A Canadian dispatch rider somewhere in Normandy nonchalantly strikes a match on a mannequin's hip.  Alex Gray took this human-interest shot, hoping that this Dr's home-town paper might run it.  Such pictures gave reassurance to families in Canada that life on the line wasn't without it's lighter side.

A Canadian Medic somewhere in Normandy

August 1939, on board the Canadian mine sweeper HMCS Comox headed for Yorke Island, where there was a battery to protect the northern entrance to the inland waters off Vancouver.  By the 1930s, Japan had become an aggressively expansionist power.  The threat of an attack by Japanese armed merchant vessels and submarines was serious.  Gun batteries would enforce security regulations and protect the air station, moored vessels and port facilities.

On board HMCS Comox

A shattered Sherman tank of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers.  It was hit by alternating armour-piercing (AP) and high-explosive (HE) shells.  The turret of the tank was blown straight up and off the body.  Its Canadian crew never knew what hit them.