These two touching “interviews” launched a ten-year odyssey which included extensive research, interviewing, public speaking, and writing, ultimately culminating in her seminal book Bomb Girls: Trading Aprons for Ammo.  The result is a rare, intimate compilation of the social, psychological, and cultural aspects of life on the home front comprising a unique era in Canada’s history.

From the moment that Canada declared war on Nazi Germany on September 10, 1939, hundreds of thousands of predominantly female war workers conclusively forged a new culture within Canada’s labour, home, and political arenas. Women came from every corner of society, from farmers’ daughters to lawyers, from impoverished immigrants to the rich and famous, from high school students to great-grandmothers, committed to doing whatever was needed to bring a swift and decisive end to the war. “Bomb Girls” toiled in wartime factories manufacturing materials needed to fight; everything from bandages to parachutes, from ammunitions to guns, from tanks to aircraft. They did it all and they did it well. Of course, some jobs endangered personnel more than others – women who handled high explosives risked their lives every time they stepped onto the factory floor. Catastrophic accidents were bound to happen, and they did with tragic outcomes at several munitions factories in Canada, such as at the Pickering Works plant and in Brownsburg, Quebec. The GECO munitions factory in Scarborough where Carol and Molly worked recorded no fatal explosions during its tenure, despite operating twenty-four hours a day, six days a week, for four years, and filling over 256 million rounds of ammunition.

After the global armed conflict ended, most women resumed their domestic duties. There was no avenue to pursue a career, not with over one million Canadian soldiers returning from overseas and needing to find work.

Over 80 years have passed since women served their country during this unique and memorable time in history.  It’s time that we, as Canadians, remember their courage and grit, the dedication they brought to their job, the love they gave to their family and the duty they committed to their nation to bring peace to the world.