[Courtesy of Franklin Roy]
1 May 1945
Cape Breton Highlanders attack German strongholds in Delfzijl, Netherlands.
2-3 May 1953
The Royal Canadian Regiment is hammered in the Battle of Hill 187 in Korea: 26 killed, 27 wounded, seven taken prisoner.
[Sharif Tarabay]
3 May 1917
Lieut. Robert Combe captures 80 prisoners near Acheville, France, and is posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
4 May 1945
HMCS Uganda sails to join the campaign to shell Japanese airfields in Okinawa.
5 May 1950
Eight dikes fail in Winnipeg; 100,000 evacuate the Red River valley.
[DND]
6 May 1814
The British capture Fort Oswego, New York.
7 May 1945
Germany unconditionally surrenders to the Allies in Europe.
8 May 1944
U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower decides on the date for D-Day.
[Legion Magazine]
9 May 2014
A National Day of Honour marks the end of Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan.
[LAC]
Winston Churchill becomes British prime minister as the blitzkrieg sweeps into France.
11 May 2012
The last of 17 new RCAF Super Hercules aircraft arrives at 8 Wing/CFB Trenton.
12 May 1885
The Battle of Batoche ends and, with it, the Northwest Rebellion.
13 May 1943
HMCS Drumheller helps destroy a U-boat in the North Atlantic.
14 May 1814
American raiders destroy Port Dover, Ont.
[LAC]
Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden returns from an imperial war conference in England.
16 May 1943
Dams in Germany’s industrial Ruhr basin are destroyed by the bouncing bombs of No. 617 Squadron RAF, known as the “Dambusters,” at a cost of 53 lives, 13 of them Canadian.
17 May 1900
The Royal Canadian Field Artillery helps in relieving Mafeking, South Africa, from an eight-month Boer War siege.
18 May 1966
Terrorist Paul-Joseph Chartier is killed in the Parliament Buildings by a bomb he intended to throw into the House of Commons.
[Great War Centenary Association]
19 May 1918
Canadian nurse Katherine Maud MacDonald is killed during German bombings of Étaples, France.
20 May 1948
Canadian WWII flying ace George “Buzz” Beurling dies in Rome when his plane explodes, possibly from sabotage.
21 May 1941
German battleship Bismarck is spotted in Norwegian waters; the British find and sink her within a week.
22 May 1942
Canadian merchant ship Frank B. Baird is sunk by U-158 near Bermuda.
23 May 1944
Canadians break through the Hitler Line in the Liri Valley in Italy.
24 May 1963
Sikorsky CH-124 Sea King helicopters begin Royal Canadian Navy service.
[LAC]
The Royal Canadian Regiment arrives on Koje-Do Island, South Korea, to take up guard duty over 3,200 fractious North Korean PoWs.
26 May 1944
Canadians join British and American forces concentrated on England’s south coast for the D-Day invasion.
27 May 1918
The German Army launches its fourth major offensive of the year against the French at the Chemin des Dames.
[LAC]
28 May 1916
The Canadian government is advised to abandon the Ross rifle, which jams in combat.
29 May 1982
The National War Memorial in Ottawa is rededicated to include dates of the Second World War and Korean War.
30 May 1951
The Royal Canadian Regiment is ordered to advance on the village of Chail-li and Hill 467 in Korea.
Recruiting Posters featuring the heroes of St. Julien and Festubert. [CWM]
31 May 1915
Fresh from the trenches at Festubert, France, the Canadians are assigned to the Givenchy sector.
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