Bomb Girls

by Barbara Dickson

  Bob and Phil did not know in July 1941 whether the Canadian government would ultimately keep them as joint managers of the GECO plant at Scarboro. At that point, they had only been hired to oversee Scarboro’s design, construction, and staffing. They were concerned that if they were moved on to the next big thing — which was quite possible given GECO already had overseen the building of an R.C.A.F flying school, a gunnery school, and a large ordnance complex in London — the administrative staff they hired might be transferred to other plants once production started. Hence, they secured assurance from Allied War Supplies Corporation that they would honour employment arrangements made with key administrative officials when GECO’s management was finally decided.12 It was only after this assurance was given that Bob and Phil commenced hiring.

  Securing talented personnel was not easy. Canadian wartime industries had had over a year to mobilize men for war production, employing thousands of competent men and women. Ottawa and the armed forces had absorbed thousands of men with administrative experience and ability for overseas duty. The success or failure of the entire GECO enterprise at Scarboro was contingent on the calibre of this select group of men and women. Everyone recognized that any administrative routine had to grow gradually since there was no background of arsenal experience on which to draw, and problems to be solved had had little existence in peacetime.

  Once the plant was up and running, there were other problems, too. Scarboro was not self-sufficient, but was both aided and hindered by outside factors beyond company control.13 GECO was dependent on supplies from a great number of other wartime factories going through their own growing pains. Fuse-filling workshops declared clean and ready for production sat idle because empties or other vital components had not arrived.14 When materials did arrive, sometimes they were defective or unusable, or sometimes they broke upon filling, which further retarded production.15 Another significant delay occurred when pre-assembled empties arrived at the plant.16 The shells for Fuse 251, one of GECO’s most commonly filled munitions, had to be broken down into their individual pieces before they could be filled; then they had to be re-assembled after filling.17 This breaking down process hampered production, adding many, many operator hours to filling schedules.18

  Then there was “proofing” — testing the dependability and accuracy of filled munitions. Caps and detonators were produced and tested first, then primers and fuses, then assembled shells, and so on. As GECO ramped up production, proofing developed into a frustratingly long, time-consuming, and cumbersome process.

  Despite the vital need to test the quality of munitions in Canada with actual weapons, the Allied forces needed the guns more.19 Therefore, early proofing was done on semi-assembled rounds that had to be shipped by air to the United Kingdom; after the testing, the results were then cabled back. Only then could the ammunition continue on its journey down the line to its next steps in filling, and another round of proofing.20 This exasperating process was repeated until final shipment. A delay in “sentencing” — the acceptance or rejection — of any one component along its assembly held up the complete round.21 This early production glitch had the potential to hold up hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition because samples of some small stage in the process were working their way to England or awaiting their sentencing.22 And if the samples didn’t pass? Those hundreds of thousands of lethal rounds sat and waited until they did.

  Churchill’s plea for international assistance could not be answered until GECO was up and running. The problems that confronted GECO’s fledging Tooling Department were many, and none had straightforward solutions. For example, filling Time Fuse 199 was a high priority, but before it went into full production, tools had to arrive and glitches unforeseen in the days of the “Gunpowder Plot” had to be resolved. Machines and tools, never designed for wartime, had to be found and adapted. Ingenuity and the art of improvisation of men proficient in all things mechanical were called for, so that harmless workaday tools could be converted into instruments of war. Management wrote of the acute shortage: “Less than half a dozen men in Canada had any knowledge or experience of the technique associated with this special industry, and these men, experts on loan to the Canadian government from British arsenals, had no knowledge of Canadian conditions, customs, or industrial practices.”23 The climate in Canada — the “Great White North” — necessitated changes to materials and tool design, and sometimes warranted deviations from British specifications in fuse-filling practice.

  Not only was inexperience a problem, because GECO was a government-owned enterprise, there were many persnickety fingers in the pot. Allied War Supplies Corp., the Department of Munitions and Supply, Federal Treasury officials, the Inspection Board of the United Kingdom and Canada, and the British Admiralty Technical Mission, to name just a few, had specific requirements that changed often.24 Independent government inspectors (G.I.s) sought and ensured the quality of all empties and filled fuses at GECO. Government inspectors expected perfection, and rightly so. If the Allies had hit the Bismarck with a dud, that battle might have ended very differently. These inspectors had the first and last word on every aspect of fuse-filling. In fact, they held the power to stop all production.25

  Lieutenant-Colonel H. Read, a British authority on ammunition, wrote: “It must be borne in mind that inspection does not make anything wrong, it only finds things wrong. It must be realized that inspection involves far more than the mere interception and rejection of faulty items. A good inspector should be the guide, philosopher and friend to production and by timely advice and instruction as to what exactly is required and in many cases how it can best be achieved, is able to effect a great economy in material and effort.”26

  Read went on to say that units filled and accepted for service “represented a vital part in a complete round of ammo for use on land, or sea, or in the air, in defensive or offensive action.”27

  Personnel from the Inspection Board were held in the “highest esteem” and GECO understood clearly that they were “bound by the limitation of a system in which there was little elasticity.”28 Nonetheless, the conflict between independent inspection personnel and the production team, including workshop supervisors and operators, was, at times, volatile.

