Counter Security IQ Tests

The Canadian Counter Intelligence was formed which was, which looked after the field security people and what not, and I was taken to the, transferred to the Counter Intelligence with the idea that I had to take tests. I’d take an IQ tests and, of course, with a memory like I had and what not, I was fortunate in one of the tests that I had to qualify in the Intelligence was, was a room with two people. One turned on the radio or wireless as they called it and the other one gave me a book and then they carried on a conversation off to the side. All of a sudden one fellow grabs the book. The other one shuts the wireless off and says, “Okay, who was the commentator on the wireless? What was his, what was the subject?” Then, “Who’s the author of the book and what’s the plot of the book? And did you, what was our conversation, the state of our conversation?” So you’d give him the answers. And you had to have 85 or better. And he says, “No sweat, you’re in!”

Mr. Decker explains that having a photographic memory was helpful to exceed in intelligence.

Ted Decker

Ted Decker was born in 1918 in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan. His father was an an immigrant from Austria, and worked in a coal mine in Drumheller at first, before working on farms in Southern Saskatchewan. His Mother was a district midwife who delivered over 60 babies in the area. Mr. Decker grew up with two brothers and three sisters,in a community where a Germany pastor taught him on Saturdays to read and write different languages including German. He went to school until grade seven and worked on a farm until he was seventeen. In 1940 Mr. Decker went into Yorkton to enlist and was denied, he was finally sworn in on February 5,1941 as a volunteer with the south Saskatchewan regiment as a reinforcement. After his father disowned him for joining the army he took an non-commissioned officer's course and he worked as a firing range instructor at Fort Osborne,Winnipeg until he left for overseas on December 13.