Canadian military

[FW-190 Pilot]

canadian has send a lot of troops and resource to the war too, their nickname during the war is something like "world's factory"
if you have some info about canadian military, please post it in here thanks

[RighteousDuncan]

Source http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache...ient=firefox-a

This is pretty accurate stuff, I checked it with some other sources, enjoy mate!
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World War Two
'The Truly Global Conflict'
1939 - 1945

A Canada of 12 million people put 1.1 million citizens into uniform during WWII.
France Crumbles

For a full year, from June 1940 when France fell until June 1941 when the Germans invaded Russia, Canada was the second largest power in the struggle against Hitler's Europe.

After the evacuation at Dunkirk and while Paris was enduring its short-lived siege, a Canadian and a Scottish division were sent to Normandy (Brest) and penetrated 200 miles inland toward Paris before they heard that Paris had fallen and France had capitulated. They retreated and re-embarked for England, and that was a good thing. At this stage of the war, the Germans would probably have destroyed them.

At the same time as the Canadian 1st division landed in Brest, the Canadian 242 Squadron (Douglas Bader's squadron) of the RAF flew their Hurricanes to Nantes (100 miles south-east) and set up there to provide air cover.

After the fall of France, the 1st Canadian Division was the only mobile, armed and fully manned ground division in all of the British Isles, and defence against a German invasion might have fallen squa

rely on it.
Canada - Arsenal to the War Effort

Canadian war factories were safe from bombing. Canada became an arsenal, and was Britain's chief overseas supplier of war materiel.

Canada did not accept American Lend-Lease aid. Actually Canada ran its own lend-lease program for its allies called "Mutual Aid", supplying its allies with four billion dollars worth of war materiel. A further credit of a billion dollars was given to Britain.
Battle of Britain

About 104 Canadian pilots flew in the Battle of Britain (August-October 1940), some of them in the all-Canadian R.A.F. 242 Squadron and the rest with various squadrons. Their numbers as non-British pilots were second only to the Poles (who were expatriates whose air force had already been destroyed by the Luftwaffe). Twenty Canadian pilots lost their lives in stemming the German onslaught.
On August 30, in a major engagement, 242 Squadron attacked a formation of over 100 Germans and shot down 12. None of the squadron's planes were lost.


Commemorative stamp - 1980

The men of No. 1 Squadron RCAF were the first Canadian fighter pilots to arrive in Britain as a unit. They crossed the North Atlantic in ships, with their own Canadian-built Hawker Hurricanes still in wooden crates.

No. 1 Sqn. arrived in England at the height of the Battle of Britain. Their operational training took place virtually between the air battles raging around their base at Croydon. The Squadron (later re-numbered to 401) was swiftly declared "operational" and became the first RCAF unit to engage the enemy when it intercepted German bombers over southern England on August 26th. It shot down three and damaged four, for the loss of one Hurricane.
By mid-October No. 1 Squadron had shot down 31 German planes, with another 43 "probables" or damaged, for a loss of 16 Hurricanes, and three pilots killed.

Flight-Lieutenant Gordon R. McGregor of No.1 Squadron shot down five German aircraft and won a DFC.

Canadian Aces

There were 142 Canadian aces in WWII (an ace being a pilot who shot down five or more enemy aircraft). Thirty-two of these aces shot down ten or more aircraft. The top five aces were:

"Screwball" George Beurling - 32 kills

"Woody" Vernon Woodward - 21 kills

Henry McLeod - 21 kills

Mark Brown - 18.5 kills

William McKnight - 16.5 kills

Hong Kong

In WWII Canadian soldiers were among the first ground troops to fight the Japanese, in Hong Kong. As part of the defending force, two thousand Canadians, in two battalions, held out on Hong Kong Island against impossible odds for 17 days. 300 were killed and 500 wounded before the surrender.

After the fall of Hong Kong, the Canadians were imprisoned in horrid conditions. Of the Canadian POW's (Prisoners of War), 250 died of malnutrition, maltreatment and disease in Japanese prison camps before the end of the war.

Dieppe

The Dieppe Raid in 1942 was the first large scale attack on Hitler's Fortress Europe, and it was 5000 Canadian troops who made up 85% of the force. The attack had little chance of success from the outset. Only 2000 Canadians returned. 1000 were killed and 2000 were taken prisoner after a single day of fighting.

(The raid was billed as a 'test' of the German defenses, but it was poorly conceived. Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was in charge of the operation, put a bold face on it, but it is thought by some that he should bear the blame for the fiasco. Instead he received another medal.)
Battle of Malta

In the Battle of Malta, where the Luftwaffe and the Italian Regia Aeronautica were fought to a standstill, 25% of the defending pilots were Canadians. George 'Buzz' Beurling, Canada's top ace with 32 kills, fought there.

Link to Canadian Aces of WW2 for a detailed account of Beurling's exploits.

