Our Story

At The Secrets of Radar Museum we ask you to imagine keeping a secret for 50 years. Could you do it?

Thousands of Canadian men and women who served in radar during the Second World War did just that. They took their oath of secrecy to heart, keeping the truth from family and friends, many taking their service history to the grave before the Official Secrets Act expired in 1991. They were radar mechanics, operators, teachers, trainers, physicists, and researchers. Their actions, deeds, and experiences went unknown and unrecorded when many of the most important histories of World War II were being written.

Through physical exhibits, a substantial research archive, and oral histories recounted by the veterans themselves, the Secrets of Radar Museum preserves their history. That legacy informs the radar history of the Cold War and scientific advances in meteorology and medicine, which we also explore in displays and online. Radar is a ubiquitous part of our modern lives, so pervasive that most of the time we aren't even aware of it. We exist to remind you that regular people, just like you and me, affected not just the outcome of WWII, but the technological and scientific trajectory of the 20th century. We are the only museum of this kind in Canada.

Some of the first radar recruits in Toronto, Dec. 1940

British WAAFs serving as radar operators, c.1940

Christmas Dinner, Clinton Radio School, 1941

Radar personnel, Clinton Radio School, 1945-46

Unknown radar personnel, Clinton Radio School, 1945-46

Canadian Harvard Aerobatic Team over Gatineau, 2013

Huron Pavilion, home of the museum, London, Ontario

Dr. Elizabeth Laird, Microwave Radar Researcher, University of Western Ontario, August 1945

SORM Community Exhibit, Ontario Legislature, 2013

"In Harm's Way" Community Exhibit, Ontario Legislature, 2015

All photographs in Collection of The Secrets of Radar Museum, unless otherwise noted.