May 8th, 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of victory in Europe
during the Second World War.
Now more than ever, it is important to reflect
upon Canada’s commitment to that conflict.
From the distance of eight decades we can forget Canada’s nearly
unlimited mobilization from 1939 to 1945,
with its full deployment of resources and people in times of great strain,
the acceptance of state intervention,
the hardening of attitudes to win at any cost,
and the willingness to make sacrifices.
Canadians who served in the war, contributing overseas or at home
– some of whom are still alive today - also faced long periods of uncertainty
and many defeats before they prevailed in the victory against fascism and the Nazis.
From a country of 11.5 million, more than 1 million Canadians served in uniform.
That figure represents about one in three men of military age.
Almost 50.000 women also served in uniform in the navy,
in the army, in the air force and as nurses.
On the home front, millions worked in the war time economy,
producing essential food and extracting minerals for the Allied war effort.
At the same time, the country’s defense production was staggering.
Some 16.000 air craft were manufactured,
more than 8.000 ships,
almost 43.000 artillery pieces,
over 800.000 military trucks,
and more than 1.7 million small arms.
Canadians fought in campaigns around the world
– on oceans, in the air, and on the ground across multiple continents.
There was Hong Kong and Dieppe;
the defense of North America and the Battle of Britain;
The war effort included the Canadian projection of power abroad,
as far as North Africa and the Caribbean,
and to the Soviet Union and the Pacific.
Crucial to the war effort was Canada’s part in the Battle of the Atlantic,
as the Royal Canadian Navy and the Merchant Navy braved
the gauntlet of German U-boats to deliver essential supplies
to keep Britain in the war.
Across Canada, over 200 new airfields and schools of instruction
were created under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan,
and an astonishing 131.000 airmen were trained to take on the fight against fascism.
The skies became battlegrounds,
with Canadian aircrews supporting naval vessels in the Atlantic,
flying crucial supplies to aid the isolated British army in Burma,
and with Bomber Command striking deep into German-occupied Europe.
Canada’s war effort included the first sustained army campaigns
in Sicily in July 1943 and then the invasion of the Italian mainland
in September of that same year.
The war in the Mediterranean involved almost 100.000 Canadians
who played a key role in the Allied war effort to draw German divisions away
from the Western and Eastern fronts, and to fight them on this Southern front.
All of the Canadian armed forces converged for the invasion of
France in Normandy on D-Day, the 6th of June, 1944,
which was fought shoulder to shoulder with the British and American forces.
Juno Beach was ours to take that day; and we did.
And we will hold it forever in our hearts.
But Canadian contributions continued beyond D-Day.
There was the all-important defense of the beachhead
in that grim week that followed.
After defeating the German counterattacks, the Canadians, fighting with the British
and later Allied forces, clawed forward through Normandy in July and August of 1944.
Finally, on August 21st, two German armies were destroyed in the Falaise Pocket,
as the Allies won the first significant phase of the battle for Western Europe.
The cost to Canadians was witheringly high – with almost 20.000 killed and wounded.
The cost to the Germans was far, far worse.
Sadly, less well known in Canada’s social memory,
the Canadians continued to drive forward,
first clearing the Channel ports in September 1944,
and then fighting in the Battle of the Scheldt
in October and November that same year.
The Scheldt is at least as important as the Battle of Normandy,
and the Canadians, with British allies, were ordered
to open the essential port of Antwerp.
The Germans had the advantages of fighting on the defensive,
in flooded terrain, which one Canadian officer described as
a “devil’s dream of mud and dykes and rain.”
In this campaign, First Canadian Army – the largest fighting force Canada
has ever assembled - provided a massive contribution to the Allied war effort.
Through intense and relentless battle, the Germans were totally defeated
on November 8, 1944.
By the end of the month,
the first vessels were arriving with supplies to Antwerp,
crucial in contributing to the Allied advance in the last year of the war.
Again, the cost of victory was terrible, with some 6.367 Canadians
killed or wounded, and an almost equal number of British casualties.
But there were over 41.000 Germans captured.
Despite the strain of combat and the loss of comrades,
Captain Hal MacDonald of the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment
wrote to his wife at the end of the battle:
“what we’re fighting for is always clear in our minds.”
After their victory in the Scheldt, First Canadian Army fought
in the titanic battles that contributed to defeating the German forces
in the Rhineland in February and March 1945.
Weary, ragged, and fought-out, the Canadians continued to drive forward.
But now, there was a race against time, as the starving Dutch desperately
needed food after their German overlords had cruelly curtailed
supplies and fuel to that occupied country.
Thousands had already starved to death in what was known as the Hunger Winter.
Without the Canadians, tens of thousands more
would die in the coming weeks.
And so, from April 1945, First Canadian Army turned
to fully liberating the Netherlands, bringing food and relief
to the oppressed and starving Dutch.
"I saw a tank in the distance, with one soldiers’ head above it,
and the blood drained out of my body, and I thought: Here comes liberation.”
So recounted a Dutch teenager in The Hague,
upon arrival of the Canadians.
That scene – of liberation – was repeated throughout dozens and dozens of villages,
towns, and cities in the Netherlands.
-Winston Churchill: "Today is Victory in Europe Day.
Long live the cause of freedom."
Victory came in Europe on May 8th, 1945, 75 years ago.
It came through nearly unbelievable sacrifice, as thousands of Canadians
were killed in the final battles of 1945.
“Today is VE Day & I should be happy,” wrote Private Gerald Montague of
the Canadian Scottish Regiment in a letter to his wife on VE Day,
“but I find it very hard because so many of my comrades
that should have been here are lost and will not return to their loved ones.”
Indeed, close to 45.000 Canadians never came home,
and today they lie buried around the world or marked on Commonwealth memorials.
And yet, 75 years later, we have to work to remember these deeds
and sacrifices in what I have called the "necessary" war.
I call it the "necessary" war, because the evil Nazi regime had to be destroyed.
The Nazis were like no other enemy.
Canadians understood that at the time.
Tens of thousands -- and then hundreds of thousands --
stepped up to serve in uniform.
They left behind their jobs, their loved ones, and their homes.
They went into harm’s way.
Many knew they would not return.
75 years later, we are lucky to still have 30.000 veterans
from the 1.1 million who served in this terrible but necessary war.
We should take the time to reflect on their service and sacrifice.
We should take a moment to say thank you.
We should contemplate the meaning behind the passing of this generation.
But we must also understand the past in all of its complexities.
We need to remember that it took a massive mobilization on the home front,
on the farms, in the mines, and in the factories
to defeat the fascists, and yet there were some in Canada who were
singled out for disloyalty because of race or religion,
while most Canadians had their civil liberties curtailed
in the crusade for victory.
We need to remember also that war imprints itself in unknown ways
on the survivors – both those in uniform, and those who waited and worried at home.
For some, the trauma of the war did not end with the victory in 1945,
but continued on for decades.
Also, we must continue to tell our story.
We must do it with bravery and with honesty,
but also with urgency and accuracy.
This is our story, and this is our history.
We need also to remember that history doesn’t just exist.
It must be nurtured.
It must be cultivated.
It must be taught.
If not, it will wither away.
75 years later, it is our job to keep the memory alive.