Canadian &#39;materiel&#39; — Canadians Donald Bowman and
John Ladbrooke, in turret at right, were crew on a Lancaster
bomber, pictured, many examples of which were built at
Victory Aircraft in Malton.
Before the Soviets were an ally and
before the U.S. got into the war, there
was Canada
BRETT POPPLEWELL
What if this country had made like the Swiss and
decided not to fight in World War II?
As the calendar flips by the 70th anniversary of
the start of the most destructive conflict in
history, it is worth giving pause and asking
whether Canada&#39;s wartime contributions from September 1939 to September 1945 warrant the same pomp
that many of our allies give theirs.
Talk to a patriotic American, Briton, or Russian and they might tell you if it weren&#39;t for their country&#39;s
contributions despotic Germany and Japan would have won the war.
Such arguments, though jingoistic and naïve, can lead to great debate. The Russians lay claim to having worn
down Hitler&#39;s forces on the Eastern Front. The British can talk about their finest hour. Americans can point out
that the tides of war didn&#39;t shift in Allied favour until after their entry into the war.
But what of Canada? Historians often shy away from the big &quot;what if&quot; questions because they&#39;re what make
for B-level fiction and C-level movies. If Hitler had developed the atomic bomb first, would London and
Moscow have been destroyed? If Truman hadn&#39;t used atomic weapons, how many lives would have been lost
invading Japan? If Hitler hadn&#39;t invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, would he have been able to knock Britain
out of the war? And what if the Japanese hadn&#39;t bombed Pearl Harbour?
What if, 70 years ago next week, Ottawa decided not to go to war? World War II began Sept. 3, 1939, two
days after Hitler&#39;s invasion of Poland. Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Nazi
Germany. Seven days later, Canada entered the war, and the Battle of the Atlantic – referring to Allies&#39; 1939-
45 effort to keep supply convoys operating – was on.
The period between the fall of France in June, 1940, and the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June
1941 is often cited as Britain&#39;s finest hour – when only the British stood between Hitler and the conquest of
Europe.
But Britain never stood alone. &quot;Between June 1940 and June 1941, Canada is the second most important
military power on the allied side,&quot; says Terry Copp, a military historian at Wilfrid Laurier University. France
and Poland had been defeated. Russia and the U.S. were still at peace with Germany.
The British often regard the Royal Air Force&#39;s defence against the German Luftwaffe as having kept the British
in the war following the army&#39;s evacuation at Dunkirk and France&#39;s fall on June 22, 1940.
&quot;Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.&quot; That&#39;s how British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill summed up the RAF&#39;s victory in the Battle of Britain.
But just as the RAF&#39;s efforts in defending the British skies were integral to the country&#39;s defence in 1940-
1941, so to were the efforts of the growing Royal Canadian Navy and fleet of convoys that were feeding
Britain with everything from munitions to troops and food.

&quot;Canada&#39;s presence in the fight looms really large in the sense of the possibility for Britain to continue to
resist,&quot; says Copp.
&quot;If you were to posit Canadian neutrality or appeasement, then in Britain really, the psychological blow would
be immense.&quot;
Churchill seemed to understand this. In his now-famous June 4, 1940 radio address, he hinted at Canada&#39;s
worth to the war effort: &quot;We shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or
a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the
British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God&#39;s good time, the New World, with all its power and
might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.&quot;
The convoys that kept Britain from starving – commonly known as the &quot;Atlantic Lifeline&quot; – were sailing from
Canada under escort of Canadian-built and manned Corvettes (small, armed and nimble ships) that protected
Britain&#39;s much-needed supplies from the &quot;U-boat peril,&quot; which Churchill regarded as &quot;the only thing that ever
really frightened me during the war.&quot;
Were it not for Canada&#39;s support, Britain might have been forced to sue for peace before the Soviets or the
Americans entered the war.
&quot;Without Canada, Britain&#39;s ability to even imagine how it would continue to fight the war at this time is very
weakened,&quot; says Copp.
In total, some 1,000,000 Canadians served in World War II. By 1942, 170,000 troops were stationed in
Britain. In 1943, 90,000 of them landed in Italy. By 1944, Canadians were marching through France en route
to the Netherlands.
Canadian accomplishments on Juno beach during the D-Day invasion are widely held as the country&#39;s single
greatest accomplishment in the war, while the disastrous raid on Dieppe in 1942 is at times justified for
having taught the allies valuable lessons for how not to attempt an amphibious landing on Nazi-occupied
territory.
Many forget the role Canada played in 1940-41 when the Allied strategy consisted of emergency plans to
relocate the Royal Navy to Canada, had the British Isles been overrun.
Meanwhile British plans to reinvade Europe consisted of a modest 55-division army (with eight Canadian
divisions) to combat 180 entrenched German divisions.
In the face of such odds, it&#39;s no wonder that Churchill put his faith in the Royal Navy and Air Force, which in
turn were increasingly reliant on Canada for their strength.
While the RAF fighter command that was defending British skies was composed mostly of British pilots (50 per
cent of which were trained in Canada, mind you), almost a quarter of the planes and crews in allied bomber
command were Canadian with a great number of the RAF&#39;s Lancaster bombers (the winged backbone of its
bomber command) built just outside Toronto.
&quot;The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it,&quot; Churchill concluded in 1940. &quot;The fighters
are our salvation but the bombers alone provide the means of victory.&quot;