Canadians at War
Canada’s Role
The Battle of
Britain marked the beginning of the long fight against Nazi control in Europe,
which would last until 1945. Canadian pilots would fly alongside other Allied
pilots to help combat the Germans. In the seas, cargo ships from Canada would
deliver vital supplies and help fight the U-boat problem head on. Canadian soldiers
would take part in key battles, like that for Hong Kong, Dieppe, the Italian campaign,
Normandy and the liberation of French and Dutch territories. Like in the First
World War, Canada’s initial fighting force was small, but would rapidly expand
and gain prestige.
Canadians at Honk Kong, 1941
As the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, USA and Canada would join the war, making it a true world war.
While the European nations fought
against the Nazis and Italians, Japan was unhindered in its conquest of foreign
territories in Asia. A small Canadian contingent was positioned in Hong Kong, a
British colony, and was the line of defense against the invading Japanese. The Canadians were poorly trained (20 days)
and were young, some being only 15. The Japanese attacked with unstoppable
force and the Canadians surrendered after 17 days, having lost 290 men,
including their commander. Sergeant-Major John Osborne died when he threw
himself on a grenade to protect his soldiers, and received Canada’s first
Victoria Cross. December 25, 1941 was the day the remaining surrendered, with
over 500 wounded on top of the 290 dead. They would be sent to prison camps
until the way was over, and treated poorly, since the Japanese had no respect
for a soldier who surrendered. They were to be tortured, and used as slaves,
resulting in 267 Canadian deaths in prison camps in Japan.
The Dieppe Raid, 1942
The Allies had a plan to invade the French
coast of Dieppe to test German defenses and take pressure off the soviets
fighting to the east. This would be a quick jab, and then retreat to Britain,
and was called Operation Jubilee. It started at 4:50 a.m. on august 19, as 5000
Canadians began to land on the beaches. The Germans were ready, and bombarded
them with artillery. The tanks sent o help the Canadians got stuck on the stony
beach, and the air and sea cover could not help the exposed Canadians. By the afternoon, it was looking terrible. 900
Canadians were dead or dying, over 1000 were injured, and 1900 were taken as
prisoners. Only 2200 returned as planned to Britain that day. Canadian Colonel
C.P. Stacey noted the attack was a complete failure, and many argue that it
could have been better planned and saved lives. Some claim the importance of
this mission as preparation for D-Day, where air and sea support would be
overwhelming, and a more efficient way of lading the vast number of troops would
be employed.
Canadians at Sea
1942 marked a key point in the war. Britain was cut off,
relying on Canada and the USA for supplies to survive. The German U-boat crews
called this the “Happy Time” because they sunk incoming cargo ships so quickly,
around 20 per week. Winston Churchill would go to say the only thing that
frightened him about the war was the U-boat peril. The Royal Canadian Navy
(RCN) only had 11 ships and 20,000 sailors at the outbreak of war, but would
grow to be the world’s third largest, with almost 4000 warships and 113,000
sailors, including 7000 women. Fifty or sixty cargo ships would travel in a
convoy, guarded by three or four corvettes, agile little warships. These would
fight the U-boats, and deter them from attacking the convoy. Over 25,000 ships would travel to Britain alone,
being escorted by the RCN. Another important unit was the Merchant Marine, the
civilian sailors of cargo ships. They suffered some of the highest losses, as
they were the main targets for U-boats, and were not even safe in Canadian water.
In 1942, German U-boats made it into the Gulf of the St. Lawrence and sunk 21
ships. A U-boat also torpedoed a Newfoundland car ferry that year, killing 136.
In 1942 along, the Allies lost 1164 ships, but improvements in training, battle
experience, radar, ad patrol planes would increase survival rates. In the final
4 months of the 1944 there were 24 Allied ship losses versus 55 sunken
U-boats. Once the supplies were getting through,
the British, now aided by Canadian and American soldiers, could stand a
fighting chance.