  The Girls Behind the Boys Behind the Guns

  Despite growing pains, GECO rolled out dozens of fuse-filling workshops throughout the month of September, starting production on several different components. The complex was built in record-breaking time — just 236 days — a feat that would be entered into the annals of Canadian war history.29 The extraordinary record is an everlasting credit to the thousands of men and women who worked so tirelessly through the winter, spring, and summer of 1941 with a united and steadfast goal: to get the biggest and finest munitions factory in Canada’s history into meaningful production as quickly as humanly possible. By the end of September 1941, management declared that “practically all filling buildings were completed.”30 Bob and Phil Hamilton had remarkably surpassed even their own aggressive objectives of being in production by July 1941 and erecting 130 buildings by September.31

  GECO would fill more than one million ammunition units each month throughout the war, its workers filled with an unconquerable spirit, arming the Allied forces fighting for the world’s freedom with top-quality munitions. GECO’s Bill Taylor of Building No. 126, engineering, said, “Scarboro was built in a hurry — and well built.”32

  The story at Scarboro had started with two humble, loyal Canadians — Bob Hamilton and his brother, Phil — along with a small company of equally patriotic men, buoyed by pride of personal achievement and determination that only true “fuse-filled achievement” could satisfy the “ammunition needs of a nation and world at war.”33

  Three GECO fuse-fillers examine fuses. Courtesy of Archives of Ontario.

  With the bombing at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the fall of Hong Kong on Christmas Day, the world, more than ever, needed war plants, including munitions enterprises li
ke GECO, if the fight for freedom had any hope of succeeding.

  5

  If You Can Walk, Talk, Creep, or Crawl — Apply Here!

  It’s in Their Blood

  Thousands of women worked in wartime factories during the Great War in Britain. They toiled under distressing conditions, enduring long shifts and tolerating dirty, dingy, dangerous work. “Life may appear hard to us,” a female war worker lamented, “but we go on. No one notices whether we are tired or not, and in this brutal fact lies the hope of endurance. A little sympathy would cause what is generally known as a ‘swound’ among the loaded fuses, or instant collapse into the bullet crate. It is amazing what we can do when there is no way of escape but desertion.”1 Moreover, during the First World War, women grew tired of the inconsequentiality of their lives. “We were sick of frivolling, we wanted to do something big and hard, because of our boys and of England,” one woman said. “When the dreaded telegram came at last and everything was grey and bitter, we gave up talking and made our way to the lowest level — the gates of the nearest ammunition factory.”2

  When Canada entered the Second World War, women had a legacy of stoicism and martyrdom from which to draw: a war still fresh in their mothers’ and grandmothers’ minds and hearts. In some sense, it could be said, “it was in their blood” for patriotic Canadian women to give their all to war work.

  Working in a Man’s World

  The Second World War brought women’s employment in Canada to the forefront of industry. Seemingly overnight, women by the hundreds of thousands entered the workforce of industries that were previously male-dominated. In addition to a sense of patriotism, many factors drove women to seek work. For professional women, with men off to fight, the war provided an opportunity to progress in their career within patriarchal organizations. Other women found it a struggle to make ends meet on the small stipend their husbands fighting overseas sent home. Others worked because their menfolk were jobless from the economic effects of the Depression. For young, single women, war work offered the prospect of travelling away from home. City life looked romantic, exciting, and novel.

  During peacetime, a company had the luxury of growing its workforce gradually, with new employees carefully selected to meet the requirements of the job. New hires could settle in, and slowly, but surely, become more productive as the days, weeks, and months passed. In times of war, when the company’s purpose became one of maximum production that not only had to be attained, but maintained, this fundamental relationship — on which victory or defeat rested — became crucial. The relationship that existed between an employee and her employer was one of the most important within a wartime organization. Harmony and co-operation were at the heart of working well together.

  War, Ammo, and Feminine Pads

  GECO opened its Women’s Division Employment Office on May 4, 1941.3 Bob and Phil Hamilton made a strategic decision to hire a female personnel manager. In countless wartime factories across the nation, the mostly male-dominated management knew little about hiring and managing women. The traditional view that women belonged in domestic roles translated into a tendency to set low expectations for them in the factory. GECO’s personnel director, Grace Hyndman, as a woman, recognized the huge potential within the girls she hired. She had three months to create an employment policy for hiring in an industry geared for battle. She interviewed and graded thousands of applicants, expecting to hire five thousand women.4

