DECEMBER 2016 a Voice of Riverview Park VOL
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DECEMBER 2016 A Voice of Riverview Park VOL. 8 NO. 5 Wartime spy Becky comes out of the cold by Bill Fairbairn Sea in Ships, Robertson’s booklet score of books have tells how Wrens, who worked at now been written about the Bletchley Park wartime out- Bletchley Park telling us station south of Ottawa, moved inA Winston’s Churchill’s postwar upward from recruits to wireless words that the British Code and telegraphists trained in using Cipher School in Milton Keynes, Morse code to intercept Ger- England, cut the length of WW man U-boat messages when they II by two years in deciphering came up to surface in the war- the military codes and ciphers time Atlantic. that secured German, Japanese They were coached in the lo- and other Axis communications. cation and in the call signs of He said the code breakers saved the German navy’s coastal sta- thousands of lives. tions, the make-up and probable Only one booklet that I know meaning of messages and, above of, by Dorothy Robertson, who all, how to distinguish between served in the Women’s Royal the incessant traffic from the Canadian Naval Service, also shore stations (of little interest) known as the Wrens, tells of the and the infrequent traffic from wartime transmissions of Ger- U-boats in which there was a vi- man intelligence from No. 1 Sta- tal interest. Becky White now resides at The Perley and Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre tion HMCS Bytown. This secret service spying went with her husband of 72 years, Arthur. Entitled I go (Not) Down to the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Our lost trees by Geoff Radnor efore the Europeans came to Ontario it was almost all covered in trees. Ev- ergreen and deciduous; and they were Bcleared slowly, but surely, so the immigrant farmers could make a living. Luckily some were left and as the settlements became towns and the towns grew to be cities like Ottawa, Is this what is meant by ‘clear cutting’? trees were planted along the avenues and bou- levards, so we had a great looking green city. of the ash trees. Trees have thus had a tough loss of many trees. The upgrade of the Hydro Then in the 1970s along came the Dutch life in Ottawa, as indeed they have in most of One corridor from Balena Park to Overbrook Elm disease which, over a period of 10 years or the eastern North America. Here in Ottawa, has caused much anguish among local resi- so, killed almost every elm tree in the region. our city forestry department keeps getting on dents as many trees are threatened by removal The city replaced those lost elms by ash trees top of things by planting more young saplings prior to the construction planned to start in and other species so our streets were again to replace the dead trees. April 2017. lined with many fine looking trees. Riverview Park has had its share of tree loss- The most recent removal of trees however is Then in more recent times those emerald es recently. The new road to the hospital from now completed, as the clearing of all vegetation ash borer beetles came along and killed most Riverside Drive caused the CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 Join us for a Celebration of the Season Holiday High Tea with Entertainment Wednesday Dec. 14, 2016 12:00 – 2:00 pm Join us for High Tea and live music. Group tours will be available, door prizes and goodie bags to all those who attend. Call to book a tour and enjoy a complimentary meal Please call 613-739-0909 613.739.0909 751 Peter Morand Crescent, Ottawa, ON. K1G 6S9 to RSVP by December 10th Page 2 Riverview Park Review DECEMBER 2016 of how Wrens would occasionally Wartime spy Becky travel by Liberty Ship to Ottawa to CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 meet boyfriends and go to the cine- on from 1943-45 in several Canadi- ma never breathing a word of what an outstations while at Bletchley they were doing at the outstation. Park, England, codebreakers led “Otherwise on base we paraded by Alan Turing were on their way in naval uniform, talked as though to breaking Germany’s seemingly we were on a ship though women unbreakable Enigma code and win then were not allowed to serve on the war. Did you see The Imita- ships and I was once confined to tion Game? The movie dramatizes barracks for doing something that Turing played by Benedict Cum- I don’t now remember doing! My berbatch and Keira Knightley as a grandchildren were surprised by Wren faced with the herculean task this badge after all those years. I told that the codebreakers of Bletchley them I was as surprised as them. I Park undertook. no longer dream of the great time I had meeting people and making Joined up for excitement friends at HMCS Bytown. We did Last month former HMCS By- Bill Fairbairn with the Enigma Machine during a recent trip to what we could for the war effort town station wireless telegraphist Bletchley Park. PHOTO: JUDITH FAIRBAIRN and I think it made a difference.” Becky White, aged 93, living with With her perfectly coiffed hair, Arthur, her husband of 72 years, with a ship’s mast, flags and parade also joining the war effort. She had bright blue eyes and wearing a soft was presented with the Bletchley ground, and in particular the Radio no qualms working as a spy even pink cardigan, it’s hard to see Becky Park Commemorative Badge by a Direction Finding building in the though in Britain’s darkest days as a WW II spy now aged 93. representative of the British High middle of a cow pasture, with the of 1943 Germany was seen to be In Calgary, Marion Booth, aged Commission. farmer discontented at the navy winning the war. “We were pret- 88, received the badge for her se- “Yes, I was a spy, not allowed post- taking over his farmland. There is ty confident because we were Ca- cret work in WWII and the Cold war to tell even my husband,” she still a small monument to the base nadians,” she said. “Wrens took a War. She was a Wren, recruited said at their Perley Rideau home. on Regional Road 8 in Gloucester, six-month course at St. Hyacinthe, under-age at 17, having not told White recalled for The Riverview and a Canadian Legion building Quebec, where I was trained for the truth about how old she was Park Review that her job was to in- sits on the site. Navy basics, Morse Code, and an in order to serve her country. She tercept communications between Becky, born on a farm at Sun- advanced level of training as a ‘Spe- worked at Bletchley’s Victoria out- U-boats patrolling the North At- dridge, Ontario, for excitement cial Operator’. I wore earphones station from 1944-46. Marion used lantic and torpedoing Allied sur- joined the Wrens at age 19 after a and was put in the picture of what a Japanese typewriter to type out face shipping en-route mostly to spell with the National Research my naval job would entail.” in English messages she had over- Britain with troops or supplies Council in Ottawa where she met Back to HMCS Bytown after the heard in Morse code between Japa- from North America. She recalls husband Arthur, also an army vet- course, Becky worked eight-hour nese battleships in the Pacific that the Bytown base was replete eran. Other young women were shifts at what they called the DF shack (the Radio Direction Find- Quotas of grain ing building). Fearlessly, as befitted Of her Cold War spying on Rus- a farm girl, she came and went past sia Marion told the Calgary Herald cows sometimes in darkness ahead that she personally gathered little of the midnight shift. 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