Italy

In the invasion of Sicily and Italy, Canada had 76,000 troops, and lost 10,000 as casualties, 2000 of them fatal. Details of the Battles of Ortona and Monte Cassino will yield more information on the quality of the Canadian fighting man.

The Hitler Line in central Italy was first ruptured by tanks of the Canadian 5th Armoured Division.
Swift Sea Strikes
Better-known are Canada's destroyers and corvettes, but small, fast attack boats were also important. Canada had two flotillas of motor torpedo boats (MTB's) and motor gun boats (MGB's) in the English Channel. They fought German E-boats (torpedo boats) and flak ships, disrupted enemy coastal convoys, cleared mines, and landed supplies for agents on German-occupied islands.

Canadian MTB's and MGB's also operated off Tunisia and Sicily in 1943, and along the Italian coast in 1944. Some of the best-known Canadian captains fought in the Adriatic and the Ionian and Aegean seas. The most famous captain, Tommy Fuller, became known as "THE PIRATE OF THE ADRIATIC".
D-Day
Before dawn on D-Day, 230 heavy bombers from RCAF No.6 Group pounded German shore batteries with 860 tons of bombs. And in the daylight hours, RCAF fighter squadrons flew top cover for the invasion beaches.

Fifty Canadian destroyers, frigates and corvettes assisted in covering the invasion, providing anti-submarine escort and bombarding shore targets.

On D-Day, 14,000 Canadians stormed ashore on Juno Beach and were the only force to capture all their initial objectives that day, at a cost of 1000 casualties, of which 350 were fatal.
Juno Beach
Sherman tanks of the Canadian 1st Hussars land on the beach.

By D-Day 1944, there were in Europe three RCAF Spitfire wings, plus a wing of ground-attack Typhoons and a reconnaissance wing of Spitfires and Mustangs.
Invasion stripes
An RCAF Spitfire gets its "invasion stripes" for D-Day

Normandy and the Low Countries

The Battle of Caen and Falaise Gap, the Rhineland Campaign, all saw large-scale participation by Canadian infantry and armour.

THE BATTLE OF THE SCHELDT was particularly bloody. In five weeks the Canadian First Army took almost 6500 casualties. But the "Water Rats" were victorious.

THE LIBERATION OF HOLLAND was almost entirely a Canadian operation. Still today, the gratitude of the Dutch to Canada is overwhelming.

The Battle of the Atlantic

In 1943 Canada took over naval control of the north-west Atlantic, and by war's end, 80% of the convoys across the North Atlantic were protected by Canadian escort vessels.

The Royal Canadian Navy operated 373 mostly Canadian-built escort vessels on convoy duty in the North Atlantic, CORVETTES and destroyers for the most part, and sank 27 U-Boats. (Canadian aircraft sank another 25.)
The Bomber Offensive

The first Canadian bomber mission over Europe was on June 12, 1941. A year later 68 RCAF bombers took part in the first 1000 bomber raid. By 1944, the RCAF was regularly sending out more than 200 heavy bombers a night on single raids.

By 1944, a quarter of what is usually referred to as the British bomber offensive over Europe was actually Canadian.
On the night of October 6, 1944, RCAF NO. 6 group sent out a record 293 four-engine bombers, Halifaxes and Lancasters, to bomb Dortmund.

10,000 Canadians lost their lives in Bomber Command.
Jimmy Doolittle Flies with the Canucks

331 Wing RCAF (420,424,425 Squadrons) operated from Tunisia in July to October of 1943. They were given a lot of credit for saving the Salerno landings by very accurate night-time bombing of a panzer division attacking the Americans. The aircraft they used was the Wellington Mark X twin-engine bomber, a tropicalized version of the Wellington.

The official RCAF history mentions that General Jimmy Dolittle (USAAF, of Tokyo Raid fame) flew a night mission over Sicily with the Canucks to observe how they could bomb so accurately at night.
Wellington Crew
RCAF Wellinton Crew of 425 Sqn. My thanks to Ted Biech for the information on 331 Wing.
His father, P/O A. Biech, was the navigator, second from left in the photo.
Encounter with German Jets
On March 31, 1945, about 5 weeks before the war ended, RCAF bombers on a daylight mission to Hamburg had the misfortune to run into a force of 30 Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighters. Eight Canadian Lancasters and Halifaxes were shot down.

See March 1945 Daily Operations for a detailed account.

Commonwealth Air Training Plan
RCAF poster

Throughout the war, Canada provided training facilities and instruction to airmen from all over the world in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, graduating 132,000 pilots and aircrew, over half of whom were Canadian.
U.S. president F.D. Roosevelt called Canada "the aerodrome of democracy".

By the war's end there were 48 RCAF squadrons serving in the Western European, Mediterranean and Far Eastern theatres.

