Canada and the Second World War

The Second World War began in 1939 when Adolf Hitler, the National Socialist (Nazi) dictator of Germany, invaded Poland and conquered much of Europe. Canada joined with its democratic allies in the fight to defeat tyranny by force of arms.

In order to defeat Nazism and Fascism, the Allies invaded Nazi-occupied Europe. Canadians took part in the liberation of Italy in 1943-1944. In the epic invasion of Normandy in northern France on June 6, 1944, known as D-Day, 15,000 Canadian troops stormed and captured Juno Beach from the German Army, a great national achievement shown in this painting by Orville Fisher. Approximately one in ten Allied soldiers on D-Day was Canadian. The Canadian Army liberated the Netherlands in 1944-45 and helped force the German surrender of May 8, 1945, bringing to an end six years of war in Europe.

More than one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders (Newfoundland was a separate British entity) served in the Second World War, out of a population of 11.5 million. This was a high proportion, and of these 44,000 were killed.

The Canadians suffered losses in the unsuccessful defence of Hong Kong (1941) from attack by Imperial Japan, and in a failed raid on Nazi-controlled Dieppe on the coast of France (1942).

The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) took part in the Battle of Britain and provided a high proportion of Commonwealth aircrew in bombers and fighter planes over Europe. Moreover, Canada contributed more to the Allied air effort than any other Commonwealth country, with over 130,000 Allied aircrew trained in Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) saw its finest hour in the Battle of the Atlantic, protecting convoys of merchant ships against German submarines. Canada's Merchant Navy helped to feed, clothe and resupply Britain. At the end of the Second World War, Canada had the third-largest navy in the world.

In the Pacific war, Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands, attacked a lighthouse on Vancouver Island, launched fire balloons over B.C. and the Prairies, and grossly maltreated Canadian prisoners of war captured at Hong Kong. Regrettably, the state of war and public opinion in B.C. led to the relocation of West Coast Japanese Canadians by the Canadian government and the forcible sale of their property. This occurred even though some local officials and the RCMP told Ottawa that they posed little danger to Canada. The Government of Canada apologized in 1988 for wartime wrongs inflicted on Japanese Canadians. Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945 -the end of four years of war in the Pacific.