Answering the call

Betty Bongard was the first County recruit for the Canadian Women’s Army Corps

A leader and an inspiration

Betty Bongard grew up in Crofton, a mostly forgotten settlement overlooking Muscote Bay, where Highway 62 crosses Burr Road. Before it was a highway. Before the road was straightened to enable traffic to move more quickly through the County. Before it bypassed Crofton altogether.

Growing up between the great wars, Betty found friendship easily—at school, and later as a member of the MBBs (Melville-Burr-Bowermans), a social club formed to ease the isolation of rural life in Prince Edward County.

Betty was 19 when war broke out for a second time that century. Young men and farm boys up and down the road were signing up. Answering the call. Among these was a lanky, tall farm boy named Ralph Margetson—a neighbour, friend and fellow member of the MBBs.

When these young men put down their tools on the farm, the processing floor or factory, women stepped in to fill these roles. Ably and enthusiastically.

But as the war dragged on into its second year, it was clear that the war effort needed more soldiers—more fighters on the front lines. Women were pressing government and war planners for a greater role. And so, in 1941, plans were drawn for a Canadian women’s armed forces. For the first time in Canada’s history, women would serve in an armed services uniform.

Notices went into the newspapers: the Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWAC) needs experienced drivers, stenographers, waitresses, typists, clerks, cooks and cleaners at once. It was big step for the Canadian government—they weren’t yet prepared to put women in harm’s way.

Betty Bongard needed no prompting. She headed directly to the recruiting office upon reading the notice. She was the first County girl to answer the call.

MBB comrades Betty Bongard with Ralph Margetson in Crofton as the skies darkened over Europe.

The Crofton community gathered, along with her MBB friends, to send her off. The brave young woman was called to the front of the hall to hear tributes and well wishes.

“From childhood, you have taken active interest in church and Sunday school work and in the club and social life of the community,” Mrs. Cook said on behalf of the gathered. “You have been a leader and an inspiration to others among the young people as well as those well along in years.”

The event was described in an account in the Picton Times. Her children found it years later. Their mother rarely talked about those days.

On January 5, 1942, Betty reported for basic training at the Gananoque Inn. A summertime resort then, the facility had no heating or insulation. A stove was soon acquired to make the training facility habitable. Days were spent instilling “the principles of discipline and barrack life,” along with fundamental army training according to a Whig Standard account from 1943. In the evening, they filled the hours with music and square dancing. Betty called the dance. A prairie recruit, Catherine Combley, played the piano. From those dark and nervous nights in Gananoque, Betty and Kitty would become lifelong friends.

Upon completion of basic training, Betty and Kitty were posted to No. 3 Ordnance Depot in Kingston. The Ordnance Corps was responsible for the storage and distribution of necessities of clothing, equipment, beds, blankets, signal equipment, tents, mess equipment, cleaning supplies, engines and spare parts for vehicles, hand and machine tools, binoculars and compasses.

After long days in the depot, Betty and Kitty attended band practice. Betty played the euphonium (a small tuba), while Kitty played trombone. At least one night each week they were required to hone their marching skills, likely at the Armouries on Montreal Street in Kingston.

Betty hated the squawk and drone of the bagpipes. Inevitably, she found herself parading behind the Scottish regiment at this occasion or that. So powerful was her dislike of this sound that when Betty passed away in 2004, her one request was that no bagpipes be played at her funeral.

The Canadian government was reluctant to send women overseas, but circumstances would eventually demand it. The first women to sail were typically older, with husbands serving in Europe.

Betty recalled a friend getting the news she would be assigned overseas. She remembered her colleague’s preparation and nervous anticipation. Sadly, by the time she arrived, her husband had already been killed.

Meanwhile, Betty kept busy, moving from Kingston to Ottawa, working into the accounting office at Central Depot. It was an important job, but it didn’t shield her from soldiering duties. Betty was on guard duty one night when a wayward young woman returned after curfew, sneaking noisily in through the coal shute of the barracks. Years later, Betty would smile, recalling the image of the intoxicated, incoherent woman covered in coal dust, staggering pathetically toward her.

In the fall of 1943, Betty was promoted to the rank of Lance-Corporal.

The accounting offices of the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps in Ottawa, the unit to which Betty Bongard was assigned.

By 1945, things were heating up between Betty and a young man who had moved to Crofton to run the canning plant. While home on leave, she had been introduced to the dashing Doug Alyea.

Word was filtering through that she was in line for another promotion, but by then it was clear the war was winding down. It was time to begin thinking about her future after the war. Betty and Doug were married in November, just a few short months after Germany and Japan surrendered.

Betty didn’t talk much about her service after the war. She never talked about being the first County woman to join the Canadian Armed Forces. Her children, Arlene, Monica, Susan and Vic, stood with her at the centoph gates in Wellington during Remembrance Day services, knowing little about the role their mother had played—her bravery and her readiness and willingness to serve.

“I could never understand why, on Remembrance Day services, she never wore her medals or gave any indication to other people that she had served,” recalls Arlene. “Speakers in those days tended to mention the men who had served. Nothing was said about the women who served in the Second World War. That puzzled me.”

Vic Alyea says it wasn’t until they saw the 1998 Steven Speilberg film Saving Private Ryan that she began to open up and talk about those days. The stories were never about her, but rather the friends and colleagues she knew then.

“It was the first time she really discussed D-Day with me, and the experiences of those she knew who had gone thorough it,” says Vic. “Friends like Ralph Margetson.”

More than 50,000 Canadian women served in the armed forces during World War II. The Canadian Women’s Army Corps had 21,600 members. The Women’s division of the Royal Canadian Air Force had 17,400 members, and there were 7,100 in the naval service.

In 1946, the CWAC was disbanded— no longer needed in peacetime.

In 2001, sixty years after the formation of the CWAC, Betty and Kitty reunited in Kitchener for an unveiling of a monument honouring the service, sacrifice and bravery of the women who served in Canada’s armed services.

A Canadian War Museum document says these women proved themselves efficient and competent soldiers in all respects.

From the museum article: “Their example helped set the stage for the integration of women into Canada’s postwar armed forces.”