The Collection
This digital collection presents diplomatic telegrams deciphered, intercepted, and decoded by the Canadian Examination Unit during the Second World War. Operating from June 1941 to August 1945, the Examination Subsection was the first and only active Canadian civilian cryptographic bureau during the Second World War.
Located at 345 Laurier Avenue East in Ottawa from March 1942, the Examination Subsection operated under the administration of the National Research Council (NRC) while reporting to the Department of External Affairs. Women comprised approximately 40 percent of the known staff. The unit successfully deciphered codes and ciphers used by Germany, Japan, Vichy France, the Free French Forces, and Spanish-language communications.
The documents in this collection consist primarily of intercepted Vichy France diplomatic correspondence exchanged between Washington, Vichy, Ottawa, and other diplomatic posts between 1941 and 1945. These SECRET-classified telegrams, now declassified, reveal diplomatic negotiations, strategic discussions, and administrative matters during a critical period of the Second World War.
These documents offer researchers unique insights into:
- Vichy France’s diplomatic activities and communications during the Second World War
- Canada’s early signals intelligence capabilities
- Cryptographic operations and decryption achievements during the war
- International diplomatic relations during the period 1941–1945
- The role of civilian intelligence services in Canada’s war effort
Technical Note
The documents have been digitized and processed using optical character recognition (OCR) technology to facilitate text retrieval and metadata extraction. Some documents may contain OCR errors due to the historical nature of the original typewritten documents and classification stamps. A technical document on the exact technologies and processing will be published at a later stage.