the slow narrow-gauge passenger trains of the Newfoundland Railway which linked to small coastal steamships or ferries to the mainland at North Sydney, Nova Scotia, the sense of isolation could prove overwhelming. In addition, the airfield's location at the head of Bay St. George was one of the more geographically isolated parts of the island, being surrounded by the Long Range Mountains and the coastline of the island's west coast being dotted with tiny outports. In addition to USAAF/USAF aircraft, the only other option for travel was the railway and ferries/coasters, or exploring the limited local road network which stretched along the coast and into the uninhabited interior of the island.
