Helen Rapp

Helen Rapp, the youngest of five children, was born on July 15, 1925 in Schumacher, Ontario. Her dad and older brothers were gold miners. Ms. Rapp's brothers enlisted when the Second World War began, and she used her drafting studies to obtain a job with General Electric in Hamilton, where she helped assemble Bofors guns. When women were permitted to join, she enlisted and served in Ottawa. Ms. Rapp attained the rank of Sergeant and managed the office which controlled all Communication in Canada.


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Mary Laura Wong

Mary Laura Wong (Mah) enlisted with the CWAC (Canadian Women's Army Corps) in Vancouver, British Columbia where she was employed as a teletype keyboard operator. « View Transcript

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Sergeant Evelyn Jamieson

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My name was Evelyn Jamieson. I was born on a farm north of Cobourg, Ontario, and attended high school in Port Hope. I was working at Goodyear Tire, New Toronto, in the advertising department when I decided to join the CWAC. My family doesn’t have a military background but I did have a brother. I thought he might not enlist and stay on the farm but that didn’t happen and he joined the air force. Luckily, he survived the war.

Very likely, my main reason for joining were posters asking women to join the forces to relieve soldiers for active duty. I was 20 years old when I enlisted in Toronto on March the 14th, 1943, as W21244. Trinity Barracks, also known as “cockroach palace”, was the staging area. The recruits had the normal medical checkups, IQ tests, etc.

Basic training was in Kitchener, Ontario. Nothing unusual about that but it was a little difficult getting used to 70 girls in a barracks, one big room in April in a building with just two stoves, one at each end of the room. The girls had to look after the stoves and most of them were from towns and cities and didn’t know how to stoke a fire. We coped, made friends and graduated.

After graduation, we returned to Trinity Barracks to be posted. While waiting, there was a Victory Bond drive being held in Canada. For several days in early evening, we were taken by streetcar to different parts of Toronto for a parade. All three services were there with bands for navy, army and air force. It was in May and I remember the girls singing wartime songs as we rode along on the streetcar with windows wide open. That duty was much more fun than washing dishes at the barracks.

Early in June, I think about the 1st, about 15 or 20 CWAC were posted to Orillia and traveled by train. I became a stenographer at headquarters company at [No.] 26 Canadian Army Basic Training Centre. And there were four companies, so there would have been approximately 600 soldiers and staff. Later in the year, I went over to work at C company. A very vivid memory I have is of working as a draft marched out of camp, including the men we replaced. I know some of them did not return home.

It was a wonderful posting and two of us, Dot Newton and I, went into the town and played softball for a local team, Bryson’s Bread. And also went down to the exhibition grounds in Toronto to run at a field day. When I joined, I had requested taking a wireless radio course and in March 1944, I was sent to Barriefield, Kingston. Many of the girls taking the course wanted to go overseas but I didn’t. Many had relatives overseas and wanted adventure.

I knew quite a lot about Morse code and radio before joining and being young and foolish, I wanted to return to Orillia and requested a transfer. It was granted and I returned to Trinity Barracks in Toronto, expecting to return to Orillia and evidently, they were also expecting me. About that time, the training of agents at Camp X, a spy training school and communication centre, ceased operation at the end of April or early May and became entirely communications. I was sent down to an office at Yonge and King Street and interviewed by a Major Justin. A few days later, June the 1st, 1944, three CWAC were picked up by an army vehicle and driven out of Toronto to Camp X. Our first view was a group of buildings surrounded by a fence and guards on the gates.

I can’t remember whether we were told in Toronto that we would be under the Official Secrets Act or when we arrived in camp. Civilian men and women and army men and women worked together. There were several CWAC at camp before we arrived, a driver and kitchen staff. But we were the first CWAC to work on communications.

My first job was on a teleprinter as a teletypist. Later, I worked on a Kleinschmidt machine, rather like a clunky typewriter with tape. I spent most of my time working on the Boehme tape puller or undulator . We were sending and receiving traffic to England and to New York and Washington. It was many years after the war, we learned we were sending to Bletchley Park. All traffic was in five letter groups and plain English was never used. My knowledge of Morse code was important.

