Tim Cook is author or editor of 19 books of Canadian military history, including his latest, The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism During the Second World War.
“Good neighbour on one side; partners within the Empire on the other,” declared Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in July, 1938, positioning Canada between the United States and Britain. “Obligations to both in return for their assistance. Readiness to meet all joint emergencies.”
King’s desire to insert Canada between Britain and the U.S. was during a fraught period of global crisis, with militaristic Japan at war with China, with fascist Italy having crushed Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and, worst of all, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler aggressively building up his military, threatening neighbours and brazenly seeking war. What would Canada do in the coming months, as war loomed on the horizon? The awful decisions facing Canada more than 85 years ago are not dissimilar to those facing the Western democracies today.
Mackenzie King, who played host to the Queen in Ottawa in the spring of 1939, would soon face a fateful choice about whether to take Canada to war alongside Britain.The Associated Press
Gutted by the Depression years, the Canada of the 1930s had limped forward and starved its military of resources, relying on Britain for much of its safety. While the country had mobilized during the Great War of 1914 to 1918, forging a hard-hitting crack formation in the 100,000-strong Canadian Corps, this strength had been allowed to wither away. Part of the reason was Canada’s greatest shield: its geography. The only immediate threat was from the south, and Ottawa’s politicians had long been more worried about the U.S. than potential invaders far from Canadian shores.
The North Americans had a long, disruptive and unhappy history, with the U.S. and Canada having often been bad neighbours, with wars, cross-border invasions and terror attacks. Since the Republic was formed in revolution from Britain in the late 18th century, the U.S. had expanded in all directions and driven Europeans, Mexicans and Indigenous peoples from land the Americans had claimed. The anomaly of British colonies and then the Dominion of Canada, from 1867, sitting along the northern border, was viewed with much vexation, with occasional talk of war to absorb it into the United States.
But careful British and Canadian diplomacy and concessions, the strength of the Royal Navy, and the American belief that some day those misguided and poorer British subjects would come to their senses and petition to join the U.S. kept the occasional irresponsible talk under wraps, especially during the combustible period of election season when candidates sought to fire up the electorate with real or imagined grievances.
Militaries from the United States and Canada have never fought each other on North American soil since the War of 1812, though almost a century later, each would have contingency plans in case that changed.Fred Thornhill/The Canadian Press
And yet, even by the early 1930s, after Canada and the U.S. had solved many international troubles including agreeing on the border and periodic fury over fishing rights, both countries’ armed forces had schemes to invade the other.
Canada’s far-fetched plan was to order flying columns of infantry and armour into the northern U.S., striking several hundred kilometres deep to capture key cities and towns (which were left to local commanders to select). Buying time, the Canadians would then engage in a fighting retreat as they waited for the Royal Navy to steam across the Atlantic and blast American cities on the eastern seaboard, while forces from Australia and New Zealand invaded California.
The U.S., in turn, planned to capture Victoria and Halifax (partly by dousing the latter in aerially dispersed chemical weapons), snatch Winnipeg to sever the country’s railway logistics, and then march on Ottawa. These were ambitious plans, since Canada had almost no armoured units and the U.S. had only the 19th-largest army in the world at the time.
While these invasion plans seem a bit unhinged in hindsight, armed forces have to engage in such advance thinking; when war comes, it often comes fast. That was not the case with the Second World War in Europe, which everyone could see coming for several years, even as the west desperately negotiated and cravenly appeased Hitler. It was to no avail: the Führer wanted war.
It began on Sept. 1, 1939, with Germany’s invasion of Poland. Soon, the Nazis were joined by their hated enemies, the communists, as Hitler and Stalin had forged a non-aggression pact in advance of the fighting. The West trembled, and France and Britain, now at war with Germany, looked to their dominions and colonies, and to the U.S., for help.
What would the North Americans do? Canada, with its strong ties to Britain, chose to fulfill its historic obligation to the island kingdom and went to war, albeit after days of debate in the House of Commons. The U.S. stayed neutral. President Franklin Roosevelt knew that the American people were not ready for another European war, only a generation after the last bloodletting in the trenches of the Western Front.
King was stunned by Roosevelt’s decision, and furious at the president for having spoken frequently about the need to stand against fascism, but now, when the chips were down, letting others do the fighting.
While Canada stood firmly by Britain, it could not fully do so without U.S. assistance in matters of trade, finance and security. Most importantly, Britain and Canada needed weapons, but the dominion’s factories and forges had grown cold in the Depression years. With American expertise and tooling machines, these were stoked hot, and Canada would emerge as a major industrial power in the coming years.
The White House understood it was critical for France and Britain to survive a future German onslaught, but it did little to assist the Europeans. Roosevelt took a different approach with Canada, if only to protect against the nightmare scenario of Nazi Germany conquering it and establishing armed forces on the northern border. At the same time, a small army of Canadian soldiers, diplomats and politicians travelled to the American capital to negotiate and cajole, at times pleading strength and other times whispering doom-laden scenarios of what might happen if Canada was left vulnerable.
Everything changed when Germany turned on the West. The fall of France and the near-destruction of the British army in May and June, 1940, was a catastrophe of monumental proportions. American secretary of war Henry L. Stimson called France’s defeat “the most shocking single event of the war.”
