A Cold War

 This is an M3 half-track, a mainstay transport of Canadian forces during the Korean War.

Ted Zuber was a young Canadian soldier who went to fight in Korea. When he returned home, in the years that followed, he transferred his memories to the canvas. The War Museum has several of his paintings. This one is First Kill- The Hook.

This is titled Reverse Slope, with soldiers at rest. Decades later, Zuber would return to war again as a commissioned war artist during Desert Storm.

A side by side comparison of a Canadian winter uniform at left, and a Chinese uniform at right.

Kap'yong was a tough battle of that war, fought in high mountain country, and a three dimensional reproduction of the landscape is in the display case below. Another painting by Zuber, depicting that battle, is at top.

The Korean War would end in a ceasefire, dividing the peninsula into two countries, with the North half being run by a family of insane autocrats and kleptocrats ever since. But the Cold War would go on. 

A command centre is reproduced here, with screens showing scenarios of what might have happened if the Cold War had ever broken out into a full scale war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

A map of Europe is displayed, with a news scroll showing various events breaking out, while the map changes and the death toll mounts. The effect is vivid.

Below is one of the few things ever made well by the Soviet Union- the Kalashnikov.

The Cold War went on, and the weapons became more formidable, like this tank.

Nuclear weapons added a whole new level to that. Canada, for a time, was a nuclear armed nation.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the heights of that time. Quotes by JFK and Khrushchev speak volumes. A photograph of Kennedy meeting with Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker is on this panel as well. In fact, Diefenbaker and Kennedy pretty much despised each other.