Bonjour Just reading an atlas by "Odham" and reading about the French part etc. My question concerns the French Canadians. Did they also get drafted for warduty's and come to the ETO. What would be the language they would talk in?? Popski
Interesting point. There most certainly were French Canadians crewing bombers with 6 Group but they were not 'segregated' in any way and generally communicated in English. As to whether there was a 'policy' for French Canadians, I guess it's over to our Canadian members . . . .
Hey, no canadian flag.... Well, first of all, as far as I understand all Canadians in ETO were volunteers, not draftees and that might have something to do with the fact that the Germans had them on the top of their list as toughest adversaries. Reading Reynodl's Steel Inferno, I came across a passage in which he writes that the French Canadians in the army did serve in seperate regiments, but I think this is only understandable, if you look at the areas where they were from...and the way the regiments were made up. No idea about the language that was used. When it comes to the air force, I really have no clue. I have come across many french sounding names of Canadians that flew with commonwealth crews, so I guess seperation was not an issue there... [ 10 July 2002, 05:11 PM: Message edited by: Stevin Oudshoorn ]
Oh, Québec!!! I am sighing... I have only been to this part of Canada, I do not know Toronto or Vancouver or whatever, just nice Québec and Montréal... But about your question. It is very simple. There were obviusly French-Canadians in the Army, along the English-Canadians, which were very good troops, some feared by us; undoubtely though soldiers. They were attached to small units, such as batallions and regiments, and the officers and communication men spoke English, so they could be perfectly coordinated with the rest of the brigade and division... Too difficult?
popski, there were plenty of french canadians in the Canadian army during WW II, in most units they would speak english However the 22nd Inf Regt more popularly know as the Van Doos was entirely french speaking. Later in the war when volunteers were becoming scarce, The Gov brought in a form of the draft, but bowing to pressure ammended it so that only volunteers were sent overseas. By late war, due to a replacement crisis, various means were used to try to persuede those who would not volunteer for combat duty (nick-named zombies) to become volunteers. It is my understanding that a large number of these "zombies" were french canadian, amongst whom the war was less then popular.
Thanks guy's In my mind was the example of WW1 Belgian soldiers. The Flemish soldiers very often didn,t understand or wouldn't understand their French speaking officer. I don't know how politic's was in those day's in Canada between the French and British part but it is a big isue nowadays. Therefore this question. Popski
Certainly there were French Canadians serving in the Canadian Army in WW2 and they were all volunteers. But there was also a great anti-war sentiment in Quebec concerning fighting for the 'British' cause My uncle found himself on leave in Quebec City when his ship docked there. There were running fights in the streets between British seamen and Quebeckers and Union Jacks were burned. My uncle helped to bombard the French fleet in 1941 and stated that they should have done the same to Quebec City when they left. He was certainly not impressed.
Thanks, Major! That is something I didn't know. I did know about that thing about Québecquians and their Québecquian nationalism... My best friend is from Montréal and I have never heard him speaking badly about the Englis-speaking parts of his country.
