Fonds SC392 - Charles Vernon Smith fonds

1 photograph

The Y-building or "chicken farm" was a top secret listening post for the Canadian Naval Intelligence Branch in W.W. II. According to Bruce Brown (who as Aide to the Admiral visited the station during this period), the Americans had broken the Japanese code prior to the war. Information retrieved from Japanese transmissions at this and other similar stations was forwarded to Ottawa and Washington. Initially it was staffed with naval personnel (starting ca.1940). Wrens replaced the station staff in 1944, for the duration of the war. Only in 1964, due to National Security issues, was information about the Station made available to the public. It was located on what is now the campus of the University of Victoria.

The fonds consists of a framed computer scan of a photograph. Vernon Smith, who is in the photograph, has supplied the Title and information above the picture. He has also provided identification of the staff below the photo. On the back of the photo is a photocopy of a clipping from the Victoria Times Colonist" dated 14 Aug 1995, relating to the history of the Station. Smith has typed on the top of it a list of early members of staff and below it, a list of people missing from the photograph. Copies of photographs of the station (from the National Archives of Canada) are located in the Bruce Brown collection (including the one in the clipping). There is also a copy of a scrapbook kept when the WRENS replaced the male personnel in 1944, in the Dorothy Robertson fonds.