Showing All of 31 results for "Second World War"

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VE-Day in Canada

Revelry — and riot — in 1945

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Dieppe Raid. Why?

Understanding Canada's Second World War disaster

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Battle of Hong Kong

Hong Kong was the opening battle of the Second World War for Canada's Army.

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Fear and Fortitude in Normandy

Remembering D-Day and the Normandy Campaign

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Second World War

The Second World War transformed Canada from a quiet country on the fringes of global affairs, into a critical player in the 20th century's most important struggle. Canada carried out a vital role in the Battle of the Atlantic, the air war over Germany, and other important theatres of the conflict. The war took the lives of 43,000 Canadians.
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Sinking of HMCS Esquimalt

​On the evening of 15 April 1945, the Canadian minesweeper HMCS Esquimalt set out from Halifax on an anti-submarine patrol around the harbour approaches.

Canada and the Battle of Hong Kong

Hong Kong was the first place Canadians fought a land battle in the Second World War. From 8 to 25 December 1941, almost 2,000 troops from Winnipeg and Québec City — sent to Hong Kong expecting little more than guard duty — fought bravely against the overwhelming power of an invading Japanese force. When the British colony surrendered on Christmas Day, 290 Canadians had been killed in the fighting. Another 264 would die over the next four years, amid the inhumane conditions of Japanese prisoner-of-war camps.

Dieppe Raid

During the Second World War, on 19 August 1942, the Allies launched a major raid on the French coastal port of Dieppe. Operation Jubilee was the first Canadian Army engagement in the European theatre of the war, designed to test the Allies' ability to launch amphibious assaults against Adolf Hitler's "Fortress Europe." The raid was a disaster: More than 900 Canadian soldiers were killed, and thousands more were wounded and taken prisoner. Despite the bloodshed, the raid provided valuable lessons for subsequent Allied amphibious assaults on Africa, Italy and Normandy.
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Juno Beach: Day of Courage

The Canadian landings on the Juno Beach Sector of the Normandy coast were one of the most successful operations carried out on D-Day, 6 June 1944.

Juno Beach

Juno Beach was the Allied code name for a 10-kilometre stretch of French coastline assaulted by Canadian soldiers on D-Day, 6 June 1944, during the Second World War.
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Second World War Veterans

When the Second World War ended, more than a million Canadian men and women, serving in uniform, were set to return to their homes. A driving question for the country was: What was owed to the veterans?
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Dieppe: The Beaches of Hell

The Canadians had been promised that the town would be lightly defended. Instead they could see that Dieppe was a fortress, intact, and the Germans were ready and waiting. How had this happened?

Second World War (WWII)

The Second World War was a defining event in Canadian history, transforming a quiet country on the fringes of global affairs into a critical player in the 20th century's most important struggle. Canada carried out a vital role in the Battle of the Atlantic and the air war over Germany, and contributed forces to the campaigns of western Europe beyond what might be expected of a small nation of then only 11 million people.

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Battle of the Atlantic

The Battle of the Atlantic, from 1939 to 1945, was the longest continuous battle of the Second World War.

Liberation of the Netherlands

In the final months of the Second World War, Canadian forces were given the important and deadly task of liberating the Netherlands from Nazi occupation.

Battle of the Gothic Line

In the Second World War, Canadians began fighting in Italy in July 1943. By the summer of 1944, the Allies had pushed German forces to one of their last defensive positions — a stretch of heavily fortified territory in northern Italy known as the Gothic Line. The main job of breaking the Line fell to the I Canadian Corps, which accomplished the task after a month of difficult combat, at a cost of more than 4,500 casualties. Although overshadowed by the Allied invasion of France, cracking the Gothic Line was among Canada's greatest feats of arms of the war.

Battle of Ortona

In December 1943, as part of the Allied advance through Italy during the Second World War, Canadian forces fought one of their toughest battles of the war in a bid to capture the town of Ortona. The month-long campaign — first at the Moro River outside Ortona, then with vicious street fighting in the town itself — cost more than 2,300 Canadian casualties, but eventually won Ortona for the Allies.

VJ-Day (Victory over Japan)

​Victory over Japan Day, or VJ-Day, on 15 August 1945, marked the end of the war in the Pacific and the end of the Second World War.

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Canadian Women's Army Corps

During the Second World War, Canadian women, for the first time, were mobilized for service in the Canadian Armed Forces. Of the roughly 50,000 women who enlisted, more than half served in the Canadian Army.

The Italian Campaign

​Canada’s longest Second World War army campaign was in Italy.

Internment in Canada

Internment, detention or confinement of a person in time of war. In Canada, such persons were denied certain legal rights, notably habeas corpus, though in certain cases they had the right to appeal their custody.
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Documenting the Second World War

Historians, artists, photographers and filmmakers served in the various branches of the armed services during the Second World War. Today, their work provides a rich catalogue of Canada's war history.
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Canadian Children and the Second World War

The Second World War forever altered Canada. Among those most affected were young Canadians. The war had a profound impact on their lives and families.
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Mackenzie King and the War Effort

Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King guided the country through six painful years of conflict, oversaw a massive war effort and made surprisingly few errors in a period of tremendous turmoil, change and anguish.
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Canada's Road to the Second World War

As the threat of another world war loomed ever larger, Canadians, far from the conflict, would face a difficult choice of whether to stand again with Britain or remain isolated and safe in North America.

Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain (10 July to 31 October 1940) stopped the German air force from dominating the skies over England early in the Second World War, preventing a planned invasion by Germany. Hundreds of Canadian air and ground crew participated in the battle.
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Normandy

On 6 June 1944, Canadian forces took part in the greatest amphibious operation in military history. Over 10,000 Canadian seamen in 110 warships and 21,400 soldiers took part in D-Day.

Battle of the St. Lawrence

​The Battle of the St. Lawrence was an extension of the larger Battle of the Atlantic — the German campaign during the Second World War to disrupt shipping from North America to the United Kingdom.
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Victory in Europe (VE-Day) Remembered

​Victory in Europe, on 8 May 1945, was a great celebration — for those who had suffered through Nazi occupation, and those who had liberated them.
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Ville de Quebec Sinks U-Boat

To a casual observer, the key battles of World War II were fought on land. Normandy, Stalingrad, El Alamein and others come to mind. Yet many historians believe that the key to the Allied victory was the war at sea, in particular the Battle of the Atlantic.