The Mac-Paps serve in Spain

Story by Sharon Adams

In 1936, the elected republican government in Spain faced a military coup headed by General Francisco Franco, who was backed by the fascist governments in Italy and Germany. The republicans put out a plea for international help, and tens of thousand of idealistic young men and women from many countries flocked to Spain to fight fascism.

Western governments feared they would be radicalized and return home to foment revolution. In the spring of 1937, Canada joined other countries that made it illegal for their citizens to enlist in foreign wars.

Nonetheless, by mid-July, nearly 1,600 Canadian volunteers had gone to Spain to fight with the republications. At least 400 died there.

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A German commander’s assessment
of the D-Day invasion

Story by Stephen J. Thorne

A field report submitted by Adolf Hitler’s commander-in-chief on the western front said the Allies’ invading D-Day forces gained a foothold in occupied Europe due to four key factors. In the report filed two weeks after the June 6, 1944, invasion, Field Marshal Karl R. Gerd von Rundstedt said the Allies’ “complete mastery in the air” was the No. 1 contributor to their early successes in Normandy.

Von Rundstedt also cited “the skilful and large-scale employment of enemy parachute and airborne troops [and] the flexible and well-directed support of the land troops by ships’ artillery” as major factors in the invasion, along with painstaking preparation and a swift post-invasion buildup.

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July 18-20, 1944

Second and Third Canadian divisions participate in an attack designed to break out of the Orne bridgehead south of Caen, France.

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First Blood

Story and photography by Stephen J. Thorne

Wednesday, March 13, 2002, broke sunny and cool as 500 Canadian soldiers assembled on the tarmac in the yellow morning light at the U.S. military base in Bagram, Afghanistan.

Wearing their new green camouflage fatigues on combat operations for the first time, they sat and stood in groups of 30 to 40 soldiers, preparing to board the U.S. Chinook helicopters that would take them on Canada’s first-ever helicopter-borne assault. It would also be Canada’s first wartime assault since the Korean War, nearly 50 years earlier.

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The sinking of the Königsberg

Story by Sharon Adams

When the First World War broke out, Harold James Arnold was a wireless operator working in the remote Queen Charlotte Islands (now Haida Gwaii) off the west coast of British Columbia.

In 1915, he earned a Distinguished Service Order for his actions July 6 and 11 as a wireless operator for the Royal Naval Air Service in the remote Rufiji River delta in German East Africa.

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July 9-10, 1943

The Allied invasion of Sicily begins.

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CBC covers the Battle of Carpiquet

Story by Sharon Adams

War correspondent Matthew Halton covered the Second World War for the CBC. Here is an extract from a recording of what he saw and heard during the Canadian attack on Carpiquet village and airfield July 4, 1944.

“This is Matthew Halton of the CBC speaking from France.

“It’s two minutes to five in Normandy and the sun hasn’t risen yet over us or over the Germans 800 yards away. It will rise on a fearful scene because at 5 o’clock precisely the Canadians are going to attack. And they’ll attack with the most enormous concentration of fire ever put down on a small objective….

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Last men standing

Story by Stephen J. Thorne

More than a million Canadians served in the Second World War. As of March 31, 2018, just 41,100 of them remained, according to Veterans Affairs Canada. They averaged 93 years old.

Some 25,000 Canadians served in Korea. Sixteen months ago, 7,200 survived, average age 86.

Here are the last surviving veterans of Canada’s previous wars:

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July 3, 1931

The first ships built for the Royal Canadian Navy, HMCS Saguenay and HMCS Skeena, complete their maiden voyages to Halifax from Portsmouth, England.

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Ted Martens: Dutch resistance fighter

Story by Stephen J. Thorne

Ted Martens did whatever he could to derail the Nazi war machine while serving with the Dutch resistance during the Second World War—then the Nazi war machine derailed him, but only briefly.

Martens was captured early in 1942 and came within a hair’s-breadth of torture and execution at the hands of German troops. But the strapping Dutchman staged a daring escape and later joined British forces in the drive to liberate his homeland from Nazi tyranny.

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The sinking of the Llandovery Castle

Story by Sharon Adams

On the night of June 27, 1918, 14 nursing sisters, all but two Canadian, died, victims of a war crime.

The Canadian hospital ship Llandovery Castle was on its way back to England after delivering recovering soldiers to Halifax. It was running with full lights, its Red Cross clearly illuminated, when it crossed the path of a German U-boat about 200 kilometres from the Irish coast.

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June 29, 1922

France grants Canada land surrounding Vimy Ridge for a memorial park; the Canadian National Vimy Memorial is unveiled there in 1936.

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