Canadian Contributions CANADIAN HISTORY 1201

Video & Worksheet o Canada and World War II (37:17) Canada and World War II

The Defense of Hong Kong o Canadians fought their first engagement of the Second World War defending the British island colony of Hong Kong o After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the British decided that a strong force in Hong Kong might deter Japan from attacking the island o Canada was asked to supply troops to support the British and Indian forces in Hong Kong

The Defense of Hong Kong o In October 1941, two barely trained battalions, the Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers, sailed from Vancouver ◦The Canadian force totaled 1975 troops o With a force of only 14,000 British, Canadian and Indian soldiers, defending Hong Kong was an impossible task o Nevertheless, the vastly outnumbered Allied troops held out against the Japanese invaders from the 8 th to the 22 nd of December ◦When supplies and ammunition ran out the Allies were forced to surrender o The cost of the defense of Hong Kong was high for the Canadian battalions, 290 were killed and another 500 wounded

The Defense of Hong Kong o The cost was to grow even higher, for the Canadian prisoners of war lived in terrible conditions ◦By the end of the war another 260 had died o Over ¼ of the Canadians who had been sent to Hong Kong did not return home

The Dieppe Raid o Although the Allied command was unwilling to respond to Soviet demands for an all-out attack on the Western Front in Europe in 1942, they did respond with an attack on German fortifications at Dieppe, on the French coast o In the early morning on August 19, 1942, a force of 6,000 soldiers, made up primarily of Canadian troops, supported by both the British and Americans, launched an attack on the beaches at Dieppe

The Dieppe Raid o Very little went right for the Allies, and of the 5,000 Canadians involved in the attack, 1400 were killed or wounded and nearly 2,000 were taken prisoner o More Canadians died in the few hours at Dieppe then on any other day of the war

The Italian Campaign o In 1943 Allied forces landed in Sicily and began the long march through Italy o The Canadian First Division landed with the Eighth British Army in the invasion of the Italian island of Sicily ◦They then moved into the peninsula of Italy o The Canadian forces pushed northward with little resistance until they arrived at Ortona on the Adriatic Sea

The Italian Campaign o At Ortona, the German army took a stand and bloody fighting occurred throughout the month of December 1943 o The German’s were finally driven back when the Canadians succeeded in breaking through the Adolf Hitler line, the last German defensive front before Rome o The Canadians continued north and smashed the last line of defence in northern Italy, the Gothic Line, in the fall of 1944

Operation Overlord: D-Day o On June 6, 1944, Operation Overlord, the great Allied invasion of German held Europe began with the Invasion of Normandy o The plan was to use an aerial bombardment to knock out German tanks, gun batteries and air bases ◦Then the landing could occur along the 80 kilometers of Normandy beach

Operation Overlord: D-Day o American forces assaulted the west end of the beach while British and Canadians troops landed in the east o A combined force of 15,000 Canadian and 9,000 British troops were assigned the target of Juno beach, which consisted of 8 km of coastline ◦The plan was not a success o German gun positions were not knocked out by the bombing and were able to pour artillery fire on to the beaches where Allied forces were unprotected

Operation Overlord: D-Day o Canadians suffered 1074 casualties, including 359 dead on D-Day o The landing was completed, however and the invasion was largely considered a success o The Allies had a foothold in Europe and began the long campaign to push back the German armies

Video & Worksheet o D-Day on Juno Beach (45:20) D-Day on Juno Beach

Liberation of the Netherlands o After D-Day, the Canadian troops distinguished themselves in a year of long, hard fighting against some of Hitler’s crack divisions o The Canadian Third Division was assigned the task of capturing Caen, France ◦Over 1000 soldiers were killed achieving this objective

Liberation of the Netherlands o Through the winter of , the division moved northward to clear German resistance out of parts such as Dieppe and Calais o By March 1945, Canadian forces had moved through Belgium and pushed German troops in the Netherlands back across the Rhine River ◦Allied victory came in May 1945 o It was the Canadian command who accepted the surrender of the Nazi forces in the Netherlands

The War at Sea o At the beginning of the war the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) consisted of 13 ships and about 3,000 soldiers ◦By the end of the war it had expended to include 370 ships and almost 100,000 personnel o RCN activities ranged from submarine warfare in the North Atlantic to defense of the West Coast from a feared Japanese invasion o Germany attempted to cut off all supplies to Britain from Canada and the United States in the hopes of starving Britain into submission o The British and Canadian navies became committed to ending the Germany submarine threat

The War at Sea o In the first years of the war, German submarines, hunting in teams called “Wolfpacks”, were highly successful in sinking slow moving merchant ships that were carrying essential supplies to Britain

The War at Sea o In 1942, U-Boats sank the SS Caribou, a Nova Scotia- Newfoundland passenger ferry with the loss of 136 lives ◦Mr. Gilbert’s Aunt was killed in this attack!! o The Germans quickly gained control of the Atlantic and were sinking ships faster than they could be built o The answer to the U-Boat attacks was to send merchant ships in Convoys with Canadian warships ◦These convoys were met in the mid-Atlantic by British convoys that would escort the ships the rest of the way to Britain

The War at Sea o In 1941, Newfoundland became the centre of the Atlantic force and the Newfoundland Escort Force was founded o The RCN Corvettes provided much of the protection in these convoys o Unfortunately, Canadian shipbuilders could not produce these Corvettes fast enough as even larger “Wolfpacks” continued hunting in the waters off Newfoundland and across the Atlantic routes o In November 1942, the Germans scored a huge success, sinking 15 ships of a 42-ship convoy and damaging others o Despite the German victory, the tide began to turn in the Allies favour

The War at Sea

o The British provided more destroyers (a larger class of escort ship) to protect the convoys o In order to better protect the convoys improvements were made ◦The training that the escort crews received was improved and the small Corvettes were refitted with better anti-submarine weapons, which improved the escort protection for the convoys ◦More ships were also added to the escort fleet and the crews were given time to rest and recuperate in between missions ◦The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) was provided with long-range bombers that could cover the convoys until they reached British airspace

The War at Sea o By the “Wolfpacks” were far less effective o They suffered heavy damage from depth charges dropped by Allied ships and bombs dropped by Allied planes o The importance of the RCN’s role in keeping shipping routes open cannot be understated

The War in the Air o The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) began the war as a small force of 4,000 in 1939 but grew quickly ◦By the end of the war, almost 250,000 men and women served o Individual Canadians served in Britain’s air force, the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Battle of Britain o Approximately 86,000 Canadians passed through the British Commonwealth Training Plan and many pilots remained in the RAF for the duration of the war

The War in the Air o As late as 1944, six out of every 10 Canadian pilots served in the RAF rather than the RCAF ◦The largest Canadian involvement was in Bomber Command o Germany had angered the Allies by bombing British cities during the Battle of Britain as well as during frequent bombing raids thereafter ◦The Allies responded in kind, bombing German cities in relentless day and night attacks o The official position emphasized that military targets were the primary objective, but the truth was that the bombing inflicted terrible civilian damage ◦More than 1 million German civilians were either killed or wounded

The War in the Air o Canadian fighter pilots helped protect / escort bombers on their way to targets deep inside German territory o Canadian bombers helped support the invasion of Europe and also engaged in bombing German cities toward the end of the war o The Canadian bomber group became known for both its accuracy and its low casualty rate

The War in the Air o Ferry Command ◦Shipping was taking too long so the alternative was to start transporting goods via air ◦Britain, Canada and the United States cooperated to fly nearly 10,000 airplanes from North America to Britain ◦Gander and Goose Bay were developed as the jumping off points for the dangerous non- stop trans-Atlantic flights