A War Felt Right At Home

 Propaganda posters of the Second World War stand out as we begin to look at how the war affected life at home.

Women joined the war effort, both as civilian workers in munitions factories or doing things that men had been doing, and in roles as members of the military, such as the Canadian Women's Army Corps.

Needless to say, the sentiment of this poster for war bonds could be agreed upon by pretty much everyone of the time.

Rationing became part of life.

Veterans of the First World War were encouraged to re-enlist, training new soldiers or guarding POW camps as part of the Veterans Guard of Canada.

The uniform and rifle of the VGC. The crossbow was improvised by a German POW.

POW camps were found across the country, a long distance from Germany, where prisoners, even if they did escape, were unlikely to find help from anyone.

Canadians were garrisoned in Britain- aircrews who were launching regular missions during the war, convoys landing at British ports, and soldiers waiting for the inevitable push back onto the continent.

That first push ended in disaster at a place along the coast of France called Dieppe, where Canadians were held off and pushed back in the Dieppe Raid of August 1942. The lucky ones escaped, but others were killed or taken prisoner. But the hard lessons would be learned two years later for the invasion at Normandy.