In 1941 I was in the Reserve in Winnipeg, Manitoba. We wore Reserve uniforms. I transferred over to the CWAC when they were officially formed about October 1942. I was assigned to the Pay Corps at Portage La Prairie, Manitoba for Toronto and was assigned to the Army Show. I was responsible for putting the shows together. Wayne and shuster arrived in Toronto while I was working there. They dropped in to see what we were putting together. They were quite impressed and stayed over extra days just to help. They were very complimentary of our efforts.

I married my husband in January 1943, and soon after he left for overseas, I continued putting together shows, which were performed in Army Camps. Many of the Camps were in remote areas in northern Canada where they had nothing for entertainment except for their canteens. Late in the fall of 1944 I went overseas. We sailed on the Queen Elizabeth. We were only in England a few days when we were sent to the capital of Belgium where they had a holding depot for the wounded soldiers. The scary thing was, that when we got off the boat we all had to hide in deep ditches and bushes because a platoon of German soldiers were goose stepping down the highway. What a sigh of relief when they were out of "sound" and we had not been discovered.

One day while practicing with my troop and showing some of the performers the proper way to talk and sing over a mike, I demonstrated by singing a popular war song, When I finished, a technician came running out with the news the mike was on. You have just sung all over Europe and England, he told me.

Imagine this- for a few moments I was Lily Marlene of the airwaves!

I stayed in Europe till April 1945, and then I was returned to England for some much-needed R and R, and to assist in putting a new show together. As my health was poor, I was sent back to Canada. I was not home long and was in Winnipeg at the time when the news broke that V.E. Day was here at last.