Canadians in the Air
By 1942, the
Allies had begun their systematic bombing of many German cities. The goal was
to take out industrial targets, but the Allied air commanders decided to
destroy the fighting will by bombing civilian targets as well. On May 30, 1000
bombers raided Cologne, and from July 24-30, Hamburg was attacked eight times,
destroying 60% of the city and killing 80,000 civilians. Berlin would later
face these bombings as well, but it did not destroy the fighting will, it only strengthened
it. Canada’s air force grew from a small force in 1939 to the fourth largest in
the world by war’s end. On top of this,
many Canadian pilots flew with other air forces, especially the British Royal
Air Force. They were tasked with the night raid over cities, and suffered high
losses. Some missions resulted in over 500 aircrew losses, due to enemy
fighters, anti-aircraft fire, radar, poor weather, darkness, bad equipment,
fatigue, and being caught in searchlights. Canadian pilots conducted the famous
“Dambusters” raid on May 17, 1943. The targets were hydroelectric dams in the
Ruhr Valley, and the pilots were forced to fly very low before dropping
spinning bombs. The result was 2 destroyed dams, but a loss of 13 out of the 30
aircrew, plus one taken prisoner.
The Italian Campaign, 1943
July 10, 1943
marked the Allied invasion of Sicily, spearheaded by the First Canadian Division,
in an operation called Operation Husky. Initial casualties were low, only 60,
and 650 enemies were captured. After a month, 2310 casualties had been taken,
but the primary objectives were reached. This demoralized the Italians, who
threw Mussolini out of power. In response, hundreds of thousands of German
troops were sent in to hold the area. The quick initial success led Allied
commanders to press on the invasion, which would also help relieve pressure on
the Russians. On September 3, 1943 the Canadians advanced, finding little opposition
until they had pushed further in, where they met resistance in the form of heavily
defender German battle lines. Ortona was reached by December, where Canadians faced
the First German Paratrooper Division, highly skilled fighters who
booby-trapped the city. The city was rigged against the Canadians, so they
resorted to fighting house by house. They developed a tactic called
mouse-holing, where they would break through the attic of one house into the
next, and work through each house. This gave Canadians a reputation as elite
street fighters. After a week, Ortona was taken, but with losses of 2339 Canadians.
The march continued, and Rome was taken in June 1944. The Italian campaign
would be overshadowed by the D-day invasion, but it was essential in the
victory.
D-Day, 1944
General
Eisenhower announced the start of the European invasion in 1944, with the Normandy
beaches being the targets. Using info gathered from the Dieppe raid, a proper
plan was constructed and put in play. Around 2.5 million Allied soldiers
prepared for the attack, with 4000 landing craft, 700 warships, and 11,000
planes. Field Marshall Rommel commanded
60 divisions of German troops in France and the Netherlands. Allied bombers
started attacking in spring of 1944 to weaken defenses, as D-day was planned.
Day of Deliverance, as it stood for, was planned for June 5, but was put off
due to bad weather until 2:00 a.m. on the 6th, when paratroopers
were inserted behind German lines. Bombers began attacking 75 minutes later,
and the warships joined in at 5:30. At exactly 6:30, the first soldiers hit the
beaches. Canadians were given Juno beach
to take, and were the only group to take their objective by that night, but
suffered 335 dead and 739 wounded. Within the duration of the week, 300,000
troops were safely on shore, and this climbed to 1 million men and 200,000 vehicles
by the end of the month. Now, it was a war on two fronts.
The Liberation of Europe
After D-day, more
forced invaded through France and Italy, pushing the Germans back. Now, the V-1
buzz bomb and V-2 rocket were unleashed against British cities, until the
rocket launching location were overrun. For 11 months after Normandy, fighting
in Europe would go on, with Canadians losing 1000 men a month. They had to
clear Germans from channel ports in France and the Netherlands, including Dieppe.
The Germans flooded Holland as they retreated, but the Canadians persisted,
accomplishing their task with 7600 casualties. The German surrendered on May 5.
Some Dutch could only eat tulip bulbs until food arrived, but they showered the
soldiers with flower petals.
