Women in wartime exhibit in the works

A Brandon University student has uncovered so many unseen photos and untold stories about women who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War that an exhibit is being created at Brandon’s air museum.

Seraphina Gilbert, now back in their fourth and final year at BU, worked over the summer for the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum, and one day was asked to update some of the signage about the RCAF Women’s Division.

“I was looking through things and I started to notice a disconnect, a research gap, and that didn’t feel right to me,” Gilbert said.

As Gilbert poured through the photos, they noticed that none of the women were named, and all were given the same blanket description.

“There was nothing that explained the individual perspectives and lives of these women. The photos were women doing this, women doing that, but not who they were,” Gilbert said.

“One said, ‘Woman fuelling aircraft.’ It is accurate, but it felt so superficial,” they said.

“When there are photos of men, you see, ‘This is sergeant so and so, he was doing this and he served here,’ so that just struck me as really weird.”

That’s what got the ball rolling, Gilbert said. They took the idea about doing further research and personalizing women’s efforts to Zoe McQuinn, director general of CATPM.

“I think they are a rock star, and an excellent researcher,” McQuinn said about Gilbert.

“In a dream situation, we’re a fully funded museum, but when you only have so many resources, we have to have passionate individuals who will help us carry these torches,” McQuinn said.

The RCAF Women’s Division was created in 1941 as a non-combatant element of the air force, with the motto, “We serve so that men may fly.” The goal was to replace male air force personnel so they would be available for combat-related duties.

“The women’s division was a passion project for our head of collections, Judith Grierson, but being in charge of all our archives, there’s not a lot of time to keep pushing that forward,” McQuinn said.

“Actually, Judith always says, ‘Nobody asks Grandma, ‘What did you do in the war?’ and it’s such an interesting perspective.

“Because women did have roles during the war, but it isn’t part of the common history we share.”

There were 140 Commonwealth Air Training Plan centres across Canada and while it’s not known how many women went through Brandon, McQuinn said of the 212,000 personnel trained across the country, more than 10,000 were women.

“No women were pilots,” McQuinn said.

“At the beginning of the war, they were only trained in about seven roles. By the end of the war, there were actually 92 specialties that women could train, including ground crew, radar and all the admin positions that provided support.”

Gilbert is back at school, but they are taking the research from their summer job and are in the process of creating an exhibition for the air museum called “Stories from the Women’s Division.”

The works will also be turned in as a project at BU, in Gilbert’s practice of public history class.

“I’m graduating this year and going into my master’s degree next September,” Gilbert said.

“So, I was trying to find ways to connect this project with my master’s thesis, which was music in World War Two,” they said.

“But once I got into this research, I knew there was no way I could just write about the music. I need to bring these stories to light.”

Gilbert’s project is supported by CATPM’s head of collections and BU Prof. Rhonda Hinther, who is supervising their work.

In a Wednesday news release, Hinther said the partnership with CATPM will provide valuable hands-on experience for students while telling stories that will inspire people.

Gilbert’s air museum exhibit is still a work in progress, beginning with the stories of three women who served in the air force — Dorothy Maria Wakefield from Forrest, Olive Goddard Walsh from Winnipeg and Mary Kathryn Haysel from Ontario. Gilbert said they want to start small to make sure it’s thorough.

“I’d like to have some signage and photos of each of the women in their uniforms with explanations of who they are. I want it to resonate with people.”

The hope is to have a preview of the exhibit completed and on display at the Brandon Shoppers Mall in early 2026.

Gilbert said they had no idea when they were given the task to update information in mid-August that it would lead to a museum exhibition and a university class project.

“I didn’t expect this at all — it was just me spending a random hour looking into things to help the museum.

“I was just expecting to write a couple notes on a piece of paper, hand it off and be done with it. But here we are.”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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