Detectorists scavenge the main beach at Dieppe, France. The pickings were slim.

[Stephen J. Thorne/LM]

Dieppe, 83 years after the disastrous raid

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

For the purposes of an invasion—or, in this case, a raid—nautical twilight is an opportune time of day just before dawn when the sun is between six and 12 degrees below the horizon. It’s called nautical twilight because the brightest stars can still provide peacetime—and wartime—mariners with points of navigation.

On a typical pre-dawn morning along France’s Alabaster Coast, at Dieppe in particular, it’s often foggy. The twilight is just enough to give inbound vessels a shadowy land reference but, looking out from shore, there’s not much visibility.

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Hours after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, this fire-storm cloud developed over the burning city. Author Iain MacGregor explores the Japanese experience of the bombing in his new book The Hiroshima Men. [WIkimedia]

Humanizing the enemy: author shines new perspectives on 1945 bombing of Japan

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

It’s no surprise that the devastation the August 1945 atomic bombs brought to the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has continued to be investigated by authors and academics alike. One of those authors, British historian Iain MacGregor, has chosen a surprising way to approach the much-discussed topic in his new book The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It.

The narrative details the decades-long journey toward the detonation as much as the detonation itself. Moreover, instead of focusing solely on the U.S. perspective, MacGregor delivers a groundbreaking exploration of the Japanese experience so often missing from western discourse.

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A First World War-era illustration depicts a Canadian soldier in action. [Canada in Khaki]

Half of Canadians say they would go to war for their country; youth, not so much

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

With the U.S. president threatening to economically bludgeon Canada into submission as the 51st state, just under half of surveyed Canadians (49 per cent) say they would go to war for their country.

Those most willing to lay it on the line, 55 per cent of whom said they were willing to fight, were over 54 years old. Among the 1,619 Canadians surveyed, those of fighting age—18- to 34-year-olds—were far less inclined to enlist.

In response to the question, “Could you ever foresee an armed conflict that would compel you to volunteer for military service in a combat role?,” just 43 per cent of the youngest group told the Angus Reid Institute they would.

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Sculptor Tyler Fauvelle poses with his monument of Fern Blodgett Sunde in Farsund, Norway, during its unveiling on May 8, 2025. [courtesy Tyler Fauvelle]

A duplicate of a Canadian war memorial at home in Norway

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

No one expected her to return from her initial voyage across the Atlantic. To make the crossing during the Second World War meant navigating mined waters in treacherous weather, knowing full well U-boats may lurk below.

But with a bucket nearby, Fern Blodgett Sunde made the trip 77 more times aboard the Norwegian merchant vessel Mosdale. Sunde was the first Canadian woman to earn a second class wireless operator’s certificate, and the first women to be a deep sea radio operator. She served until the war’s end, and 75 years later, her life and legacy was captured in a bronze public memorial in her hometown of Cobourg, Ont.

The same place she “watched the Great Lake ships go by, and dreamed of a career at sea, even though it would have been impossible for a young woman born at the end of the First World War.”

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