Hitler ordered
his men to stand and fight, as any who gave up but an inch was a traitor. In a
last move, the Battle of the Bulge, he ordered his 3000 reserve tanks out into
Western Europe, but this failed. By April 1945, the Soviets had made it into
Berlin, and fighting was over by May 8. On April 30, Hitler committed suicide
to avoid a public death like that of Mussolini. May 7, 1945 is VE Day, the day
of victory in Europe.
The Holocaust
As the Allied
armies advanced into Europe, they discovered concentration camps where the SS
(Schutzstaffel) kept and killed prisoners, mainly Jews. Hitler came up with the
“Final Solution” to the Jewish problem in Europe in 1942, an extermination of
all the Jews. Dachau and Bergen-Belsen were typical camps where prisoners were
used as slaves. In some places, medical experiments were carried out on the
prisoners, like human lab rats. Camps like Treblinka, Sobibor, and Maidanek (in
Poland) used overworking, shooting, torturing, and hanging to kill the Jews. At
Auschwitz, up to 6000 people a day could be gassed. This involved herding them
into large gas chambers, locking the door and dropping Zyklon B gas into the
room through openings in the ceiling. Within3 to 15 minutes, all the people
would be killed. Anything valuable, including gold teeth filling were taken and
put into secret vaults.
These camps gave
rise to some tales of bravery, like that of 18 year old Rosa Robota. Rosa,
along with numerous other workers, smuggles gunpowder out of their workshops
and destroyed a crematorium and gas chambers at Auschwitz. When it was discovered
Rosa was responsible for organizing it, she was tortured and killed. In the
end, over one third of Europe’s Jewish population had been eradicated, around 6
million. Orders were given to destroy the camps before they were found, but
many were too slow to do so, and were discovered by Allied soldiers. Even the
battle-hardened men would break down at what they saw there. The Allies then decided to save some parts of the
camps as a reminder of the Holocaust.
Commandos in the Pacific
Though victory in
Europe was celebrated on 8 May, 1945, the war was far from over. In the
pacific, the war was still escalating, and the Allied needed undercover men who
could speak Japanese or Chinese to serve behind enemy lines to help in
sabotage. For this, they looked to the immigrants in Canada. The government had
not allowed these men to fight, fearing the minorities would then want to vote,
but the pressure finally got to the government. Force 136 was created as a Special
Forces unit to train guerilla fighters and sabotage Japanese assets. The first Chinese Canadian to fight was Henry
Fung, only 19 at the time. Due to their contribution, Chinese Canadians were
given voting rights in 1947. Meanwhile, Japanese Canadians were seen as potential
threats and were interned during the war. Only 35 Japanese soldiers who had joined
before the internment were allowed to stay and fight. Again, after much
pressure, the Canadian government allowed the Japanese Canadians to help in the
war effort, serving as translators, as well as radio monitors. They also
broadcasted propaganda to isolated Japanese units to try and get them to
surrender, and many joined the Canadian Intelligence Corps. Over 100 Japanese Canadians
attended S-20, a school operated y the army, and helped gather evidence for the
War Crimes Investigation Force. They got the rights to vote in 1948.
Japan Surrenders
President Trumann,
the new president of the USA after Roosevelt’s death, warned the Japanese to
surrender or face total destruction in 1945. Unsurprisingly, Japan rejected
this proposition. On August 6, a lone bomber, the Enola Gay flew over Hiroshima and dropped an atomic bomb. When it
exploded, 60% of the city was ruined, and 71,000 were dead or missing. Another 68,000
were injured, and a few days later the worst effects set in. Since Japan still
did not surrender, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days
later. Again casualties were high, as 35,000 died and 60,000 were injured. Radiation
poisoning hit the survivors a few days later, though they did not know what
caused their skin to fall off and their hair and teeth to fall out. At this
point Japan was ready to surrender, and they promptly did on 2 September 1945.
They surrendered to General Douglas MacArthur, the American commander in the
Pacific. At long last, the war was finally over.
The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.-Thomas Jefferson
Homework for this chapter
No comments:
Post a Comment