Description
Mr Gratto remembers the work he did as a cryptographer and the process that was involved.
James Gratto
James Gratto was born in 1934 in Halifax, Nova Scotia and as a child was raised in Pictou, Nova Scotia. His father worked on the Canadian National Railway. His mother passed away when he was still very young. One day during school he and some of his friends went down to the recruitment truck during lunch time to sign up for the Canadian Forces. After getting the call to serve, Jim decided to quite school and join up. He went to the Royal Canadian School of Signals in Kingston, Ontario where he took ten weeks of basic training. He then completed his trades courses as a radio operator and cryptographer. Mr. Gratto went to the No. I Airborne Signals Squadron in Kingston, Ontario. Upon completion of trades training, Mr. Gratto served with the United Nations in Congo for seven months. Mr. Gratto had a military career of 31 years. While serving in the military, Mr. Gratto married his wife Shirley from Fredericton, NB and together they raised a family who would become very familiar with the military way of life residing in many military bases throughout Canada. After retirement, Mr. Gratto and his family settled in Kingston, Ontario.
Transcript
My job, actually, I was a cryptographer which means I took all the daily information that was gathered by other people, taken and given to me and I would encode it, put it in something that you cannot read and send it over the radio to Leopoldville. Leopoldville would re-encrypt it, send the information to Ottawa and some of it would go to UN headquarters in New York. But who got it? What they did with it after that I don’t know. I did it. If it wasn’t for me they wouldn’t have got it in the first place. So there you g