CANADIAN WOMEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 September 1942, Page 5

CANADIAN WOMEN

GIVING EFFICIENT SERVICE IN ARMY. MANY BEHIND THE LINES JOBS. VICTORIA, British Columbia. Canada’s Army generals—even the older “pip-pips” from the last war—probably would say about the United States Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps: “Go ahead and put your women in the Army. They’re proving jolly efficient up here.” Canada’s Army began to take m women nine months ago. There now are more than 3,000 in the Army, and over 3,000 in the Air Force —the first time in Canada’s history. At first, Canadian women, when they joined the Army, could register preference for duty at home or overseas. But now they sign on “for the duration, and a year after,” and “for anywhere they’ll be needed.” Most of them wanted overseas duty anyway, and the first will be going overseas with their units early this summer. Canada’s Army women are not a separate unit. They simply sign into any Army unit where they can release a man for a real fighting job. That’s the object for enlisting them; to take men off behind-the-lines jobs. So far the women are doing the following jobs: They keep office records; they run Army telephones and teletypes; they cook in commissaries and wait table in mess halls; they assist in dental labs and hospitals; they work in warehouses keeping stores of uniforms, guns and ammunition, and they’re so good at this they’re trusted to salvage parts of worn-out guns; they drive staff cars and light trucks—and they must be able to repair them. It’s odd to watch the staff car parking lot at the Western Pacific Command headquarters. The loud-speaker bellows, for instance, “Driver Olson.” “Olson” turns out to be a pretty, blonde girl who pops out of the first car in the line-up, dashes in for her orders, dashes out again in time to open the car door for a “leftenant colonel.” The two salute. She slips into the driver’s seat, and they’re off. And that’s high noon or midnight, since the Army doesn’t pamper the women —once they’re in, they must take it as it comes, and they do it. Even with “fiats.” Everyone wondered what would happen after the first flat tire. It happened right on a Victoria main street. The woman driver popped efficiently around to the toolbox. The officer in the back seat looked unhappy for a minute, but then he nonchalantly went for a stroll. Startled pedestrians watched from the sidewalk. Soldiers on leave hesitated. but there was something too gallant about the busy woman. However, the jack wouldn’t stay up. Three times it plopped. That was too much for five men privates. They took over the job. It finally turned out the jack was no good, the men were tremendously relieved that the woman —had the jack been good—really needed no nelp, although she got it. The women may wear makeup, but it can’t be “obvious.” Their hair must be shorter than their jacket collars, so they either roll it up or cut it short. They’re doing their own disciplining on talking too much.