Remembering Canada’s Second World War bomb girls

During this time of year Canadians across the country show their respect for all the war veterans who traveled overseas to fight for this country.

However, some of the people who supported the Canadian army from home can sometimes fly under the radar.

Former Saskatoon city hospital worker, Louise Johnson, was one of the thousands of women from across the country recruited to go build ammunition for the army at Defense Industries Ltd. in Ajax, Ontario.

When the opportunity was presented to Johnson, the first thing she did was send a letter to her dad who encouraged her to “go for it.”

So she left for Ontario to build ammunition for the Second World War. Women like her would eventually be referred to as the bomb girls of Ajax, after the TV series Bomb Girls aired in 2012.

Johnson said the work was tedious but important.

“Just like in any factory, you do the same thing over and over again and get it right for goodness sakes, but it wasn’t hard labour,” she said.

“But that’s why we were there, because the men overseas needed shells. Without ammunition we couldn’t have won the war.”

According to Johnson, the munitions factory in Ajax had around 9,000 workers that were building many different types of ammunition for the Canadian Army.

“Everything came into us as the empty casings for the shells. Our job was to arm it, so we worked with the explosives. They came in cases of bits and parts and explosives were put where required, and turned it into a shell and we produced 40 million of them,” she said.

“That 9,000 [workers] would have been at the peak of production in 1943 when we weren’t even sure we were going to win at that point. It was tough going. It wasn’t a piece of cake.”

Johnson said the uncertainty of who would win made it a difficult time for the workers of the plant, most of whom had people overseas they were concerned about. For Johnson, it was her uncle Clifford.

“My uncle was part of the Regina Rifles and he went to militia while they were training and spent some time, so as soon as they started sending troops overseas, he was on one of the first boats,” she said.

“And he spent his entire career in Italy fighting the war from that angle.”

According to Johnson, a monument was erected a few years ago in Ajax by the Ajax Bomb Girls Legacy Committee to, not only honour the workers of Defense Industries Ltd., but all of the country’s women war workers.