Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS)

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4295886)

Gwynneth Speedie repairing a seam when she was serving in the WRCNS, working as a sailmaker in the RCN's "Bosns" stores at Halifax, Nova Scotia, April 1945.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3196928)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS) officer cutting a line during the launch ceremony of a 10,000-ton ship (likely S.S. Fort Esperance at the United Shipyards Ltd. yard), September 1943.

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(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3399309)

‍Naval personnel using a tactical table, HMCS Stadacona, Halifax, Nova Scotia, June 1944.

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(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4951000)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, portrait, 1944. On 31 July 1942, Parliament approved the formation of the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS), the third women's military organization to come into service in Canada.

The Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS), aka "Wrens", was an element of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) that was active during the Second World War and post-war as part of the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve (RCNR) until the unification of the Canadian Forces (CF) in 1968.  The WRCNS was in operation from October 1942 to August 1946.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950988)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, visiting HMS Newfoundland, 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3211279)

Signallers of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service at the signal training school HMCS St Hyacinthe, St. Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada, September 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3678226)

Signallers of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service with flags during training at HMCS Cornwallis, Deep Brook, Nova Scotia, July 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3211276)

Signallers of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service at the signal training school HMCS St Hyacinthe, St. Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada, September 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3520086)

Signallers of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service and Royal Canadian Navy comparing bellbottom trousers, Esquimalt, British Columbia, Canada, 22 February 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3205988)

Signallers of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service and Royal Canadian Navy comparing bellbottom trousers, Esquimalt, British Columbia, Canada, 22 February 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3198233)

WRCNS naval officers lined up in front of a ship under construction during the launch ceremony for the SS Fort Esperance at the United Shipyards Ltd. yard, Sep 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950813)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service members with signal flags, ca 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950815)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service members with signal flags, ca 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950813)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service Signaller Irene Cheshire, HMCS Cornwallis, Deep Brook, Nova Scotia, August 1945.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3201133)

Signal officers of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS), Halifax, Nova Scotia, October 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3211347)

Members of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS) aboard HMCS Sudbury celebrating the first anniversary of the formation of the WRCNS, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 19 August 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3194310)

Members of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS) embarking for passage to England, Feb 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3523786)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (W.R.C.N.S.) supply assistants working in the canteen at HMCS Conestoga, Galt, Ontario, July 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3396623)

Signallers Marian Wingate and Margaret Little of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service at work, April 1945.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950817)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service Signaller Irene Cheshire with an Aldis signal lamp, 1944.

(CFB Esquimalt Naval Museum Photo)

WRCNS signallers.  The Wren on the left of the photo, operating the signal light, is Margaret MacMillan; Wren Doris Robinson is on the right.  Wrens MacMillan and Robinson were some of the first Canadian Wrens to be trained in signals.  

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3399309)

Naval personnel using a tactical table, HMCS Stadacona, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, June 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950985)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service members on parade, ca 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950826)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, summer uniform, 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4951001)

Rosemary Baker in early Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service uniform.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950998)

Kitty Kincaid in early Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service uniform.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950999)

Kitty Kincaid in early Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service uniform.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4295883)

Gwynneth Speedie, Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, April 1945.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4951003)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, uniform, 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4951004)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, uniform, 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4951005)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, uniform, 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4951002)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, uniform, 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950822)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service chorister, Newfoundland 1945.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950825)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service chorister, Newfoundland 1945.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4956992)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service member at Signal Hill, overlooking the harbour at St. John's Newfoundland, seated on an old cannon, ca 1945.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3404727)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service members modelling types of summer and winter uniforms, Ottawa, Ontario, 2 July 1942.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3567252)

Personnel of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS) working in the galley of HMCS Kings, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 3 March 1943.

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(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950827)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service member in summer dress uniform with signposts to HMCS establishments in Ontario, 1943.

The WRCNS was modelled on the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), which had been active during the First World War and then revived in 1939.  The RCN was slow to create a women's service, only establishing the WRCNS in July 1942, nearly a year after the Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWAC) and the Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division (RCAF WD).  By the end of the war however nearly 7,000 women had served with the WRCNS in 39 different trades.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3222937)

New entry members of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service at HMCS Conestoga, Galt, Ontario, Canada, July 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4951006)

Original Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service uniform, worn by Lincoln, in front of Naval Service Headquarters, Ottawa, Ontario, 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3222937)

