Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service

The Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service was an element of the Royal Canadian Navy that was active during the Second World War and post-war as part of the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve until unification in 1968. The WRCNS (or Wrens) was modelled on the Women's Royal Naval Service, which had been active during the First World War and then revived in 1939. The Royal Canadian Navy was slow to create a women's service, only establishing the WRCNS in July 1942, nearly a year after the Canadian Women's Army Corps and the Royal Canadian Air Force Women's Division. By the end of the war however nearly 7,000 women had served with the WRCNS in 39 different trades.

HMCS Conestoga, the WRCNS training centre in Galt, Ontario, became the first female-commanded Canadian commissioned ship in June 1943 when Lieutenant Commander Isabel Macneill was appointed commanding officer. That September Commander Adelaide Sinclair became the first Canadian Director of the WRCNS, a position she held until disbandment. The WRCNS was disbanded in July 1946, but revived as part of the Naval Reserve at the beginning of the Korean War. It was disbanded a second time in 1968 when the Royal Canadian Navy as a whole was folded into the unified Canadian Forces.