Signing up to 'serve the empire in uniform'

Juanita Anderson WD-RCAF

Aunt Nena was a firecracker.  She always had an enthusiasm for travel and adventure.  Her full name was Juanita Maria Anderson but we knew her as Aunt Nena.

Before the war broke out, she was a teenager attending high school in New Orleans.  She was 15 years old  when she arrived in New Orleans on August 18, 1939 to start the fall term.  When Britain declared war on Germany on September 3rd, 1939, her  mother (my grandmother Henrietta Maria Orio) brought her back to Belize because she did not know if the estate money that she was receiving from England would be able to reach her in Belize due to the war, money that she would need to pay for Nena's education in New Orleans. Henrietta was a widow at that time with 5 children, one of whom was my father, Charles "Buster" Anderson.

 Although Nena continued her high school education in Belize, she never graduated and was eager to join her older brother (my father) in the war effort.  Dad had travelled up to Canada in February 1941 to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force to train as a pilot through the British Commonwealth Air Training Program.  He shipped out to Great Britain in December 1941, and then to India in June 1943.  Nena was eager to join him in "serving the empire in uniform" and went up to Canada as soon as she was able to.  

Shortly after the war started, England requested young ladies to help by joining the British Army Women's Division in England.  Although she registered on the list, nothing happened so she decided to join up in Canada, possibly with the Women's Division of the Canadian Army.  Her mother found the money to pay for her travel and she got in touch with the Canadians.

She arrived in Canada in September 1943 and after not being accepted into the army because she had had rheumatic fever, she enlisted in Women's Division of the RCAF because her mother had spend a lot of money getting her up to Canada. She just failed to mention the past history of rheumatic fever in her application for the RCAF!

On a momentous day, October 20, 1943, she took the oath of the WD-RCAF at the recruitment centre in Toronto.  She was 19 at the time.  The Toronto Star, under the banner of "Women's War Work" wrote that she "Journeys from Honduras to Join Airman Brother" and notes that "Juanita Anderson enlists in Women's Division of the R.C.A.F. - Finds Many Friends".  There was one small error - Nena came from British Hondouras (now Belize), not Honduras.

Although I have very little information about my aunt's time in the WD-RCAF in Canada, I will be documenting my attempts to research where she was posted to in Canada and what her job and everyday life was like while in service.  I hope that you can join me on this journey.