Canadian planes and pilots served all over the world, including in Tunisia and the Indian Ocean. Patrolling for the British forces, a Canadian PBY gave the first warning of a Japanese fleet's approach to Ceylon and saved the allied forces there from a surprise attack. The Japanese were beaten off. The PBY was shot down by Japanese Zero fighters, and its crew taken prisoner. The pilot, Leonard Birchall, became known as "THE SAVIOR OF CEYLON".

Canadian fighter squadrons used Hurricanes, Spitfires, Typhoons, Mustangs, and P-40 Warhawks, among others.

RCAF 442 Sqn Mustang Mk IV's (D's) flew top cover for the liberation of the Channel Islands, May 9, 1945, the final combat operation in the
European Theater.

[Sturmtruppen]

"Screwball" George Beurling - 32 kills

"Woody" Vernon Woodward - 21 kills

Henry McLeod - 21 kills

Mark Brown - 18.5 kills

William McKnight - 16.5 kills

canadians aces of flight!,cool 8)

[Gen. Sandworm]

Damn RighteousDuncan thats alot of info.....thanks for the post.

[Gen. Sandworm]

I moved this from General WW2 Disscussion to Other Military Units because it seems more like it has more business here.

[Sturmtruppen]

Originally Posted by Gen. Sandworm

I moved this from General WW2 Disscussion to Other Military Units because it seems more like it has more business here.

right! :wink:

[FW-190 Pilot]

Mark Brown - 18.5 kills ??
whats that 0.5 kill means? thanks for helping me out

and do you think canadian shouldnt be sending soldiers to protect hong kong, i am from hong kong and i dont think they should. why? because the japanese are too strong by then, sending troops to battlefield like that is just sucide, i rather send them to places where they would have better chance to defend themselves

[Sturmtruppen]

Originally Posted by FW-190 Pilot

Mark Brown - 18.5 kills ??
whats that 0.5 kill means? thanks for helping me out

lol! ,maybe he killed the half part of an enemy

[WildBoar]

The .5 would have been a shared kill where he and another pilot both claimed the Kill.

[FW-190 Pilot]

just to say our prime minister a few days ago, he miss a day to the ceremony to thanks canadian to save holland from the nazi (is that holland, i forget), the soldiers diss him for being one day late. the reason is because the prime minister has a minority government and might be too busy to deal with opposition? still its not the reason to be late though. he has over 60% support when he siege power, but blew it on a sponsorship scandal

[FW-190 Pilot]

new info from news
Tourist spot Casa Loma was found to be used as secret factory for new weapons like sonar ships that detects german subermine

the reason they are doing that is to prevent german from ever bombing it.
This is clever but i think its totally not needed, since germany would never be stupid enough to send bombers to go that far, not to mention they having the technology to do that

[Dani]

General info:
http://www.mapleleafup.org/vehicles/cac/index.html

Dieppe raid (operation Jubilee)
http://www.geocities.com/dieppe_berl...tle/dieppe.htm
Quoted from above site:
It had been a massacre that day of August 19, 1942. The Canadians had scrambled from their ungainly landing craft directly into a storm of fire from the German positions dominating the beaches of Dieppe. There had been almost no preliminary naval bombardment to support the attackers nor much preliminary bombing to soften the Dieppe defenses. The Churchill tanks, struggling ashore with enormous difficulty, had found that their treads could not get purchase on the stony shingle. The 27 tanks that made it out of the water could fire their guns but, unable to move well, they could offer only limited fire support to the infantry.

Worse was to come as military commanders, offshore and insulated from the chaos by faulty communications and the heavy smoke of battle, reinforced failure, sending new battalions from the floating reserve to be cut to pieces on the beaches. A disaster to Canadian arms and Allied hopes. The Canadians of the 2nd Division had absorbed 68% casualties in the battle for Dieppe- 3367 out of 4963 officers and men. 907 were killed on the beaches or died in captivity, 586 were wounded, and 1946, including many wounded, were taken prisoner by the victorious Germans.

The defenses of Fortress Europe had been tested in the largest European landing operation since Britain had been driven from the continent at Dunkirk - and the defenses proved unbreachable. In England, nervous war planners knew that the Allies had suffered a serious beating. Seizing a fortified port, seemingly a requirement for a successful invasion, had become the most difficult of tasks.


Canadian prisoners.

http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/trlout/TRA13494.html

We should never forget them. May R.I.P.

Edited to add the picture.

[Walther]

One important thing concerning the Canadians:

While they had conscription in Canada, overseas service was purely voluntary (until spring 1945, then conscripts got sent over when the war was almost over. They were called "Zombies" by the volunteers).

Jan

[Roland]

Does anyone know of a website with a list of weapons the Canadians used?

[Hosenfield]

i think canadians used the same weapons as the british forces along with similiar uniforms. Canadian troops were probably some of the most repected troops in normandy ( by the germans) due to their mostly volunteer status.