Canadian Military History in Perspective

Canadians are familiar with their armed forces being engaged in providing humanitarian assistance. From Haiti to the Indian Ocean, military and civil air resources are deployed to bring aid to countries ravaged by disease or natural disasters. However, the public knows very little or nothing at all of the story behind two plaques, 4,000 miles apart, that commemorate our first international airborne mercy mission.

While residents of British Columbia waited for the war to reach their shores in the early months of 1942, submarines attacked along the east coast for the first time since 1918. For most historians the assault on Canada’s shipping began with the sinking of the steamers Nicoya and Leto in the mouth of the St. Lawrence on May 12. There is no denying the impact on the collective Canadian psyche of this brazen incident in the main seasonal artery of Canadian trade, but Canada’s trade links had been under siege for months by then.

The Canadian part of Operation Goodwood/Atlantic began well. The veteran 3rd Canadian Division fought into Caen’s industrial zone south of the River Orne while 4th Brigade from 2nd Cdn. Div. won a difficult battle for the village of Louvigny. The 3rd British Div. on the left flank of the bridgehead also gained its initial objectives, but the two leading British armoured divisions lost close to 200 tanks without reaching the vital high ground south of the city.

On inland lakes and on the coasts, Royal Canadian Air Force watercraft performed a myriad of odd, but vital jobs. Near Patricia Bay, B.C., they retrieved floating practice torpedoes that had been dropped by No. 32 Operational Training Unit. Range boats patrolled bombing and gunnery ranges, prepared to rescue crews of crashed aircraft, warning civilians and fishermen away from danger areas and towing hydrofoil targets. General Utility boats of roughly 10 to 14 metres transported local station supplies and laid down flare paths during night-flying operations, and refuelling tenders, loaded with 27,240 litres of gasoline, serviced flying boats. Bombing rafts, built of heavy timber, delivered depth charges to those same aircraft, and derrick scows lifted moorings and other heavy materials.

In 1939, the bulk of the pre-war Royal Canadian Navy—four of six destroyers—had been deployed on the Pacific coast in response to the very real threat of war with Japan. War with Germany soon stripped British Columbia of its naval forces, so that when war with Japan came there was little in place.

On the afternoon of July 11, 1944, Canadian Corps Headquarters once again became operational on the soil of France. Lieutenant-General Guy Granville Simonds assumed responsibility for 7,280 metres of front in the Caen sector of Normandy. There was little time or inclination to mark this event or link it with the memory of the vaunted Canadian Corps of First World War fame because there was too much to be done.

Air forces have long since relied on boats of one sort or another. They have been used to pluck downed aircrew from the sea, tow targets for air-gunner training and shuttle personnel, fuel, cargo and munitions to floatplanes and flying boats.

The expansion of the war in 1942 pulled Canada’s small ship navy in several directions simultaneously, stretching it thin and leading—ultimately—to the greatest crisis in Canadian naval history. The navy’s senior officers were sharply criticized for the way in which they handled these challenges and the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Percy Nelles, was dismissed in January 1944.

Operation Charnwood, the July 8-9, 1944, attack on Caen, Normandy, by I British Corps, was a multi-phase advance. The first part, intended to collapse the city’s outer defensive perimeter, required Canada’s 9th (Highland) Infantry Brigade to capture Buron, Gruchy, and Authie, three villages that the 12th SS had fortified during the month-long pause in the Caen sector.

On July 19, 1909, Hubert Latham took off from Calais, France, in an Antoinette monoplane, attempting to be the first man to fly across the English Channel. Soon afterwards, his engine failed and he came down in the Channel where he was rescued by a French warship. Latham failed in his venture, but achieved another distinction: he was the first pilot saved following an aerial mishap at sea.