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Sadie Watts served in the Canadian Women's Army Corps during the Second World War.
Please be advised that Memory Project primary sources may deal with personal testimony that reflect the speaker’s recollections and interpretations of events. Individual testimony does not necessarily reflect the views of the Memory Project and Historica Canada.
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Transcript
I'm Sadie Watts. My maiden name was Jodrey. I joined the CWAC [Canadian Women's Army Corps] in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 26th of February 1943. Basic training: March the 11th 1943, Kitchener, Ontario. Took a four month-stenographer course, one month recruiting precision squad. Twenty-seven months orderly room clerk, Embarkation Transit Unit Halifax, Pier 21, was where I worked. Hospital ships, war brides, prisoners of war, troops coming back from overseas – those were the different ships that came into that unit where we were. My husband was on the troop ships, as he was military police, and that's how we met. I received the [Canadian] Volunteer [Service Medal] and the War Medal [1939-45], and have attended six reunions – two Peterborough, Ontario, one London Ontario, one in Newfoundland, fiftieth in Ottawa, one in Windsor. Attended the CWAC memorial in Kitchener in 2001, where a CWAC statue was unveiled. The Lieutenant-Governor Hillary Weston and Brigadier General Robin Daniel attended that. Approximately twelve hundred attended. I retired in March 1946, when the unity closed out and the CWAC were disbanded.
