A POW Camp Near Vermilion

Back in April 1944, news came that the Canadian Women’s Army Corps basic training centre near Vermilion was going to be turned into a Nazi Officers’ Prisoner of War Camp. The training centre was due to close on May 15, and it was believed it would be the perfect location for the prison camp.

The Vermilion Centre was owned by the Alberta Government and was previously the Agriculture School before it became the training centre in 1941. The centre was Canada’s first basic training centre for women in the armed forces.

There was no information at the time regarding how many prisoners would be housed at the camp. According to the report, prisoners were brought to Canada by the boat-load. The interior of the country was a much safer and secure location for the POWs than being kept in Britain where they could escape and cause issues.

W.A. Fallow, the Minister of Public Works for Alberta, stated the Alberta government had no comment on the suggestion of turning the centre into a POW camp. He added that the Alberta government would retain control of the property after the centre closed on May 15, 1944. It would use it until it was needed by the federal government for the war effort.

Was the centre ever used as a POW camp?

As it turns out, the report was in error. The closest Pow camp was at Wainwright, with other camps in Kananaskis, Medicine Hat and Lethbridge.

When the women left the school after the last training class graduated, that was it for the war effort. Things were changing during the Second World War as D-Day gave the Allies a foothold in Europe.

From May 1944 onwards, the centre went back to being the School of Agriculture.

It may have been a hospital during the 1918 influenza pandemic, and a training centre for the Canadian Women’s Army Corps, but it was never a place for Nazi officers captured during the Second World War.

Still, it makes for an interesting story.

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