CampX Tours

WHITBY — Learn about Camp X from someone who worked there. Evelyn Davis is a veteran of the camp, a top-secret Second World War spy training school in Whitby. She served with the Canadian Women’s Army Corp Signals Corp, sending and receiving highly classified coded messages from England to New York, Washington and Toronto. Davis’s husband, Les Davis, was trained as an agent at Camp X in its early years. Ultimately, he was too valuable as a radio technician and trainer to be sent overseas.Ms. Davis will bring personal memorabilia, including rare Camp X photographs, letters and her uniform, to display when she speaks at the Whitby Central Library on Nov. 19 at 7 p.m. She will also be in the Central Library lobby during the afternoon of Nov. 11 to answer questions and talk about her experiences.

Letter of thanks to Evelyn Davis Letter of thanks to Evelyn Davis (née Jamieson) from William Stephenson, director of the British Security Co-ordination, 25 February 1946. (courtesy The Memory Project)

Members of the Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWAC) served at Camp X (see Women in the Military). Most CWACs, as they were called, were assigned jobs typically given to women at the time, such as cooking, laundry and clerical duties. But women also pioneered roles in the mechanized and technical fields. At Camp X, such technical duties included sending and receiving communications, as well as transcribing and decoding the encrypted messages that passed through Hydra.  Camp X Teletype Room Camp X Teletype Room Interior of the Teletype Room at Camp X. Evelyn Davis, a communications operator, is sitting at centre, c.1944-46. (courtesy Whitby Archives) “After arriving at Camp X, we had one week to learn Morse code and Murray code [which used punched tape ribbons to transmit messages] before pitching in to translate incoming and outgoing calls to and from Britain,” Winnifred Davidson, a CWAC assigned to Camp X, told Legion magazine. “We used a Kleinschmidt teletype machine and messages came in via high-speed Morse code and went out on punch tape.  Evelyn Davis spent much of her time at Camp X working on the Boehme tape puller or undulator. “We were sending and receiving traffic to England and to New York and Washington,” Davis told The Memory Project. “It was many years after the war, we learned we were sending to Bletchley Park. All traffic was in five letter groups and plain English was never used. My knowledge of Morse code was important.  “We worked 365 days a year, 24 hours a day and there were several shifts, 8 to 4, 4 to 12, 12 to 8 and a couple of swing shifts.”  Civilian women also worked alongside enlisted CWACs at Camp X.  (See also Canadian Women and War.)  Letter of thanks to Evelyn Davis Letter of thanks to Evelyn Davis Letter of thanks to Evelyn Davis (née Jamieson) from William Stephenson, director of the British Security Co-ordination, 25 February 1946. (courtesy The Memory Project)