OTTAWA MONITORING STATION (1940-1945)
and Naval Radio CFF (1940-1947)
Upon the outbreak of WWII, the RCN promptly struck a deal with the Department
of Transport (DOT) to use the existing DOT monitoring stations, which were
at the time, policing Canadian transmitters and spectrum. As well, they
were given access to DOT's HFDF stations, which were being utilized for
the guidance of commercial aircraft.
The initial DOT HFDF sites to provide assistance to the Navy were: St.
Hubert, Quebec; Shediac, New Brunswick; St. Louisburg, Cape Breton; and
Botwood in Newfoundland. The use of the Botwood facility required approval
from Britain, since Newfoundland was still a British colony in 1939. Although
the Navy received fixes as early as September 1939, it wasn't until 8 December
1939 that they began to receive wireless intercepts. The Ottawa Monitoring
Station was one such facility.
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The monitoring station had humble beginnings. It was first located
in the Radio Test Rooms on Wellington Street (west of Bay St.) in Ottawa.
The function had no official name and was simply an assignment for one
man, to monitor specified frequencies. Traffic was therefore handled by
an employee of DOT, Radio Division, Ottawa. Operations were hampered
by unwanted interference caused by electrical noise produced by streetcars
and power lines.
As a result, the operation moved to empty greenhouses at the Experimental
Farm but high humidity levels within the greenhouse affected the radio
equipment. The operation was moved again - this time to the J. R.
Booth farmhouse near the corner of Baseline Rd. and Prescott Hwy. (now
Prince of Wales Dr). The Booth house and barn sites were situated in the
southerly fields of the Central Experimental Farm. Only the barns of that
farmstead are still standing (as of 2015). The Greenhouses have been expanded
since the 1940s.
As tensions with Germany mounted, the farmhouse was soon overflowing
with radio receiving equipment meant to intercept enemy communications.
More operators were added to the staff and more monitoring frequencies
were assigned. Naval HQ requested more coverage and the build-up of staff
began. Very soon, the bedrooms of the Booth farmhouse were fully occupied
with receiving positions were overflowing into the hallways and the living
room. There was no Direction Finder in Ottawa at the time, but a DOT DF
station at St. Hubert in Quebec was connected to the Ottawa monitoring
station by a dedicated telephone line which was used as an
intercom. All mobiles (German submarines) were reported to St. Hubert by
the DOT intercept operators. In the summer of 1941 a new building was erected
to accommodate VAA (a DOT-only transmitting station) , the frequency
measuring equipment, and 16 operating positions, as well as a teletype
room, and offices. This new art-déco structure was built on the
west side of the Experimental Farm, near what is now Merivale Road.
A phased-in move of operators from the Booth farmhouse to the
new station took place from October to December of 1941. A Direction Finder
outfit was also installed at the same location but in a smaller
satellite building located about 400 yards away from the main building.
The station staffing grew to a peak of 125 before the end of the war in
Europe. This also included civilian female operators taken on strength
in the 1944-45 time frame.
The DOT monitoring station was receive-only, therefore
this function had no call sign. DOT station VAA was also co-located
here but its function was strictly for DOT communication with its Northern
stations in the Hudson Bay area and beyond. This DOT Monitoring Station
was intended to augment and expand the interception of enemy wireless signals.
CFF told the DOT facility what stations and frequencies to monitor.
CFF retained the search function to detect new frequencies used by the
enemy. This was a voluntary dedication of manpower by DOT to augment the
work of RCN and allow them to spread their own resources as deemed necessary.
The monitoring functions did overlap to some degree, but that allowed the
RCN more freedom to check out other possible uses of their manpower. At
the DOT station, one man continued the civilian monitoring function
he had been doing for years.
At the Monitoring Station and up to 1943, the operators were all male.
Late in 1943 and until the end of the war, female operators became part
of the operating staff. The female staff became came to play a very
significant to role to the operation. There was no RCN presence at the
DOT station, but all DOT intercepted enemy 'traffic' was forwarded to RCN.
At CFF, the staff was presumed to be mainly that of WRENS.
At the end of hostilities in Europe, some of the Ottawa staff were assigned
to learn the Japanese ‘KANA’ code, and were transferred to Vancouver. Others
were assigned to tours of duty to northern stations, or were transferred
to the growing number of Radio Range stations being installed in the Western
Provinces. Station VAA
There is no evidence to show that WRENS staffed CFF. The Frequency
Monitoring function remained at the Ottawa DOT station for many years thereafter.
NAVAL RADIO STATION CFF
Prior to 1940, naval radio station CFF shared accommodations at RCAF
Station Rockcliffe in Ottawa in what Commander Art Hewitt described as
"an old barn". Army and Air Force receiving stations were also
housed here, an arrangement considered very unsatisfactory. In 1940, Commander
Hewitt who was the Chief Petty officer in charge of the naval radio station,
was assigned the job of relocating it from Rockcliffe.
First, rough sketches of a receiving station were drawn up for approval
then given to Public Works in order that they would draw up specifications.
It also had to be decided where to situate the new station,. After
scouting likely sites, it was decided that the Experimental Farm in Ottawa
offered the best location. It was ideal because there were no other buildings
in the vicinity and it was free of electrical noise. Once permission
was obtained to install the facility, construction was completed in short
order. Although the building was modest, the surrounding fence was anything
but. Laid out to enclose a square that measured approximately 230 feet
a side, the eight foot fence was tipped with several strands of barbed
wire. For added security, the metal fence posts were set into a
concrete foundation but the area's gradual slope toward the northeast
meant that a large section of it tended to resemble a windowless wall.
This helped give rise to speculation among some Farm personnel that much
of the installation was actually a system of underground bunkers.
The building's placement at a distance from the highway and the tendency
of the naval personnel to keep to themselves helped the station to maintain
a low profile. George Guest, a leading telegraphist at the station until
December 1941, recalls that "when things were quiet, we skied on the hill."
They also skied to work in winter or paddled to work in summer, via the
Rideau Canal.
Once CFF became operational, it linked naval headquarters in Ottawa
with Allied naval headquarters, ships at sea and other locations as distant
as Bermuda and Sierra Leone. Station personnel also intercepted encrypted
German, Italian and Russian military and diplomatic communications traffic.
When not occupied with other messages, the operators on duty "sniped" -
slang for intercepted - other Allied traffic. On one occasion,
they followed, intercepted transmissions between Royal Navy warships
in persuit and the ultimate sinking of the German battleship Bismarck.