  Grace, along with GECO management, including Dr. Jeffrey and Florence Ignatieff, recognized that while men saw no problem eating their lunch on a dirty bench on the shop floor, women would not flourish under such rudimentary conditions. Industry experts suggested women might tire more easily than men do, and not be able to lift and carry heavy loads.5 They might be more sensitive to noise, dirt, odours, and fumes.6 They would need easier access to washrooms, and perhaps being more fastidious than their male counterparts, need larger cloakrooms, storage lockers, and more pleasant lunchrooms.7 Grace felt women thrived and worked more diligently under female supervision. Matrons in charge of change rooms, washrooms, and rest rooms, would set a standard for the women to follow.8 There were health and safety issues, too. For example, it was decided that salt tablets and plenty of water should be provided to women since they might fatigue with loss of salt through perspiration.9 Adequate lunch and rest periods were essential, along with reasonable hours of work.10 Data had shown women found it harder to adjust to shift changes, and absenteeism might be greater than “normal” due to women calling in sick “to catch up on their sleep.”11 For women who worked on night shifts, adequate transportation and safety measures would be important. Outside activities to build morale, health, and a sense of community and belonging could help promote a happy team of women.12 GECO strove to accommodate each of these unique considerations for their female employees, and met or exceeded most.

  In addition to meeting workers’ physical needs, Grace had to consider women’s emotional well-being, too. Who would make the best GECO employee? How best to persuade her to work willingly with explosives? What could the company offer to keep her happy, motivated, and committed? A working woman, unlike a man, had not only her job responsibilities with which to contend, but also worried about feeding her family, keeping house, and providing care for her children.

  GECO operators prepare bullets for tip lacquering. Courtesy of Archives of Ontario.

  GECO issued booklets that sold the “perks” of working for a munitions plant to women.13 The plant needed these pamphlets, especially during the plant’s early days, due to widespread rumours that factory work was unfit for women, and that employers gave little regard to women’s health and safety.14 Jack Kennedy wrote in History of the Department of Munitions and Supply: Canada in the Second World War that “welfare and women’s organizations expressed considerable alarm about the adverse social effects of the employment of women in war industries.”15 The rumours became so pervasive, the government invited the media and women’s welfare agencies to get involved to help quell the tales and educate the public.16 In the end, the rumours were unfounded; in fact, some experts suggested the maddening stories were the work of seditious persons.17

  GECO’s hiring brochure read in part:

  The General Engineering Company at Scarboro offers an exceptional opportunity to women who want to do a vital war job. The ammunition filled in this Plant plays an important role in the defense of Britain and her allies, and makes our ships, guns, tanks and planes into effective weapons to invade and conquer the Axis’ countries.

  Fortunately, this filling of fuses and other ammo is a job at which women excel. Their quick, skillful fingers are ideally suited to the fine operations which include most of the jobs in a filling plant.18

  GECO’s Bomb Girls

  A large-scale employment campaign for female fuse-fillers commenced in September 1941.19 GECO’s hiring objective was to interview, hire, and train munitions workers in the shortest time possible. In addition to an employment office set up on Danforth Avenue, the company erected another employment booth at Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue.20 In a bit of fun, someone nailed a sign scribled in crayon to the booth: “If you can walk, talk, creep, or crawl, apply here!”21

  During its initial hiring campaign, GECO received twelve thousand, predominantly Anglo-Saxon applicants;22 the vast majority had no industrial experience and had relatives on active service.23 Due to security requirements, war plants in Canada could hire only British subjects.24 Grace looked for workers who were of average intelligence, in good health, patriotic, could manage home responsibilities, had the ability to get along with others, and perhaps most importantly, had agile fingers for the delicate and intricate task of packing fuses with high explosives.25

  New hires were given a half-day’s training and then put to work.26 Their training outlined employee services and opportunities, the myriad rules and regulations of GECO, safety standards, firefighting techniques and anti-sabotage procedures, the nature of the
work to be done, respect needed for the materials they would be handling, and the importance of quality and quantity of production.27 They also met their foreman and workshop supervisor, who provided specific fuse-filling training, which they’d be involved in.28

  “From offices, stores, factories, schools, and homes, from universities,” wrote editor Ross Davis in the April 11, 1942, issue of GECO’s employee newspaper, “have come the recruits for a swiftly expanding army of overalled women who by their amazing aptitude in mastering unfamiliar tasks have become a vital factor in our wartime industrial front, and have brought us in sight at least of the total production for total war towards which we are progressing.”29

  GECO’s new recruits were reminded that men’s lives — for many, their loved ones overseas — hung in the balance.

  6

  A Day in the Life of a Bomb Girl

  By December 1941, GECO management had employed and trained more than three thousand operators, working on ten natures, six of which were already at their full monthly scheduled production.1 At the height of its production, over 5,300 GECOites worked at Scarboro, of which over 3,400 were women, or about 67 percent of the plant’s total population.2 This percentage rose dramatically to between 85 to 94 percent as the war dragged on due to a severe shortage of available men.3

  What was it like to work in a Second World War Canadian munitions factory? Did workers have to follow special rules? What did they wear? What were their working conditions like? Women who worked specifically in munitions factories answered to terms of endearment such as “Munitions Gal,” “Munitionette,” “Fusilier,” and “Bomb Girl.” GECO’s workforce was referred to locally and fondly as “GECOnians” or “GECOites.”