We worked 365 days a year, 24 hours a day and there were several shifts, 8 to 4, 4 to 12, 12 to 8 and a couple of swing shifts. I worked happily beside civilians, doing the same work. Our pay was different but I can’t remember that being a problem. I have heard since that there was some dissatisfaction. We had bus and train service from Oshawa. The secrecy was kept. My family did not know where I was or what I was doing until after the war. We had a phone number of a Bell telephone supervisor in Oshawa which we could call and they would contact the camp. I used it for some reason, likely a mix up in times when I should be picked up.

At the end of the war I went, I think, to Long Branch for discharge. I was discharged on October 24, 1945 as a Sgt. with 'B' trades pay in 'Keyboard' and 'F.W.S.' As a civilian I returned to Camp X and carried on with work as before. I did so until my marriage in July 1946.

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CWACs and POWs

CWACs and POWs

In the book Athene, Goddess of War, there are many stories of Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWAC) members who had interesting experiences while serving in Kingston, Ontario, and elsewhere.

 One such story involves a particular CWAC member who, in 1942, due to a shortage of barracks in Kingston, was billeted at the YMCA.

As related by her, she had a boy friend who had a car, and whose home was in Kingston. It was a hot summer for uniforms, so in the evening they would occasionally go for a ride dressed in cool civvies. Three German prisoners had escaped from Fort Henry. Two had been recaptured, but the third was still at large. On this particular evening she and her friend, with another couple, went for a ride east of Kingston. After being stopped at roadblocks several times they returned to Kingston and parked on the waterfront. They were there about half an hour, when all of a sudden a motorcycle policeman pulled up, opened their car door, and asked for help. It was a bright moonlit night and, as the policeman had gone by them on his patrol, he had seen a movement in the grass and had returned to check it out. The movement turned out to be the escaped German who had been creeping up on their car with a knife in his hand. The policeman had caught the German, but needed their assistance in getting his prisoner back to the police station.  The policeman and the escapee then rode downtown in the rumble seat of the car. As soon as the policeman and the German were out of the car she and her friends drove away as fast as they could since they didn't want to be questioned. A few days later her friend was pulled over by the same policeman as he wanted to extend his thanks, and said if her friend ever needed help, just to call him. Her friend asked that their names be kept anonymous and explained the trouble the girls could have been in for wearing civvies. It was a front-page story in all the papers, but their names were never mentioned.

Corporal Pat Moyles - Canadian Women's Army Corps

Janie Patricia O'Buck

Plains, Montana

March 22, 1926 - May 3, 2022

In the autumn of 1942, having completed their basic training at Vermillion, Alberta, some 25 members of the Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWAC) arrived in Kingston, Ontario.

On 29 August, at the Canadian Signals Training Centre (CSTC), Vimy Barracks, they were among the first CWACs to begin trades training as radio operators. Pat O’Buck (nee Moyles) of Peterborough, Ontario, but currently residing near Plains, Montana, was also serving there. The following is a brief account of her service.

“As a Lance Corporal, at the tender age of 16, and disenchanted with an orderly room job, I was reassigned to be the Non-commissioned officer who marched the gals back and forth from Barriefield, where we were quartered, to Vimy, where we did our trades training.

One poignant episode at Vimy during this time was the day our group reported to find our classroom emptied of most of the men with whom we had been training. Those men we later learned had volunteered for the airborne, although in what capacity I have no idea. I have often wondered if they were part of an intelligence group.

In December, part of our group was classified as signals intercept operators, posted to Argyle Barracks in Ottawa and assigned to No. 1 Special Wireless Station (SWS).

In the early years many Canadian men and women held a dim view of women who joined the armed services. This attitude gradually changed as we proved our value to the service. Nonetheless, I don't think there was a man among the SWS members who would not have punched out another for uttering a disparaging remark about one of "their" girls, especially if the culprit was in another service branch.

From day one at No 1 SWS the men were respectful, helpful, and yes, protective. During the bitter winter of 1942-1943, for example, some of us sustained frostbitten legs and ear lobes walking to the Station from where the bus was halted due to drifting snow. Our Commanding Officer (CO) contacted the CWAC hierarchy at Argyle barracks where we were billeted and saw to it that we were issued battle dress.

