Description
Ms. Rapp discusses the need for women to work in war industries, her work at General Electric building the Bofors anti-aircraft gun, and her enlistment as soon as women were permitted in the armed forces.
Helen Rapp
Helen Rapp, the youngest of five children, was born on July 15, 1925 in Schumacher, Ontario. Her dad and older brothers were gold miners. Ms. Rapp's brothers enlisted when the Second World War began, and she used her drafting studies to obtain a job with General Electric in Hamilton, where she helped assemble Bofors guns. When women were permitted to join, she enlisted and served in Ottawa. Ms. Rapp attained the rank of Sergeant and managed the office which controlled all Communication in Canada.
Transcript
Two hundred and eighty thousand women left their homes to work in factories and do everything during the war that they could possibly do because Canada’s population wasn’t very big and when you think of our troops going overseas. And so they needed the women.We went to Hamilton and I worked in the GE plant making Bofor guns for the Navy. And I was there for, oh I guess about four months, five months and I thought, nah, this isn’t really what I want to do. And by that time they were letting women in the Canadian military and of course the British were a great example because the women were in the service in the military right from the beginning. So, but it wasn’t until that year in the summer that they decided to let the women in. So I decided I would join up. Because I had commercial training, I ended up being a steno. I was earmarked right then and there. But others coming in say sales people or just from home, or from a farm or whatever and they didn’t have anything, you’d have an aptitude test and they’d say you’re great with figures, alright we’ll put you in with drafting or you drove tractors, you could be a driver. You’d have to become a mechanic. I mean, so they placed you.It was a terrific experience. It was an adventure. But bottom line, we wanted to do something, we wanted to help. We had brothers over there. We had boyfriends over there. We had fathers over there and if we could help, we could. And we would do it again.