I agree with
Old Sweat's comments, especially regarding the First World War. I would add that Canada's most significant contributions to the Second World War were not on the conventional, military battlefields. Our most significant contribution was, in fact, made by civilians, not soldiers. We moves from a minor industrial country to a global powerhouse in just over three years. We were a HUGE part, a disproportionately important part of Roosevelt's "Arsenal of Democracy." Canada was blessed with some excellent industrial management (a far cry fro today) and, of course, a government that, literally, "got out of the way." The second major contribution was in uniform but it was here, at home: the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. The third most important contribution did involve combat: the Battle of the Atlantic was the
only really decisive battle of the Second World War - as long as we won that, the Germans could have defeated the Russians, or vice versa for that matter, and the Anglo-American (and Canadian and Australian) 'world' would have been "safe." Canada's contribution was not always very effective - in, especially, 1941/42 we had too few qualified sailors in too many ships - our fast growing industrial capacity outstripped the RCN's capacity to recruit and train men and women. But: we had the ships and even when they were not doing as well as they could and should have they were doing most of what was needed. By 1943 the RCN was combat effective,
joint RCN/RCAF operations were beating back the Germans in the dreaded "black hole," and a Canadian, RAdm Leonard W Murray was in a
supreme or
theatre allied command position as Commander-in-Chief, Canadian Northwest Atlantic.
So, I would invite you to attach three faces to Canada in the Second World War:
CD Howe, the Minister of Munitions and Supply, known as the "Minister of Everything" during the war, with a Canadian worker, notably a female. Air Marshal Robert Leckie, head of the BCATP
and Rear Admiral Leonard Murray