Second World War navigators check the route of a cross-country training flight. A Commonwealth air-training plan had brought together more than 130,000 aviators from Allied countries including Canada.Department of National Defence
In the summer of 1940, Canada moved from its earlier limited war effort to preparing for an all-out struggle. It rushed its most advanced naval destroyers and air force squadrons to defend Britain, while quickly building at home an expanded armed force. New urgency drove a countrywide air-training plan for the empire that would eventually instruct 131,000 aircrew.
The U.S., still neutral, warily eyed the activity above the 49th parallel, especially the new armed forces. No separate nation is happy to see mass rearmament, even if the Canadians promised it was to support Britain. And what about the Dominion of Newfoundland, separate from Canada, but still critical to the defence of the Atlantic?
Canada and the U.S. realized that they had to work together to defend the Northern Hemisphere, a prerequisite before any future navies, armies or air forces could take the war to the fascists. They did, even with one country at war and another at peace.
A Permanent Joint Board on Defence was established in August, 1940, to recommend security solutions and ease tensions over the shared defence of Newfoundland, the opening of the North through the Alaska Highway, and strengthening fortifications on the west coast for an expected Japanese assault.
A new war erupted on Dec. 7, 1941, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and throughout the Pacific, including fierce combat where two Canadian battalions fought bravely to defend the British colony of Hong Kong. They were ultimately defeated, and the survivors were cast into the hell of Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, where they were tortured and brutalized.
But with Japan’s first strike, Canada and the U.S. were further drawn together. In a quirk of history, Canada declared war on Japan before the U.S. did. More importantly in the global war, Germany declared war on the United States. The North Americans were now in a death struggle with the Axis powers.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 escalated the Pacific war as the United States retaliated against Japan and joined the conflict in Europe.The Associated Press
Facing a two-front war, the Americans needed Canada even more for the shared defence of North America.
We stepped up. The battle-tested Royal Canadian Navy provided security on the eastern seaboard against the marauding German U-boats, who savaged the nearly criminally unprepared U.S. merchant ships that sailed without protection. On the west coast, Canada patrolled against Japanese submarines, sent precious anti-aircraft guns and RCAF squadrons to defend Alaska, and took part in the joint operation against the Japanese-held Kiska Islands in August, 1943. Even though the Japanese had left secretly before the invading North American force landed, the White House understood and appreciated the importance of their Canadian allies.
Later, the North Americans would fight side-by-side in the invasion of Sicily, in Italy, and on D-Day. Canada was there, with the British and Americans, as King had said before the war, between them and standing by them.
A crucial element of the North American alliance was the supply of minerals, goods and weapons across the border. The Americans needed Canada’s military support and raw materials. Aluminum was essential in aircraft production and Canada produced 3.6 billion pounds, with a third of it going to the United States. Canadian hydro electricity also powered northern U.S. industry, and its wartime development significantly accelerated the modernization of many parts of Canada.
Canada built 410 merchant ships during the war, similar in size to the 2,710 American-produced Liberty ships, which were carrying supplies to Britain. In new Canadian factories, more than 16,400 aircraft were produced, including almost 900 Curtiss Helldivers and 676 Catalina flying boats for the U.S. Navy. Several hundred million shells were manufactured and, in what was perhaps Canada’s greatest contribution, about 850,000 military-grade trucks and vehicles rolled off assembly lines, to be used by all Western armies, including the Soviet Union after Germany invaded in June, 1941. The list of weapons produced goes on, including artillery, tanks and Lancaster bombers.
“No people in the world should appreciate Canada’s war service more than we Americans,” The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph proclaimed in August, 1943.
But the goodwill and support went both ways. The White House forged advantageous trade deals for Canada, agreeing to buy hundreds of millions in Canadian weapons and goods. The poor and pathetic Canada of the 1930s was supercharged and forever transformed.
With 1.1 million Canadians in uniform and its economy running red-hot, Canada was a nation of consequence during the Second World War. However, in this country, we have done a poor job in telling that story over the years, allowing other nations to ignore, play down or eclipse the Canadian contribution. That self-inflicted wound of bashfulness or apathy needs to change by re-engaging with this history.
More pressing is the incendiary American election that will burn bright in the coming months. Much will be said to win votes and create false opponents. Americans might best remember their long-time friends to the North, who stepped up in a time of great crisis, serving and sacrificing together in the necessary war to defeat the fascists.
The strong if understated alliance of today is just as relevant as during the war years, with new threats abroad and the continuing challenge of defending North America, particularly the Arctic.
Despite fixations on meeting the NATO commitment to spend 2 per cent of its GDP on defence, which must be met by Ottawa, perhaps equally important is where those resources go and how the North Americans will work together to see them effectively deployed. Eighty years ago, we did it first as good allies; we have been doing it quietly ever since, through the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, NORAD and NATO.
With Canada sitting on the border of a great power, it must never lose sight of the need to be ready to stand at attention, as King had said in 1938, “to meet all joint emergencies.”
The White House should also remember that its complex network of alliances is not maintained out of charity, but instead represents a substantial multiplier of American power and a shield by which to protect the realm. Imagine the amplified danger of Russia if it had other significant allies that were as entwined in sharing the burden of security. In but one of many examples, the U.S. need not deploy many resources to the northern border for fear of security, refugees or even trade disruption. However, Washington spends far more time looking east, west and south than it does north, probably because it knows the dependable allies it has there. But good relations take work, and if left too long, they fray and decay.
Now is the time for Ottawa and Washington to band closer together, to speak loudly to that shared history and to remember that one’s good allies of the past are also those of the present and future.
Kiran Ridley/The Globe and Mail