home
Explore History

Second World War
The Navy Ashore  - Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service

The Second World War saw close to 7,000 women in naval service. Founded in 1942, the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS), often called the "Wrens", performed a wide variety non-combatant roles ashore, both in Canada and abroad.

Training Certificate, Evangeline Harrold
Training Certificate, Evangeline Harrold

This document certifies that Evangeline Harrold had completed her training as a plotter, and was now qualified to track the locations of Allied and enemy units.

Subsequently posted to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Harrold worked in a plotting room, helping to track the locations of Allied units and German U-Boats (submarines). At a time when many Canadians' schooling finished in their early teens, plotters had to have a secondary school education and also had to be "steady and not easily flustered". Wrens demonstrated their aptitude for such tasks and, by war's end, were responsible for the majority of these duties.

George Metcalf Archival Collection
CWM 20080094-010

Transcription
Transcription in PDF






Commander Dorothy Isherwood Inspecting Wrens, Halifax
WRCNS Uniform, Captain Adelaide Sinclair
Presentation Cigarette Case, Captain Adelaide Sinclair
Uniform, Lieutenant-Commander Eleanor McCallum
WRCNS Acceptance Letter to Eleanor McCallum
HMCS Conestoga
WRCNS Summer Work Dress
Commission, Frances Alley
WRCNS Summer and Winter Uniforms
WRCNS on Parliament Hill, Ottawa
HMCS St. Hyacinthe Sweatshirt
WRCNS Training at HMCS St. Hyacinthe
Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service Pennant, HMCS Stadacona
WRCNS Quarters, Halifax, 1945
Unit Office, Naval Headquarters, Ottawa
Wrens Listening for German Radio Transmissions
Training Certificate, Evangeline Harrold
Plotting Room, Naval Service Headquarters, Ottawa
Combat Simulator Ship Model
Forecastle
First Wrens Going Overseas
Uniform, Leading Wren Lorna Stanger
Jenny Whitehead at Work
Canadian Naval Staff in London on V-E Day