RCAF Women's Division: Canadian Military Pioneers

Increasing shortages of men for military service led the RCAF to create the Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (CWAAF) on July 2, 1941. It was renamed the Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division on February 3, 1942. The service was often just called the WD.

The WD was set up to release men from clerical, administrative, and support roles for active service. It was initially limited to these roles. Its motto was "We Serve that Men May Fly.”

The first basic training for the WD took place in Toronto at No. 6 Manning Depot.

One member recalled, "Our six weeks in Basic Training were lonely weeks, but we were kept busy with drills, rules, being outfitted in uniform, and mess hall duty.

Initially, RCAF WD members received two-thirds the pay of their male counterparts. By 1943, pay had increased to four-fifths.

"...it was irritating that an airman could do something, but if an airwoman did the same thing, she'd be ticked [disciplined] off about it."

By 1943, women’s duties expanded to 69 trades, including mechanic, parachute rigger, laboratory assistants, intelligence officer, instructor, weather observer, pharmacist, wireless operator, and service police

Many WD members served at British Commonwealth Air Training Plan schools across Canada.

Members of the WD performed important roles in the BCATP like aircraft maintenance so that training could continue on.

Overseas service included a place a little closer to home. Many WD members went to the Dominion of Newfoundland to support the RCAF operations based in the future Canadian province. 740 members served in Newfoundland during the war.

Many different women from across Canada to join the WD. 

One member recalled "We certainly had people from one coast to the other, and that was a help in a way...you learned to live with every imaginable kind of person, from every possible walk of life...and it did us all good."

Total of nearly 17,000 women served in the Women’s Division by the end of the Second World War. 30 died on active service

Following the war, all members of the WD were discharged and the WD itself was dissolved on December 31 1946.

"During the war, I felt like I was somebody. I was recognized, and then it was all over, and I was a nobody again. My family didn't seem to care what I'd done. I was just supposed to forget all that and fit in. It wasn't quite that simple."

Due to the Cold War expansion of the RCAF and the record of the WD, women were permitted to join the RCAF in 1951. These women entered the RCAF itself as the WD was not reestablished.

In 1980, women were accepted as military pilots and in 1988 as fighter pilots.