On Nov. 11, Remembrance Day, CSE honours all those who have served and continue to serve our country, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice defending Canada and its allies. This year marks a particularly poignant day of Remembrance as it is the 100th anniversary of the Armistice that brought an end to the First World War.
The history of CSE is, in no small part, a history of its support for and work with Canada’s armed forces. CSE’s roots reach back to Canadian signals intelligence (SIGINT) efforts during the Second World War, when encrypted signals from enemy military and foreign mission communications traffic were collected and decoded. These signals, shared with our wartime Allies in the United Kingdom and the U.S., were used to locate enemy positions and movements.
Much of this work was done at Camp X, a Special Operations Executive (SOE) training school located on the shores of Lake Ontario. Camp X housed HYDRA – Canadian-designed and -built telecommunications relay machines that many consider to be an essential tactical and strategic component of the Allied war effort. HYDRA sent and received Allied signals without detection by German forces, and is considered a historical forerunner of CSE.
After the end of the Second World War, military and civilian SIGINT organizations were brought together in 1946 to form a new Canadian peacetime cryptologic agency: the Communications Branch of the National Research Council (CBNRC). The CBNRC would become CSE in 1975.
CSE has provided support to the Canadian Armed Forces for more than 70 years. From the battlefields of World War II to Canadian peacekeeping missions abroad and now to the fight against terrorist threats like ISIL, CSE has wholeheartedly supported Canadian soldiers wherever they are needed.
This Remembrance Day, CSE will continue to pay tribute to this connection by honouring all of the brave CAF members who continue to risk their lives each and every day to keep Canadians safe.