Probationers of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service at HMCS Conestoga, Galt, Ontario, Canada, May 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950818)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service members Norma Henderson, left, and Florence Morin, right, at Firefighting school, HMC Dockyard, Esquimalt, British Columbia, 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3393903)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service members washing a bus at HMCS Conestoga, Galt, Ontario, July 1943. WRCNS C.E. Brown, F/M/ Thompson, and Zee Caudwell.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950985)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service drummers at HMCS Conestoga, Galt, Ontario, cA June 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3380374)

Drummers Joan McMaster and Lorraine McAuley leading a parade of Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service personnel, HMCS Conestoga, Galt, Ontario, June 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3241573)

Wren drummers (L-R) Grace M. Prestley, SBA Leading Wren Joan McMaster, Regulator Leading Wren Lorraine McAuley and Regulator Wren Harriet M. Allardyce at at HMCS Conestoga, Galt, Ontario, June 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950989)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, Christmas party, 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3577109)

Marguerite Sproul, a member of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service on loan to the Royal Navy in New York, United States, March 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3223004)

Nursing personnel of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service administering physiotherapy treatment, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, July 1945.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3678228)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service member plotting shipping movements on a chart, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, January 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3567251)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service member M. McDonald working in the navigation library at HMCS Kings, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 3 March 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3519918)

Leading Wren Ruth Church, Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, delivering a supply of library books to Able Seaman Bill Swetman of HMCS Petrolia, Londonderry, Northern Ireland, November 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3205988)

Signallers of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service and Royal Canadian Navy comparing bellbottom trousers, Vancouver, British Columbia, 22 February 1944.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3525127)

Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service Leading Wren June Whiting, disembarking at Liverpool, England, April 1945.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3224709)

Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service drilling on the parade square during initial training at HMCS Conestoga, Galt, Ontario, Dec 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3201525)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service member operating direction-finding equipment at HMCS Coverdale, Riverview, New Brunswick, August 1945.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3523790)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service switchboard operators at work, St. John's, Newfoundland, 2 February 1945.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3524716)

Naval Nursing Sisters having tea at the Royal Canadian Naval Hospital, St. John's, Newfoundland, 10 July 1942. (The woman second from the right has been identified by her daughter as Jessie M. R. Muir.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3524712)

Naval Nursing Sisters, RCNAS Shearwater, Nova Scotia, 1954.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3224709)

Personnel of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service drilling on the parade square during initial training at HMCS Conestoga, Galt, Ontario, December 1943.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3523783)

Personnel of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service in a dormitory, Halifax, Nova Scotia, May 1943.

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(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950991)

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service members Mary (last name unknown) and Kitty Kelly visiting barrage balloon site, with Women's Auxiliary Air Force personnel manning the balloons in the UK in 1944.

 (Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950987)

Rear-Admiral Brodeur inspecting HMCS Moresby house, with Captain German, Lt Allen, WRCNS, 1944.

The ByTown II, later renamed HMCS Conestoga ("The Stone Frigate"), was the WRCNS training centre in Galt, Ontario, and became the first female-commanded Canadian commissioned "ship" in June 1943 when Lieutenant Commander Isabel Macneill was appointed commanding officer.

(DND Photo)

Lieutenant-Commander Isabel Macneill, commanding officer of HMCS Conestoga. Macneill was the first female commanding officer of a navy ship in the British Commonwealth and was the first female prison superintendent in Canada.

When the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) founded the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS) in August 1942, Isabel Macneill quickly joined and was part of the first group to be trained. The Canadian service was based on the British Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), whose members quickly became known as “Wrens.” The nickname was copied by the Canadians. The Wrens were employed in land-based jobs, including administration and naval intelligence, which freed up men to go to sea.Macneill graduated in the first class of Wrens in Ottawa and was commissioned as an officer. She then attended the first course for female officers at His Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Conestoga, the navy’s shore establishment in Galt (now part of Cambridge, Ontario). The navy designates their shore establishments, called “stone frigates,” as ships. Before being converted for naval use, the facility had been a training school for delinquent girls. After graduation, Macneill was promoted to lieutenant-commander and appointed Conestoga’s commanding officer. This made her the first and only female commander of a ship in the British Commonwealth during the Second World War. As such, she was entitled to be “piped aboard” any warship, the only woman outside the royal family to be accorded this honour.

Macneill was promoted to commander in June 1944 and named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). Her citation noted “her wide knowledge, her profound sympathy and her unfailing and inspiring devotion to duty have made her contribution one without parallel in the Service.” By the time Macneill’s term ended in 1945, she had been responsible for training almost 6,000 Wrens. When HMCS Conestoga closed, she was appointed Staff Officer Wrens to the Commander Atlantic Coast before the service was disbanded in April 1946.

