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This review appears in Canadian Military History Vol. 27 No. 2 (2018). Most students of Canada’s participation in the Second World War will be aware that our army overseas was comprised primarily of volunteers, but that conscripts had to be sent to Europe late in the war due to higher-than-expected casualties after the Allied invasion of France.
- Paul Esau
Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, PA-46124. To destroy the German army the Allies needed to keep attacking; there could be no rest. For the invasion of Germany in February 1945, General Harry Crerar’s First Canadian Army was the largest formation ever under the control of a single Canadian commander – nearly half a million Canadian and British soldiers.
Jun 5, 2024 · It was the early hours of June 6, 1944. By the end of the day, 150,000 Allied soldiers, including 15,000 Canadians, would set foot in Normandy, opening a new front in the war against Nazi Germany.
- Tu Thanh Ha
- The D-Day Invasion Plan
- Preparation For Invasion
- The Five-Pronged Invasion
- Sword Beach
- Gold Beach
- Juno Beach
- Moving Inland Together
- News Reaches Home
- After D-Day
- After The War
The Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force had been established on February 12, 1944, under General Dwight Eisenhower. The initial plan produced by the Allies outlined an assault on the Normandy coast to secure “as a base for future operations a lodgement area,” says a report from Veterans of the United Kingdom. Troops would cross the Chan...
Preparation had been going on for months with assembling and training in southern England; at the same time, a plan unfolded to deceive the enemy into thinking the main attack would be at the Pas de Calais, not Normandy. A plan called Operation Fortitude used Hollywood-style mockups of bases, inflatable rubber tanks, fake aircraft, and phony radio ...
Shortly before midnight on June 6, hundreds of transport planes carrying paratroopers and tow planes pulling the first wave of gliders took off from their bases in England. Shortly thereafter, the naval armada left various ports and headed toward Normandy. The magnitude of the Allied forces deployed on D-Day was truly impressive. Making up the aeri...
At 5:30 am, the big transport ships began to disgorge small landing craft packed with troops into choppy seas. As they plowed toward the beach in heavy seas, many men became violently seasick. To buck up his men, Major “Banger” King of the East Yorkshire Regiment recited passages from Shakespeare’s Henry V, including the famous passage, “Once more ...
Gold Beach was the westernmost British-Canadian sector, a nine-mile stretch from la Riviere to Port-en-Bessin in the west. The sectors were named King, Jig, Item, and How. Rocks squeezed the British 50th Infantry Division assault into the King and Jig Sectors only. Between 5:45 and 7:15 am, Allied naval vessels bombarded the defenses, helped by 72 ...
Meanwhile, at Juno Beach the Canadians, sandwiched between the two British beaches, found their place in the sun and in the mud. In the first wave, there were about 3,000 Canadians of all ranks (11,000 more would follow) who stormed Juno Beach, which stretched six miles from St.-Aubin-sur-Mer in the east to la Riviere. In the middle was the small f...
As this historic day progressed, few individual soldiers on the ground grasped the big picture, but a bird’s-eye view would have shown the Allies advancing farther inland from the five separate beaches to form two larger beachheads. Advancing south four miles from Sword, elements of the 185th Brigade reached Biéville, while No. 45 (Royal Marine) Co...
The first bulletins arrived at CBC headquarters in Toronto around 3:30 am on June 6. Although details were scant, the first CBC broadcast on June 6 opened with: “The invasion of France began early this morning. Thousands of Canadian, British, and American soldiers are storming the beaches of what Hitler called ‘Fortress Europe.’” Headline stories h...
Expanding the beachhead had its share of problems. On June 7, the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and the 27th Armoured Regiment (Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment), pushing toward the Carpiquet airfield, were attacked by SS Colonel Kurt Meyer’s 25th Panzergrenadier Regiment and the 50 tanks of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment Hitlerjugend at Saint-Germain-la...
Six months later, John Pointon returned to Canada aboard the Queen Mary, one of 740,000 men and 36,000 women who served Canada in World War II. There were heavy casualties; 42,042 Canadians had been killed and 54,414 wounded. Pointon was thankful that he was able to come home to live a quiet life, drive his taxi, and raise his family. It took men l...
Apr 24, 2015 · Operation Husky. Canada's Italian campaign started on 10 July, 1943 when the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade began Operation Husky — the seaborne invasion of the island of Sicily. The Italian defenders were quickly overwhelmed and the Canadians advanced on Pachino and its strategic airport.
- 26,200 in total5,300 killed19,400 wounded
- Italy
- 10 July 1943-2 May 1945
Published Online February 7, 2006. Last Edited February 12, 2024. The 1944 Battle of Normandy — from the D-Day landings on 6 June through to the encirclement of the German army at Falaise on 21 August — was one of the pivotal events of the Second World War and the scene of some of Canada's greatest feats of arms.
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Feb 16, 2016 · Nonetheless, he wrote in September 1938 that “it was a self-evident national duty, if Britain entered war, that Canada should regard herself as part of the British empire.” An historic Royal visit by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in the spring of 1939 was a monumental success in reaffirming the bonds between Canada and Britain.
