RCAF (Women’s Division) WDs doing semaphore drill. a special RDF Committee tasked with establish- ing production, training for radar tech- nicians, and radar protection for Canada.* There were two immediate problems: first, to find a company to build the equipment and second, to train personnel to operate it. The solution to equipment supply was solved by the Canadian government setting up a factory. In August 1940, Research Enter- prises Limited (REL), a Crown Corporation, was opened at Leaside, Ontario and supplied radar equipment to not only Canada but also to the USA and Great Britain. Interestingly, the first Canadian-built radar equipment went to the USA to be deployed to protect the Panama Canal because the Americans at the time did not have radar of the calibre of the British-de- signed and Canadian-built equipment. The expertise to start up REL and to train * See Appendix 51 for a biography of McBurney radar technicians was found, initially, by re- cruiting a number of Canadian experienced civilian radio personnel, both professional and amateur, and, without any military train- ing, to send them to England to study the British system. A ham radio operator, H.W. Jackson, later wrote how he and all other radio licensees were contacted by the Depart- ment of Transport in mid-1940 offering them the rank of LAC Wireless Electrical Mechanic (WEM) in the RCAF. Jackson reported to a Manning Depot on 21 October 1940 and, with virtually no training, he in the first group of 55 (other groups followed) left for the UK, landing in Scotland on Christmas Day 1940. After a short period of training and a short wireless course at the RAF Yatesbury School, he was sent to the RDF School at RAF Cranwell. After graduation in mid 1942, he did radar duty at two locations in the UK. In 1943, he was returned to Canada to replace
the Second World War was acknowledged by Air Commodore (A/C) C.P. Brown, RAF, and the Director of Radar. He said in a UK Air Min- istry Release in late 1945 that by early 1941 Britain could no longer recruit suitable candi- dates as radar mechanics, and had sent an ur- gent message to Canada requesting a thousand before the end of the year. He stated, it would not have been possible to meet the vital and increasing demands of radar in the latter part of 1940 and the follow- ing years without the knowledge that Canada was undertaking the recruiting of men to help us handle this immense weapon. The exact nature of duties could never be made known publically in Canada at the time, of course. But so en- thusiastically have RCAF personnel been since the earliest days that their role in the unseen struggle through the years of the war is one that Britain will never forget. On 20 September 1945, Clinton was declared to be a peacetime establishment for the train- ing of personnel and re-designated No. 1 Radar and Communications School (1 R&CS). A one-year course to train RCN radio technicians and radio operators was initiated in 1946 with 127 students graduating in 1947. Soon, a number of different courses at the Group One Level were offered: Radar Techni- cian Ground Navigational Aids, Radar Techni- cian Ground Control and Warning, Telegraph Technician, Communications Operator, and Communications Technician Ground. Later, more advanced courses were given: Field Maintenance on specialized equipment and Advanced Technical Training for all the Level One courses. The Basic Electronics Course (BEC), which was a pre-requisite for the Level One courses, was given to Armament Systems Technicians, Electrical Technicians, Instru- ment Technicians, and Communications and Radar Technicians. A Fighter Control Opera- tor course was also given until it was moved to a Radar Station at Lac St Denis, Quebec. From 1947 until 1963, when all officers’ training was moved to the Central Officers’ RCAF Station Clinton, 1960.