Canada’s Role in World War II Instructions: While reading the article, highlight important information. Once you have read the article, make notes on what you have learned.

Battle of the Atlantic

With much of Europe in German hands, Britain relied on supplies and reinforcement from Canada. But the German navy was determined to cut this lifeline, and its U-boats hunted Allied ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean. This contest was known as the Battle of the Atlantic and was the longest battle of the war.

The Battle of the Atlantic brought the war to Canada’s doorstep, with U-boats torpedoing ships within sight of Canada’s East Coast and even in the St. Lawrence River. Canada’s Merchant Navy, along with the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), played a key role in the Allied efforts.

The Allies tried to protect cargo ships by organizing convoys guarded by naval vessels. For the first half of the voyage from Canada, the convoys were protected by Canadian ships and planes. In the mid-Atlantic, British forces took over escort duties. In the beginning, the U-boats, which traveled in groups called “wolf packs” had the upper hand. Between 1939 and 1942, the Germans increased the number of U-boats from 30 to 300. In July 1942, for example, U-boats sank 143 Allied cargo ships. The situation was very serious for the Allies, as merchant ships were being sunk faster than they could be replaced, thereby putting the supply link between North America and Europe at great risk.

In mid-1943, the tide began to turn in favour of the Allies. Crews were better trained and more experienced, and submarine-tracking tactics and technology had improved. The navy and airforce had also grown and were able to protect more convoys more effectively. In 1939, the Canadian navy had consisted of 13 ships and 13 000 members. By war’s end, Canada boasted the fourth-largest navy in the world, with 375 ships and 110 000 members.

More U-boats were sunk, and more merchant ships made it past the wolf packs. But the price was high. The Canadian navy lost 2000 members, and more than 1600 Canadians and Newfoundland merchant mariners – civilian sailors – were killed. Among them were eight women.

Sources: "Canada Remembers the Battle of the Atlantic." Veterans Affairs Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.Colyer, Jill, et al. Creating Canada: A History - 1914 to the Present. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2010. Print.

Ortona

On July 10, 1943, Canadian, British and American forces made an assault on Sicily from the sea. On the first day, the Canadians suffered 60 causalities, but captured 650 enemy soldiers. After a month, they sustained 2310 causalities including 12 nursing sisters. But they captured their objectives.

As a result of the fall of Sicily, Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, was overthrown, and the new Italian government surrendered to the Allies. But Hitler had expected this, and he ordered

the German army to take over. So despite the Italian surrender, Allied forces faced stiff fighting as they worked their way up the “boot” of Italy.

On September 3, 1943, Allied forces pushed into the Italian mainland. The Canadians’ mission was to capture the city of Ortona on the Adriatic Sea, but to do this, they had to fight their way northward through the mountains for nearly four months. Once they reached Ortona, the Canadians waged a street-by-street battle to drive out the Germans. They developed a technique called “mouse-holing.” After taking one house, they blasted a hole from the attic into the neighbouring house. Once inside they poured grenades and machine gun fire on the enemy until the house was taken. Then they moved on to the next house. The process was slow, but successful. Canadians soon gained a reputation as elite street fighters. On December 28, 1943, the city was in Canadian hands. Much of the town was in rubble. Canadian losses included 176 officers and 2163 men.

After this, the Canadians continued to push northward, eventually, in June 1944, the Allies took Rome. Canadian forces stayed in Italy until early 1945.

Source: Colyer, Jill, et al. Creating Canada: A History - 1914 to the Present. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2010. Print.

Liberation of the Netherlands

In the months following D-Day, the Allies needed a reliable way to keep war supplies flowing to their forces on the European continent. To do this, they required a good seaport. The Belgian port of Antwerp was captured almost intact but it lay almost 80 kilometers from the sea and was accessible only by a long inlet where the shores were controlled by German forces. Much of this coastal area was Dutch and, in the fall of 1944, the First Canadian Army led the way in fierce combat under harsh conditions to clear the German occupiers from the shores of the Scheldt River and open the waterway to vital shipping. More than 6000 Canadian soldiers were killed, wounded or captured in this grueling but victorious campaign.

After three months of holding the front line in the Netherlands, the Canadians joined the final push to liberate the country. In February 1945, the First Canadian Army joined the Allies in a fierce push through mud and flooded ground to drive the Germans eastward out of the Netherlands and back across the Rhine.

In early April, the First Canadian Army (consisting of about 200 000 Canadians by this time, with tens of thousands more soldiers from other countries under its command) turned its attention north to clear the Germans from the northeast of the country. Canadian troops rapidly moved across the Netherlands, recapturing canals and farmland as they drove for the North Sea. Canadians also began to advance in the western Netherlands, which contained the major cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. British and Canadian forces cleared the city of Arnhem in just two days by fighting a house-by-house battle. Only days later, they cleared Apeldoorn.

Through the hard work, courage and great sacrifices of Canadian and other Allied soldiers, the remaining German forces in the country surrendered on May 5, 1945, finally liberating all of the Netherlands. More than 7,600 Canadians gave their lives for freedom in the Netherlands.

Sources: "Canada Remembers the Liberation of the Netherlands." Veterans Affairs Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.Colyer, Jill, et al. Creating Canada: A History - 1914 to the Present. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2010. Print.

British Commonwealth Air Training Plan

In an effort to avoid causalities, William Lyon Mackenzie King focused Canada’s early war efforts on the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Canada became the flight school for all the Allied countries. The Canadian government paid most of the costs and ran the whole program, including flight schools moved to the country from Britain.

Tens of thousands were involved. Civilians built the training planes. Canadian reservists, civilians and air force members built and ran the 107 flight schools and 184 support sites. Every four weeks, the BCATP turned out 544 pilots, 340 navigators, and 580 wireless operators and gunners. By the end of the war, the plan had trained 131 553 aircrew and about 80 000 ground crew, including 17 000 women. Canadian aircrew graduates represented half of all crews on British and Commonwealth planes.

Source: Colyer, Jill, et al. Creating Canada: A History - 1914 to the Present. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2010. Print.

Camp X

From 1941 to 1944 Camp X, or Special Training School #103, was one of the most top-secret projects of the war. What seemed like a deserted farm on the shores of Lake Ontario near Oshawa was actually the first wartime spy training camp in North America. Its purpose was to train Allied agents in the techniques of secret warfare for the Special Operations Branch of the British Secret Intelligence Service. The Camp was also established to train Americans in the art of secret warfare. It opened just a few days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The site in southern Ontario was chosen for its easy access to the United States.

Most of the Camp’s training officers were British but many Canadians were recruited to work and train at Camp X. Britain, the United States, and Canada all used the Camp to train secret agents in undercover work. The Camp trained both men and women.

Some military historians believe that the training done at Camp X helped to shorten the war and perhaps saved thousands of lives. For example, just before D-Day, the Germans tried to rush large numbers of reinforcements into Normandy when they realized the Allied invasion was coming here. All along the route, French-Canadian saboteurs trained at Camp X were at work. They blew up bridges and railway lines, delaying the German advance. It took the German army three weeks to complete the repairs. By the time German reinforcements reached Normandy, it was too late to stop the Allied invasion.

Source: Cruxton, J. Bradley, and W. Douglas Wilson. Spotlight Canada. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.