Bio of Dorothy Grondin
Written by Andrea Grimes
Windsor's WW II Veteran, Dorothy Grondin did her bit for the war effort at 13 years of age making cones for the tops of bombs. Being mechanically-inclined, she was transferred to Northern Electric (Montreal) assembling radios for the Army, however those jobs were reserved for men.
Grondin didn't think twice about leaving her job to enlist in the Women's Royal Canadian Navy Service. She remembers the day she told her mum that she enlisted. "It was on my 16th birthday 1943. I got "creative" with my birth certificate. When mum caught wind of me enlisting, she just calmly replied, "Lots of luck, Dot. I am so proud of you. I know that in my heart you will do your very best."
While stationed in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, Grondin was assigned to the laundry department sorting linens that came in from the hospital ships out with the Atlantic convoys. Grondin recalls: "When I opened the canvas bags, I was horrified to find mangled fingers, bits and pieces of scorched flesh and mounds of bloody bandages taken from our wounded."