A captured U-190 floats in St. John’s Harbour, Nfld., in June 1945.
[Edward W. Dinsmore/DND/LAC/PA-145584]

Who knit ya?

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Nestled away on the top two floors of a four-storey stone-and-brick building overlooking the St. John’s waterfront, just a few metres from the Newfoundland National War Memorial, is a piece of Second World War history unlike any other.

Fifty-nine precarious steps up the back of the former warehouse, the Seagoing Officers’ Club, established by Captain Rollo Mainguy—a B.C. native commanding Canadian navy destroyers in the British colony of Newfoundland—is the stuff of legend.

A retreat and a respite for Allied naval and merchant marine officers between sailings on the North Atlantic run, it became forever known as the Crow’s Nest after a Canadian army colonel, gasping from his upward trek, mopped his beaded brow and uttered the immortal words: “Crikey, this is a snug little crow’s nest.”

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Displays at The Fort Garry Horse Museum and Archives. [Fort Garry Museum and Archives]

An armchair tour of The Fort Garry Horse Museum and Archives

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“We have a rich history,” said Gord Crossley, director of the Winnipeg-based Fort Garry Horse Museum and Archives, of its namesake regiment. “We like to say that we have more battle honours than any other armoured formation in Canada.”

The 43-year unit veteran knows such realities better than most. Since the earliest days of its inception in 1912—and arguably before—The Fort Garry Horse has distinguished itself at home and overseas, from its service in the Great War’s trenches—yes, trenches—to its sword-drawn cavalry charges to its mechanized role in D-Day and beyond. In everything it has accomplished during the ensuing years and decades—be it in Germany, Latvia or Petawawa, Ont.—Crossley’s former regiment has lived up to its motto, Facta non verba or Deeds not words.

Words, however, have their place. Having been involved with the museum for some 34 years, Crossey continues to tell the unit’s story, one battle honour at a time. Here, in an armchair tour of the site, he highlights it anew.

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The Battle of the Windmill National Historic Site near Prescott, Ont., where some 250 Americans attempted to invade and “liberate” Canada from the British. [Dennis G. Jarvis/Wikimedia]

The Hunters become the hunted,
Part 1: The 1838 U.S. invasion of Canada

STORY BY RUSSELL HILLIER

It’s not that I doubted whether visiting the battlefield at Windmill Point was a good idea, but more a case of if it was a good idea on this day. An iron-grey sky had produced a drizzling rain that the forecast assured would get worse. So, I packed hastily, hoping to outrun a darkening sky.

The Battle of the Windmill National Historic Site is located only an hour’s drive from Ottawa. It’s where, in 1838, some 250 armed American invaders rode the momentum force of manifest destiny northward, only to meet a violent end at the hands of British regulars and Canadian militia. The battle itself gets overshadowed figuratively by the War of 1812 and geographically by nearby Fort Wellington. Yet, I’ve always been intrigued by it and the question: Why would hundreds of people pick up their rifles, cross an international border and invade a country that they were not at war with?

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A crew of 10 Squadron, Royal Air Force, that undertook five mine-laying, or gardening, operations in early 1944. [Courtesy Jane Gulliford Lowes]

Historian Jane Gulliford Lowes on Bomber Command’s unsung mine layers

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Forget-me-nots and nectarines; broccoli and sweet pea; daffodil and quince. These aren’t words typically associated with the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command, including its Canadian formations, during the Second World War.

The Ruhr, perhaps; Berlin and Hamburg, certainly—and Dresden. Such names, controversial though some might be, resonate.

Nevertheless, argues British historian Jane Gulliford Lowes, there’s an untold air war story in the likes of geraniums and jasmines.

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