Canadas Involvement In World War Two History Essay

The day World War 2 was announced Canada was still part of the British Commonwealth and the pressure was on them to join the war effort too. Canada did join the war eventually but took a full week to make the final decision after Britain. This decision later would either make or break the victory of the Allies. The majority of Canada greatly contributed to World War 2 by helping Britain greatly financially, providing the Allies with supplies for the war effort and by persuading its citizens to join the army, air force, factories.

The greatest weapon, that was mandatory for success was money and wealth. Canada played a major role in providing large amounts of money to the Allies to help with the war effort. Throughout the deadly war, Canada had contributed three billion dollars to Britain and supplied weapons and military vehicles (141, Bryce). By the end of the world war, the British land force was armed with 60 percent Canadian made small rifles, Bren guns and anti-tank weapons. Also, hundreds of Canadian made aircrafts such as the mustangs, hurricanes, and Spitfires. 40 percent of the heavy bomber units used by the RAF were manufactured in Canada (Stacey, Encyclopedia). In the beginning of the war, Britain had eighty thousand military vehicles, but in the escape of Dunkirk they lost seventy five thousand of them. Not only did Canada supply weapons and war materials but Canada’s automotive business helped gain the loss of their military vehicles. Not only did Canada re-manufacture what was lost, but they also produced a surplus amount for Britain (“Total Effort”, Globe and Mail). This shows how willing the citizens and the government were to stop the Nazi Regime.

Canada is the nation, Canadians are the people, and Canadians are who helped the allies to gain this victory. September of 1939, 58,337 men and women enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces. Aside from the fifty thousand in the Canadian army, large groups of Canadians joined the British army, especially in the Royal Air Force. About 3,000 had joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1939, even though it was small crew it still played an integral role in many of the battles. Another 80,000 Canadians had volunteered for the navy but their services weren’t needed because the war had ended, before sixty ships and 13,500 men had the chance to be deployed (Veterans Affairs Canada, 2009). The greatest movement between the citizens was during the peak time of the war, when 439,000 women started to work in the service sector, 373,000 in manufacturing and 4,000 in construction. This was significant because the women weren’t mentally and physically prepared to work in such a small notice. Since for many generations women have only stayed home to nurture the children and take care of the house. Going into factories to produce items, let alone weaponry is a big transformation to their or anyone’s lifestyles (Canadian War Industry, 2007).

“War” is a very a broad word, that combines all the battles that occurred into one category, but if the war is broken down to pieces there are many individual battles that can be analyzed in which Canada had an important role in. Operation D-Day is just one of the important battles that Canada leads the allies to a victory. D-Day was the allied invasion of Normandy, also remembered as the greatest seaborne invasion in history, which was just an 80 km wide stretch of land made up of five individual beaches. Canada was given the middle beach which shows that the allies really trusted the Canadian forces in doing a spectacular job. In total there were about 155,000 soldiers, nearly 5,000 ships, 50,000 vehicles and 11,000 planes were established for the assault. Canada had a share of 14,000 soldiers that were planned to land on the beaches; about another 500 were intended to be drop behind enemy lines by parachute or gliders. The Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force supported the invasion by deploying 10,000 sailors, Lancaster bombers and Spitfire fighters. With such an armed squad they landed on the shores of Juno Beach where they were part of the British Second Army, under the command of British Lt. General Miles Dempsey. The units were however from all across the country, ranging from North Nova Scotia Highlanders, to the Canadian Scottish Victoria. The plan was carried out at 6 am in the morning with a high artillery strike of the beaches, in within an hour the soldiers were far away from the ships they had landed in. Exactly two hours later, the Canadians had devastated Juno beach and the German army was defenseless (CBC News, 2009).

Everyhand feed baby that the world thought Canada was by Britain, was drastically changed after World War 2