POW/Work Camp Vehicles in Canada

[Jason Ginn]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

I was reading up on the big work camp at Whitewater Lake in Riding Mountain National Park during the War recently. It was a very interesting place. Set up for DAK troops which must have been quite a shock arriving there in mid February.

In any event, what got me thinking was the road trip from the rail head in Dauphin to the actual camp. What types of vehicles were used by these camps in Canada during the war? Commercial Pattern, Modified Commercial Pattern, CMP or a mix of whatever was available. And would they have been marked in any particular way? Might be an interesting restoration option for someone if the relevant information was available.

David

Most of the vehicles would be civilian models and MCP's but it's more than likely the odd CMP was used.

I have seen two vehicles in person that were used in camps. One was a civilian Chev and the other was a MCP Dodge. The provenance for both was painted on the doors in the form of the camp numbers in typical DND domestic markings.

I'll see if I can find pics.

[Jason Ginn]

Here are a few pics.

The West coast internment of Japanese Canadians appears to have relied on Department of Labour Dodge civilian trucks.

The snowy picture of Petawawa shows what appears to be a pre-war Ford.

[Jason Ginn]

Not strictly a Camp vehicle but a neat shot of a private Ford with a load of Labour headed to the fields in 1942 from one of the Chatham camp.

[Jason Ginn]

This GMC is part of the CWM collection in Ottawa. It is from the Lethbridge Camp and has been restored with original markings. The tires aren't correct tho!

[Jason Ginn]

I couldn't resist this one!

[Jason Ginn]

Department of Mines and Resources operated the Alternate Service Work Camps for conscientious objectors. This looks like a civilian ford with a road crew.

[David Dunlop]

Jason.

Great start with getting some photos up about these vehicles.

I had always assumed the Defence Department would have been in charge of POW Camps in Canada, through some branch or other. Interesting that the Lethbridge Camp, which I believe was military has no department ID but shows the camp ID and a marking pattern fairly consistent with markings for home front military vehicles. The other two camp vehicle options are from 'civilian' internment camps and have Department of Labour and Mines and Energy vehicles. Maybe that was a primary breakpoint of the camps in Canada: military jurisdiction for military camps and civil jurisdiction for civil camps.

Excuse my active mind here, but if that premise holds true, as you said, CMP's may very likely form some or all of the vehicle fleets for the military camps and not so much with the civil ones.

Poked about on the web a bit and found references to the ID System for the military camps. Looks like they started out in the war as 'lettered' camps and by 1943 switched to a number system. The one list I found was rather incomplete with the ID of some camps not known at all (Whitewater being one) and three camps from the Manitoba/Northwest Ontario area missing completely.

Whitewater was a POW Work Camp where they were cutting cord wood for the civilian market. The camp was set up where it was because (a) it was very isolated - no fences or guard towers were ever built for it - and (b) it was close to a burn area that was the initial area to have good wood harvested from before the selected area from the surrounding forest were worked. It was a National Park area so the timber work had to be carefully thought out. And a new park at that, less than 10 years old. The camp had to be dismantled as soon as the war ended as well. The site and original access road are now a major park hiking trail and overnight camp.

The prisoners went on strike there for a few days. A large number of them had ordered pyjamas from the Sears Catalog and when the shipment didn't arrive as scheduled, they thought the guards had stolen them so they refused to work. The shipment arrived on the train in Dauphin a couple of days later, the prisoners were thrilled and all was OK.

David