Canada declared war on Germany when Great Britain did in 1939. And the first important Canadian contributions happened in the air. The Royal Canadian Air Force established an air training command in Canada to train pilots from Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand—and, of course, Canada. And Canada paid hundreds of millions to support it.
Link to Another Story “History Neglects Canada’s Role in WWII
By 1944 200,000 men served in the Royal Canadian Air Force. More than that, nearly half of the ground crews and a quarter of the pilots in the Royal Air Force had come from Canada.
Canada effectively had no navy in 1939 but by the end of the war the Royal Canadian Navy had a fleet of 700 ships and about 95000 sailors to man it. They took part in the heroic emergency evacuation at Dunkirk and over the course of the war Canadian vessels made up over half of the warships guarding convoys across the North Atlantic. By 1944 most of the warships performing that duty came from the Royal Canadian Navy.
Early in 1942 when Allied leaders felt they had to placate the embattled Russians by attacking Germans somewhere, they ordered Canadian forces to raid the port at Dieppe in Northern France. A combination of strong German defenses and haphazard planning by the Allies made the raid a disaster. It cost nine hundred Canadians their lives and wounded many, many more. But Canadians kept enlisting. By 1944 the Canadian Army had fielded a half a million soldiers.
The chastened allies wouldn’t attack the European continent again until D-day. And Canada sent thousands ashore to fight and die at Normandy
After Pearl Harbor Canada declared war on Japan even before the United States got around to it. And Canadian soldiers played a role in the war in the Aleutians–made a large contribution to the invasion that took the island of Kiska back from the occupying Japanese in 1943.
I would be willing to bet that Canada today could not even match the contribution that was made at the start of WW2. Sad.
You may be right, but they were there when it counted, and I thought they deserved credit for that.
hi dennis, the dieppe raid wasnt a total disaster though was it? didnt canadian troops also attack the main offices of the german uboat command right there? didnt they come out of there with radio and enigma machine info that helped the overall war effort? wasnt ian fleming (of james bond fame later) also involved? sitting offshore on a british warship waiting specifically for the info to be brought directly/personally to him?
Randy, I’m going to do some more research and I may have to publish a supplement/correction. It wouldn’t be the first time. I wanted to post about Canada in the war and I found four good sources. I didn’t get a lot of detail about Dieppe. Expect another post on that specific battle within a few days. And thank you for the information.