[5] The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs communicated via telegram to Newfoundland Governor Sir Humphrey Walwyn on 9 November 1939, requesting 2,000 skilled men who were "capable of good work with axe and hand saw” to be sent to Britain to aid in forestry efforts.

On 17 November, the Commissioner of Natural Resources made a public appeal for volunteers from across Newfoundland through a radio broadcast.

[7] Its members were engaged in six-month contracts, receiving equivalent pay to their wages back home, totaling two dollars per day or twelve dollars weekly, men had their accommodation and medical services provided for them as part of their contract however personal needs, such as clothing, were their own responsibility.

[8][9] In 1941, NOFU forrester Edgar Baird told Illustrated London News that: "They are needed here on work of national importance, and cannot be replaced.

Many NOFU members and their families returned to Newfoundland following the end of the war and many made the journey on the RMS Aquitania and SS Drottningholm.

When the threat of a Nazi invasion loomed in 1940, the British government called for civilian volunteers to form a Home Guard.

Many Newfoundland foresters answered this call and by 1942, their presence in northern Scotland allowed for the establishment of a Newfoundland-based Home Guard unit.

Like other British Home Guard units, the battalion was disbanded at the end of the war, with each member receiving the Defence Medal.

[19] After the Second World War ended in May 1945, the British government released all foresters from their contracts, but some 1,200 Newfoundlanders continued working until Britain's timber imports returned to pre-war levels.