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Eighty years ago, Kitchener-Waterloo had a sudden influx of young women — young women in uniform. A training complex on East Avenue preparing male army recruits was suddenly transformed into No. 3 Basic Training Centre for the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. CWACs, like their Navy and Air Force counterparts, were being trained as full military members to take over noncombat roles within Canada’s wartime forces. The CWAC story in K-W has been exceptionally well told in Ruth Russell’s 2006 book “Proudly She Marched.” However, CWACs are not today’s subjects.

The local populace had varying reactions to the idea of these hundreds of women in their late teens and early 20s as actual members of the military, running the gamut from admiration to derision; from morale-boosting to fears of immorality.

Traditionally, females of any age during wartime were kept well away from the battlefields, restricted to nursing, working in factories and providing home-front support.

As for younger people, boys could march around playing war with wooden rifles, build model airplanes, collect scrap metal — and they could join one of three cadet movements: army, sea or air.

Teenage girls had few structured outlets for their patriotic feelings — until mid-1942! An almost unknown girls’ organization was detailed in the Waterloo Historical Society’s 2004 publication by Stephanie Walker. Titled “K-W Airettes,” the seven-page article stands virtually alone in documenting an almost-forgotten, cross-Canada girls’ cadet program.

Don’t bother searching the net — a photo listing from the University of Waterloo’s special collections is about all you will find. Walker’s details came from two historical society members, Betty (Ruppel) Schneider and Corinne (Bailey) Moffett. Both had been K-W Airettes and their stories proved that girls’ patriotic enthusiasm was not surpassed by boys.

Across Canada, several Air Cadet corps began organizing parallel “flights” for girls. With so little information on the Airette movement, it’s not clear if K-W’s was the first, second or third flight in the country.

Margaret Long was the driving force locally and, working with local Air Cadet male officers, she attracted almost 100 girls to meet and train at Kitchener Collegiate. Unlike male cadets, girls had to provide their own uniforms (white shirts, navy blue skirts, blue ties, blue knee socks and black shoes) but Airette girls were skilled enough to make some of their uniform. Plus, as Betty Schneider noted, “somehow Mrs. Long got caps for us with a metal crest worn on the forward wedge.”

Her memories also included learning Morse code and truck engine maintenance. Corinne Moffett remembered male officers helping Airettes with lectures and demonstrations about aircraft recognition “in case a Messerschmitt should ever fly over Canada.” Airettes marched and drilled just like the boys. Betty became a sergeant, developing a powerful command voice.

Undoubtedly many of the girls had been inspired by the CWACs and would proudly join those older women in wartime parades. A huge Third Victory Loan parade in October 1942 stretched for two and a half kilometre and was witnessed by 40,000 people along King Street.

A year later, in Brantford, the Airettes were among several participating K-W military groups. According to the Kitchener Daily Record, the Airettes “stole the show” with crowd applause doubling when the smartly uniformed flight passed by.

Waterloo Park hosted 1944’s annual review of Air Cadets and Airettes. Several other military groups — CWACs, Scots Fusiliers, 24th Field Ambulance Reserve, Sea Cadets — attended but only as part of the audience. A high-level air force officer who was inspecting the Air Cadets and Airettes praised the girls, saying how proud he was to see Air Cadets and Airettes in one review. He urged the girls to keep improving and next time “show up and outnumber the boys in every way.”

With the end of the war in 1945, enthusiasm for the Airettes program weakened: after a brief period, it disbanded — and, it seems, was nearly forgotten. The 1940s’ Air Cadets movement has continued: happily, it has long since accepted girls into its 12-18 age ranks. Both Betty and Corinne who helped Stephanie Walker with the 2004 article have passed away.

If there is anyone around who was an Airette in the 1940s I would enjoy hearing from her or a relative.

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