Are you aware of what you just wrote? This is the average oversite I really get upset with, I don't think its intentional, by not refering to Canada as part of the Allies. Are you aware that the first roops to march, in formation, into the Capital of Germany as a recognition reward was a Canadian regiment? The German army sure knew who Canadians were and where they came from. German soldiers knew we were part of the British Commonwealth, we still are thank goodness, but accepted these men as Canadian soldiers not British; in any form what so ever. Maybe now you can be aware of the slight you throw Canada's way, obviuosly unintentionally, when you make such a statement. You are not the only one, as there are still Brits who call Canadians colonists and think our history begins only when the Brits showed up in North America, when in fact North American history goes back about 40,000 years; so the bones and spear tips tell us. Have a good day Corp
Let me rephrase my statement, then. The Allies: Russia, France, the British Commonwealth, and the USA.
I used "British Commonwealth" because the other nations of that group made quite a few important contributions to the war as well. Some, perhaps almost as many as Canada.
What about Poland? Norway? Brazil? Rumania? The Netherlands? (yes, we sent two sloops out to accompany the Normand invasion! )
This is gonna get silly if we have to continually list every single Allied nation.... Hey, Mutant, did you know that German U-boats were often seen in Conception Bay, and their crews used to don civilian clothes and buy food ashore? At least, according to Col. Merritt Hayes Bateman of The Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment (27th Armoured Regiment). This has nothing to do with any topic (I couldn't figure out where to put it!), and is not a dig at Canada, but I was quite amazed at the cheek of the Germans! :lol:
There have been rumors of this, I wonder did they use counterfit or real money? The Canadian coast line is so massive that it was only in the last decade did someone land on a small island, just to satisfy their curiosity, and find a WW II German radio station/listening post. The Germans hid in plain sight and the Allies never bothered them. The three largest navies in the world, by wars end, never bothered with it because they thought it was one of theirs, being that close to Halifax harbour. Like HELLO!
The Germans mined the Thames and the Brits mined ports off the coast of mainland Europe but setting up a radio staion in Canada is cheeky.
At the begining of WWII Canadian Industry was like any other that was hit by the great depression. But the Royals visited Canada, because they new a war was inevitable, to rally the Commonwealth nations. Canadian industry actually held, for the larger part, the Canadian federal government hostage in terms of begining a war industry production program. This condition was "unlimited corporate profits' for the conglomorates to change their present production to war material production. This includes American and British based corporations who had their home offices off Canadian soil. For an example, the Valentine tanks produced in Canada, up to and including the Mark IV's were sent to Russia up to late 1944. The numbers somewhere around 2000 tanks. If my memory is still ok, I think there was also a large number of logistics vehicles sent as well. All in all I think Canadian war time indusrty produced quite a lot of vehicles and the such. Take a gander at this site! http://www.nt.net/~toby/warprod.html By the way the popultaion of Canada was around 12 million persons, not bad production percentages eh?
With this link I rebuff your statement or the USA wining the war; altered for sure and without a reasonable doubt. I do agree along the other points you have stated. Interesting how the world can turn with decisions we see as absolutely rediculous, yet at the time they were made may have been seen as the best decision one could possibly make. To turn to a related but seperate topic perhaps we can agree that we disagree and turn the subject to 'why Turkey crumbled' during WW I? Cheers! http://www.nt.net/~toby/ww1.html
Whoever manned it had guts. Just like Allied agents operating in Europe, you have to admire that kind of courage, even if it is on the other side.
There was actually a midget war going on around the Norwegian islands of Spitsbergen (what's the English word? This used to be a Dutch whaler's colony). The Germans and the Allies tried to set up stations there to study the weather, and got entirely in each other's way. Some of the worst endurance feats were delivered by those who manned the ultra-secret stations.
Definitely not where I'd want to serve out the duration of the war. The fighting aside, the winters there are nothing short of brutal by anyone's standards.
hey, ricky , the germans came ashore but , the populace was all civilian , they couldn't have known. im not pissed off or anything , yeah there were definetely subs around newfoundland , and the germans sunk a passenger ferry between newfoundland and Nova scotia , S.S Caribou, it's hard to confirm a lot of uboat sightings in canada because three quarters of the u-boat fleet ended up being sunk .
True, saw a program a couple of years ago about American divers exploring a U Boat wreck they had found. They managed to identify it. The German records thought it had been lost off the coast of Africa but apparently this boat never received the order and carried on with it's original orders to patrol off America. The interesting thing was there was no American record of a sub being sunk or attacked in that position. The best gues was that it has suffered a torpedo malfunction and torpedoed itself!
I saw that show, too! The U-boat had to have been killed accidentally, because there were no attacks or kills recorded by the Allies in that area at that time. Plus the really spectacular amount of damage she had suffered supports that theory. The same thing happened in the Pacific to USS TANG, the difference being that her captain and some of her crew survived the disaster and the Japanese prison camp. It likely happened to quite a few subs on both sides, although we'll never know for sure.