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Veterans of the First World War guarded prisoners in the Second World War “You’re too old.” Those were the words First World War veterans Clarence Wade and William Swim were confronted with when they tried to re-enlist in 1939. The former soldiers were being denied,... -
The Great War took more than 600,000 Canadians from all parts of the country and put them in uniform. The transition from civilian to soldier was not easy, and everyone had to learn much about military procedures and culture—uniforms, ranks, insignia, rations, weaponry, terminology—and, most... -
For thousands of years, men on horseback were an essential part of warfare. Mounted soldiers—cavalry—were scouts, reserves or attack forces, used when speed, shock action or long distances were involved. The cavalry was a proven and necessary component of most armies. The face of warfare... -
In the lead-up to Operation Market Garden—the Allied military operation to encircle Germany’s industrial Ruhr district in September 1944—British Army Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force General Dwight D. Eisenhower took a calculated risk and assigned First Canadian Army to open... -
The year is 1917 and the place is northern France. The meticulously prepared Canadians sweep up the commanding heights in the face of determined German resistance and win the day. Sound familiar? No, it’s not Vimy Ridge, Canada’s most celebrated battle, but rather the attack on... -
They are among the most iconic images of the Second World War—blurred, grainy and, the best of them, as stirring and in-the-moment as any battlefield photographs ever taken. There are only 11 pictures—and nine surviving negatives—from that early morning of Tuesday, June 6, 1944, on...
Voices from war’s end
The most familiar images from the end of the war are the joyful and sometimes raucous VE-Day celebrations on May 8, 1945. But the war did not end all at once for everybody. Freedom came in stages as the Allied front crept forward across Europe. Canadian liberators fought town to town, beginning in Sicily...