For security reasons, our group occupied a separate wing at Argyle. Nobody else knew what we were doing, or what our mission was, including the officers. This kinda galled them and there was a perception that we were receiving special treatment. We were not required to do Kitchen Patrol, or any other chores meted out to other gals at the will of those in charge. It was necessary that we be provided meals at irregular hours because we worked irregular hours. Often the mess hall staff showed its displeasure at having to meet our needs. One way of showing that displeasure was in the lunches provided. Again, the CO contacted those responsible at Argyle and instructed that in the future we were to be furnished with healthier lunches than those we had been receiving. I don't recall the specific improvements other than that we began to have an item of fruit each day.

I have to admit that it was sometimes fun and a challenge to sneak back into barracks with the evening shift coming off duty when we were late after a movie or date. We weren't all that angelic that we didn't take advantage of an opportunity. I don't recall that one of us was ever caught.

At No 1 SWS we were copying subversive signals (HAM operators were prohibited from operating during the War), as well as high-speed radio traffic from Argentina, as I recall. I remember the high-speed receiver was a Hallicrafter. Simultaneously we were in training to copy Japanese military communications that used regular Morse code and modified Morse code, or barred letters, to represent elements of their Katakana phonetic writing system. The Japanese operators were well disciplined and we didn’t intercept much chatter in their Kana format.

In the summer of 1943 this first group was sent to Victoria, British Columbia and No 3 SWS where, sometime during 1944 or 1945 the Japanese military changed code. We intercept operators had a month to learn it in addition to performing our regular intercept work. Not to worry! At midnight Japanese time on the day the code changed the Japanese operators were having as much problem sending the new code as we were transcribing it. It was a level playing field.

In the latter part of 1944 almost all of the physically qualified men at SWS3 were pulled for further training and eventual assignment to Australia. Heretofore, the men had rotated, four at a time, month at a time, to man a directional finding (DF) hut located in the middle of a farmer's field near Nanaimo, B.C. That was it, a small hut ringed by a few antennas and a small privy behind it sitting in the middle of vast acreage. The supervisor on duty in Victoria would contact the operator on duty at the DF hut to take a bearing on a particular intercepted signal. When the men left for their new assignment, it was up to the gals to (wo)man the DF hut. The men had been provided with a rifle for their personal protection. The gals were left with a revolver, but absolutely no instructions on how to use it! Lucky for us, a need never presented itself.

In Victoria we were never in barracks but either had room and board in private homes or rented our own apartments. One landlady loved me because I, too young to drink, gave her my wine ration each month. How did I come by a wine ration? I dunno except perhaps it was just because I was old enough to be in the military. After all one could be under age and still vote if in the military.

I was back to Victoria in 1986 and found no evidence that there had ever been a station. The area is now a subdivision.

At war's end married gals had the option to take their release, but some of us who were single had no choice. We were assigned to monitor Soviet and Chinese transmissions. Soviet transmissions consisted of still other barred letter combinations, although not as many as with the Japanese codes, while Chinese transmissions were based strictly on Morse characters. Only later were we demobilized, I, in the rank of Corporal, on 9 June 1946, and the last CWAC member the following September. No choice there! In other words, the CWAC was deactivated -- no more women in khaki.

Another remembrance I have when I look at some of the old pictures of the time is the preponderance of the men wearing Sergeant, or Staff Sergeant and up rank insignia. The highest rank one of the women attained was Sergeant. Hmmmmmm!!!”

In all, there were three Special Wireless Stations (SWS) active during the Second World War; the two in which Pat served and No 2 SWS that had its beginnings in 1939 as a Northwest Territories and Yukon Radio System station on the Newton Farm near Grande Prairie, Alberta. The station barely got off the ground, however, before being shut down in September 1939 due to the outbreak of the War. The military returned to the farm in 1942 and established No 2 SWS.

Another station, No 4 SWS turned out to be the "Station that never was." It was to be built at Riske Creek in British Columbia’s Chilcotin. It began life in late March or early April 1944 but ended suddenly in July 1944, before any facilities could be constructed.