The Christmas Truce of 1914, as the London Telegraph described it, was “one of the most remarkable episodes ever to take place in the history of armed conflict.” Three decades later in a cabin in the forests of Belgium, a much smaller but just as improbable truce took place.
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Dispatch riders had doubly dangerous duties during the Second World War. DRs delivered messages—everything from battle orders, situational updates, maps or intelligence reports.
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101 years ago on Thursday, Dec. 6, 1917, a collision between two ships in Halifax Harbour in 1917 set off an explosion unrivalled until the atomic bomb. #LestWeForget
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“I think I was always a bit wild,” admits Edwards, now a century-old resident of Vancouver and one of three surviving women pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA).
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It was Christmas Eve 1914. The Tommies of Britain’s Queen’s Westminster Regiment had returned to the frigid trenches the previous day, relieving regular troops after four days of rest. Suddenly, in the stillness and cold, the voice of a young farmer’s son, Edgar Aplin, rose up from the frozen earth with “Tommy, Lad!,” a popular…
On Ontario farmland safely inland from Second World War bombing, a town sprang up to house 9,000 people working at a munitions factory that produced 40 million shells for the Allied war effort. The town was named Ajax, after a ship in a little-remembered sea battle off the coast of Uruguay in 1939, the first…
Dispatch riders had doubly dangerous duties during the Second World War One shell fell behind him, and when a second exploded just ahead, dispatch rider Gordon Edward Allen knew German gunners were homing in on him. “They can hear that stupid bike of yours,” said the sergeant giving Allen directions that would take him…
As a child, Stella Joyce (Petersen) Edwards was always pushing boundaries. She grew up in Kent, England, the third daughter of an Australian trader, and whether it was scaling walls, climbing trees or riding her bicycle off into the countryside, Jaye, as she became known to her compatriots, was an adventurer. “I think I was…
Seventy-five years ago, under cover of darkness on the night of Dec. 5-6, 1943, Canadian troops in Italy began a nearly month-long campaign that would end with the capture of Ortona. In July 1943, the Allies invaded Sicily, opening a new front. After the capture of Sicily and the surrender of the Italians, they... 
1 December 2009 Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk returns to Earth after six months on the International Space Station. 3 December 1942 An RAF Wellington bomber, crewed mainly by Canadians, is badly shot up but still acquires key data on German airborne radar. 7 December 1941 Canada declares war on Finland, Hungary and Romania, the... 
The faces of the long-suffering people of Afghanistan reflect their resolve and resilience Kabul, 2004. Afghan mothers comfort sick and dying children in a hospital all but void of equipment and medicine. Across the street, fathers, banned by convention from the wards, sleep on concrete in a roofless bombed-out shell of a building, waiting... 
It was Easter Sunday and April Fool’s Day, 1945—the day that Corporal Reginald Wise, who was no fool and no martyr either, would cheat death. More than once. Wise and the rest of his Royal Marine commandos were advancing on a German position in Northern Italy when a landmine took out a track on... 
Sir Arthur Currie, the first Canadian soldier to command the Canadian Corps during the First World War, died a national hero on Nov. 30, 1933, aged 58. Respected for his military acumen, he perfected battle strategies and honed his men into elite assault troops whose string of victories during Canada’s Hundred Days played no... 
The Canadian military seems to be spread all over these days. During its deployment in Afghanistan, most of Canada’s non-North American military effort, especially that of the army, was focused almost exclusively on that mission. That was in keeping with the views of then Chief of the Defence Staff Rick Hillier—and apparently shared by... 
Through the winter and early spring of 1944-45, up to 450,000 Canadian and other Allied troops under the command of General Harry Crerar of Hamilton poured into the Netherlands and liberated the Dutch from five years of Nazi occupation. More than 7,600 of the 175,000 Canadians who joined the fight died during the nine-month... 
A tour of the Normandy coastline honours those who crossed an ocean to fight tyranny The sky is cloudy, but the rain holds off for this year’s commemorative ceremony at the Juno Beach Centre in Courseulles-sur-Mer, France, on June 6. The audience is filled with veterans and their families, currently serving military, officials... 
“If a woman wants to make a career for herself, she must learn to listen. When men want to talk, I let them talk,” said the woman behind the sex scandal that rocked the country in the 1960s. Listening is a good skill for a mistress—or a spy, as Gerda Munsinger was suspected of... 
The bells that rang out across allied nations after the First World War ended what for many had been a four-year silence enforced by regulation in some places and imposed by confiscation in others. In Germany and across Europe, tens of thousands of bronze bells—some imparting “the songs of the angels” since the 12th century—had... 
Late in 1943, Canadian troops attacked the German-held Italian city of Ortona. The goal was to push up the eastern coast, then swing inland on a road leading straight to Rome. In fierce fighting, Canada prevailed in Ortona’s labyrinth of death. Read about the day-by-day battles—street by street, house by house, and hand to... 
At the 2018 Canadian Online Publishing Awards in Toronto on Nov. 14, Legion Magazine was awarded Gold for Best Interactive Story for “Prisoners of War.” The win marks the third time in the past three years Legion Magazine has won awards in this category, with a Gold in 2017 for “Cold Comfort” and a... 
As outgoing Veterans Ombudsman Guy Parent prepares to hand the torch to a successor, his 2018 report on government action shows while much has been accomplished, much remains to do. The federal government has acted on nearly three-quarters of the recommendations made by the ombudsman since the office was created a decade ago. But... 
