Canada's Role in World War II

The Canadian played a part in breaking the Hitler Line, liberating Rome, and another city in Italy, as mentioned by a show called For King & Country on History Television. But it has somehow become 'The Forgotten Army'. Are there any other Canadian achievements in the war?

 

They were also a part of the Normandy invasion.

 

To elaborate on JCalhoun's post:
After the buildup in Normandy was complete, the 1st Canadian Army was about half the "British" force in NW Europe

2 Canadian Battalions formed a significant part of the Hong Kong Garrison in December 1941 and fought until ordered to surrender on Christmas Day. At least one Canadian VC was awarded. http://www.wwii.ca/page42.html

(My mother, my aunt and their parents were in HK during the war -- not interned because my grandfather had Irish Citizenship, but they had some major horror stories to tell of living under Japanese occupation)

Tom

 

Plus the Canadian naval forces played a big role in the Atlantic.

 

Blaster, I see your from the great white north, as am I. It saddens me that you are not already familiar on our very strong showing during WW1, WW2, Korea, UN takings and of course Afghanistan.

I suggest you visit your local legion I know there are many people inside those walls who, over some frosty mugs, would love to weave you some yarns on our great military accomplishments.

Also I can suggest you read Pierre Burton's "Marching As To War" its a great brief overview of our military in the 20th century.

 

I know Canada participated in WW1 & 2, I'm just not too familiar with what they did in particular.

 

Don't forget the Dieppe Raid. While a tactical loss, it was to a wide extent an important strategical victory, in terms of knowledge acquired.

 

don't forget Holland Canada did alot of fighting there. also in WW1 we were though of as elite shock troops.

 

I believe that would be the battle of Ortona, where the Canadians took on mostly German paratroopers who were volunteers just like the Canadians. Does the line "Forgive but never forget" ring a bell? On a show on the history channel probably For King & Country they showed a reunion of the German and Canadians that fought at the battle. The highest ranking member of the Germans and Canadians were seen together shaking hands saying that line.

 

,,i thought it went ..FORGIVE BUT NEVER TAKE OFF , EH....

 

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The Canadian were considered the best troops of first world war , their greatest feat of arms was the taking of Vimy ridge ,
during WW2 if one exclude the deliberatly doomed Dieppe operation , they particulary distinguished themselves in Normandy , closing the Falaise pocket from the north and taking the worst of the fighting
for an unassuming , modest even , country , totally peace loving they always fought with great spirit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaC-w2dI ... ed&search=

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Sorry, but AFAIK they were criticized for being tardy in closing the Falaise pocket before large numbers of German troops escaped to fight another day.
I'm curious what you mean by "deliberately doomed" Dieppe operation?

 

I though it was the 1st Polish Armoured Division that was responsible for closing off the Falaise pocket. They fought mostly against 12SS if memory serves me correct, a unit which the Canadians usually did not take prisoners of as reprisals for Canadian POWs killed by that unit. I doubt that the Canadians would wait instead of getting their revenge.

 

Aussies still fondly remember the valiant efforts of the Canadians in Korea, fighting side by side with them at the battle of Kapyong, 1951.

At Falaise, despite tremendous fighting efforts by the Canadians and Poles, they couldn't quite close the gap, some historians say that if Monty reinforced them they probably would have reached there objective, while on the other hand some lay the blame at the feet of Eisenhower and Bradley for stopping at prearranged stop lines to avoid possible blue on blue mistakes.

Patton said if Bradley gave him the green light he could have closed the gap, whether he could have kept it closed is an other matter, Bradley thought he couldn't.

Who knows?

 

I just got a copy of the book "Patton's Gap" by Richard Rohmer. Lt Gen Rohmer is ex RCAF, so probably can't be accused of a pro US bias.
In any case Rohmer makes a very good case that it was not Bradley (or Eisenhower) who called off Patton, but B.L. Montgomery.

 

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Anzac , if you don't mind the company , I'm with you on this one ,


Grieg , now for the hard one ....

It is my considered opinion that the Dieppe adventure was meant to fail ,
and to fail in a spectacular fashion .

At the time it was important for churchill to be seen to try and fail , an undeniable proof of the impossibility of setting up the europeen second front

Hitler is on record ( irving , hitler's war 1939 1942)as commenting that it was a sham, not even paratroops were used .
stalin was not impressed at all , as a military demonstration this was ridiculous
The whole thing was cooked between mountbatten and churchill ,
alan Brooke was kept in the dark as to the size of the raid
There were no objective except for some technical stuff with german radar
It could be summed as , let's see what not to do
It never was proven that the hight state of readiness of the german was due to prior information even though some canadians reported that they were expected then and there.

