Cockroaches in the Barracks

One of my greatest memories, maybe it’s not a good story to tell, but when we were in Winnipeg, getting near the end, our barracks was over the stores, food stores. We had cockroaches. I had never seen a cockroach until that time. So of course we had reported to our WD officer and nothing was done about it and we all felt she lived off the station maybe she didn’t care and the CO because it was the end of the war, he let us go to breakfast without our hat on. So one day I set my hat on my pillow, sure had to have your bed made before you went out, and when I came back I lifted my hat and out popped a cockroach. Well that did it. That night in the washroom, and of course as soon as you turned lights on, a million of them, I took a little jar, caught about a dozen cockroaches, took them into work the next morning and I was working in the admin. building then. Our CO was very friendly and going by he’d stop and chat with you. So uh, we waited and when we heard his footsteps coming, two of us go over where he’d have to pass you know with our little bottle looking at it and he did as we suspected he would. He said, “What have you got there girls? ”, “Cockroaches, Sir? ”, .... “Cockroaches? ? ”... “Yes, Sir!”...“Where did you get the cockroaches ? ”... “In our barracks, Sir!”[laughing]...”Why hasn’t it been reported? ”...”It has, Sir!”...”Who did you report it to? ” and we thought oh, oh!! “Our WD officer and the station sergeant major.”.. “Well, we’ll do something about this.” The next day they were in there spraying for us and we for a few days fully expected to be pulled up on the carpet for going over our WD officer’s head but we never did hear anything about it.