After leaving the navy, Macneill worked at a training school for girls. However, she returned to naval service in 1954 to help establish a permanent female component in the RCN. On 26 January 1955, Cabinet approved the recruitment of women into the RCN and in February, the Department of National Defence announced the creation of a women’s section. This was the first time that women were integrated into the permanent force in a Commonwealth navy. Macneill left the Wrens for the last time in 1957.

(DND Photo)

Isabel Janet Macneill, OC, OBE, shown here with other WRCNS, was a distinguished naval officer and correctional system supervisor (born 4 June 1908 in Halifax, NS; died 18 August 1990 in Mill Village, NS). Isabel Macneill was a pioneering woman in non-traditional leadership positions. She was the first female commanding officer of a navy ship in the British  and the first female prison superintendent in Canada.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3526940)

Commander Adelaide Sinclair, Director of WRCNS, July 1944. In September 1943, Commander Adelaide Sinclair became the first Canadian Director of the WRCNS, a position she held until the disbandment of the WRCNS in July 1946.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3357059)

Lieutenant Lattimer, Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service HMCS Discovery, Vancouver, British Columbia, 23 August 1945.

Princess Alice was the Honorary Commandant of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service.  She was also the Honorary Air Commandant of the Royal Canadian Air Force (Women's Division), and president of the nursing divisions of the St. John Ambulance Brigade.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950883)

Princess Alice, the Honourary Commandant of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, seated with her husband, Governor General, the Earl of Athlone, during an inspection of RCN units on the West Coast in April 1944.  The photo was taken on board the carrier HMS Smiter, commanded by Captain L.G. Richardson, RN.

The WRCNS was revived as part of the Naval Reserve at the beginning of the Korean War.  It was disbanded a second time in 1968 when the RCN as a whole was folded into the unified CF.

A Historic Sites and Monuments' board of Canada plaque in Halifax commemorates the WRCNS.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4232864)

CWAC, RCAF WD & WRCNS ski trg in the Laurentians, ca 1944

Source Wikipedia and the Encylcopedia Canadiana.

Female General and Flag Officers in the Canadian Forces

23 women have risen to the rank of General or Flag Officer in the Canadian Forces.  In the summer of 2015, Christine Whitecross was promoted to Lieutenant-General and become the Chief of Military Personnel, the first female to be promoted to that rank.  On 27 July 1994 Dr. Wendy Clay became the first woman in the Canadian Forces promoted to the rank of Major-General when she became the Surgeon General.  Sheila Hellstrom was the first female to achieve the rank of Brigadier-General on 27 January 1987.  Lorraine Frances Orthlieb was the first female reserve officer to reach flag officer status in the Canadian Forces when promoted to the rank of Commodore in 1989.  Rear-Admiral Jennifer Bennett was the first female reserve officer promoted to Rear-Admiral (in April 2011) and appointed Chief Reserves and Cadets in May 2011.

In 2017, there were eleven active female General and Flag Officers in the Canadian Forces: Lieutenant-General Chris Whitecross, Major-General Tammy Harris, Rear-Admiral Jennifer Bennett, Brigadier-General Frances Allen, Brigadier-General Lise Bourgon, Brigadier-General Jennie Carignan, Brigadier-General Danielle Savard, Brigadier-General Virginia Tattersall, Brigadier-General Josée Robidoux, Commodore Marta Mulkins, and Commodore Geneviève Bernachez.

In 2018, there were thirteen active female General and Flag Officers in the Canadian Forces: Lieutenant-General Chris Whitecross, RCAF Rear-Admiral Jennifer Bennett, RCN Major-General Frances Allen, RCAF Brigadier-General Lise Bourgon, RCAF Brigadier-General Darlene Quinn, RCAF Brigadier-General Jennie Carignan, Canadian Army Brigadier-General Danielle Savard, Canadian Army Brigadier-General Virginia Tattersall, Canadian Army Brigadier-General Josée Robidoux, Canadian Army Commodore Marta Mulkins, RCN Commodore Geneviève Bernachez, RCN Commodore Rebecca L. Patterson, and RCN Commodore M.J. Joseé Kurtz, RCN.

(DND Photo)

In June 2012, marketing entrepreneur Arlene Dickinson, of CBC Television’s Dragons’ Den fame, became an Honorary Naval Captain for the Royal Canadian Navy.  Honorary Naval Captains represent diverse areas of Canadian society from politics and business to journalism and the arts.  They bring with them unique skills and connections that help to strengthen the navy’s ties to Canadian communities.  With her South-African/ Canadian background, Arlene is no doubt an incredible contribution.

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