As a failure it was a complete success , cooling down the yanks enthousiasm for getting stuck into the germans ,
it demonstrated to the good people how dangerous a landing on the continent would be and how wise their government was to delay

3/4 of the men engaged didn't come back
the canadians lost a 1000 killed and 2000 prisonners

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Not sure where Rohmer got his info from because Bradley himself in his memoirs said it was his decision to halt Patton.

Historian Carlo D'Este devotes an entire chapter of ' Decision In Normandy ' to The Falaise Controversy.

And interesting stuff it is, too. Montgomery in fact favoured a 'long envelopment', building a defence line to trap the German forces at the Seine. Bradley and Eisenhower favoured a 'short' envelopment at Falaise and Montgomery conceded. D'Este quotes Bradley :
''To his credit, Monty was flexible in his thinking. Ike wrote in his memoirs that Monty agreed the prospective prize was great and left the entire responsibility for the matter in Bradley's hands''.

Bradley further never wavered in his statement that Montgomery had nothing to do with the decision to halt Patton at Argentan. Quoting from Bradley's memoirs;

''Patton, in his diary, blamed Montgomery...But, in fact, Montgomery had no part in the decision, it was mine and mine alone''.

Both Bradley and Montgomery were concerned that, should the gap fail to close and with no strong defences at the Seine, a disaster would occur. Bradley's reasoning to 'stop Patton at Argentan' was, in fact, quite probably sound. The entire 3rd Army was not there - only Haislip's overstretched XV Corps who could well have been badly mauled by the retreating German forces who - do not forget ! - consisted of large numbers of Waffen-SS.

The 'slowness' of the advance was mainly, in fact, on the front of the Canadian 2nd Army and was chiefly due to the sheer exhaustion of the troops pitched against the desperation of their opponents.

 

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The relations between the americans generals and Montgomery were very bad at this point ,
AFAIK monty was the commander in chief of the allied landing , and would remain so until Ike had established his headquarters on french soil ,
Monty was thus giving orders to bradley who was giving orders to patton
the canadians were fighting against a set line of defence while the americans had a much looser set up in front of them ,
Monty could certainly have done more to help the canadians advance

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Rohmer takes on the Bradley "It was my decsion" line and according to him, it is simply incorrect. He claims that Monty gave De Guingand verbal orders that were passed on to Bradley. He qoutes an interview that Brigadier E.T. Williams of Monty's staff gave to Dr. Forrest Pogue:

"Falaise Gap - Remember's was in Freddie's (DeGuingand) truck near Bayeux when French 2nd Armored made it's swing up and crossed the road towards Falaise. Monty said tell Bradley they ought to get back. Bradley was indignant. We were indignant on Bradley's behalf. DeGuingand said: 'Monty is too tidy'. Monty missed closing the sack. Freddie thought Bradley shopuld have been allowed to join the Poles at Trun. Bradley couldn't understand. Thought we were missing a our opportunities over inter/army rights. However it should be pointed out that he regarded Bradley as being under his command; therefore his decision was not made on the basis of inter/army considerations. Master of tidiness. He was fundamentally more interested in full envelopment than inner envelopment. We fell between two stools. He missed the chance of closing at the Seine by doing the envelopment at Falaise."

 

I just re-read my copy of Bradley's a "A General's Life" (which is a much better work of history IMO than "A Soldier's Story"). Bradley takes credit for the idea to turn U.S. forces north towards Argentan, instead of the planned eastward move towards Le Mans.
He does not accept repsonsibility for not closing the gap, although he does make the famous "better a hard shoulder at Argentan than a broken neck at Falaise" statment. He does say he stopped Patton at Argentan, giving a number of reasons including the army boundary, that Falasie was a long standing British objective of great importance to their pride, the fear of friendly fire, the inexperince of the US XV Corps troops and others. He also states that it was believed, incorrectly as he says that they later found out, that the majority of the Germans ahd already slipped the trap by August 13th.

From "A General's Life":
"But the general estimate was that too many had already escaped.
This news was a shattering disappointment - one of my greatest of the war. A golden opportunity had been lost. I boiled inside, blaming Monty for the blunder. We had done our part, set the lower jaws at Argentan and restrained Patton from a brash and foolish overextension. Monty, perhaps too busy with his strategic plans, had turned his part over to the Canadians, an unproven army depending to a great extent on two armored divisions, one Canadian, one Polish, both new to combat. I could not understand why at so crucial amoment Monty had not reinforced the Canadians with some of his battle-hardened British troops, especially the armor. His unrealistic faith in the Canadians had cost us the golden opportunity."