War In The Pacific

 The Canadian military effort put its emphasis in the war in Europe and the Battle of the Atlantic. Yet there were Canadians committed to battle in the Pacific. One of them, Hampton Gray, was seconded to the British Navy as a pilot, and won the Victoria Cross flying a Corsair, attacking a Japanese destroyer and sinking it, at the cost of his own life. He is one of a series of people from Canadian military history honoured in a series of statues and busts near the War Memorial called The Valiants. It's been quite awhile since I've photographed any of them.

Athull Brown piloted bombers in southeast Asia, going after Japanese supply and transportation lines.

Leonard Birchall was called the Savior of Ceylon. He spotted a Japanese fleet heading for Ceylon (today Sri Lanka), and was able to radio the information to base before getting shot down.

A curious artifact, but fitting for the region. This was used to treat snake bites.

The environment in southeast Asia was as much a challenge as anything else.

A Canadian military transport went down in dense jungle during the war and was lost for decades. It was eventually found, and its crew buried with honours. Items from the wreck are found here.

Panels here include Canadian ships being sent into the Pacific theatre, as well as the surrender of Japan.

It was the detonation of two atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that brought the Japanese to surrender. A roof tile, briefly exposed to the atomic blast at Hiroshima, is in this display case.

I tend to finish the World War Two era with events earlier than that of VJ Day. The war in Europe came to an end in May 1945, and for many Canadian soldiers, their last task was the liberation of the Netherlands.

The country had suffered enormously under occupation by Nazi Germany. Allied forces had liberated parts of the country by the end of 1944, but most of it remained under occupation. That last winter was the hardest of the war for the Dutch people.

Canadian soldiers drove forward into the country as part of the momentum of the Allies against the Germans. They liberated the Dutch, who welcomed them as heroes.

This is the pen used by Canadian General Charles Foulkes, who oversaw the surrender of German forces in the Netherlands on the 5th of May, 1945.

Courage Under Fire

 We begin today with the Wasp Flamethrower, a vehicle that was a mainstay of Canadian troops during the Scheldt, the Rhineland campaign, and through to the end of the war.

As the name suggested, this cast fire a long distance into the enemy- certainly the sort of thing that would terrify your adversary.

Alongside other Allied forces, Canadians would push into the Rhineland. It was just a matter of time. On both west and east fronts, Nazi Germany was dying.

There are stories here of individual courage and audacity. Lt.-Colonel Denis Whitaker had led men at Dieppe, and led them through the Rhineland to the end of the war. Sergeant Aubrey Cosens won the Victoria Cross posthumously for his bravery under fire. Major Fred Tilston won it too for his leadership, losing his legs in the process.

One of my favourite artifacts in the Museum. This German pistol was taken by the wounded Private Terrence Kaye, who forced his captors to take him back to Canadian lines. That is pure audacity.

Field medical kits had advanced with the times.

Field hospitals had improved from the First World War. 

Organizations like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army worked tirelessly, at home and at the front.

Their work, in many capacities, would be the sort of thing that would lift morale, reminding men of what they were fighting for.

The 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion landed behind German lines in March 1945 and went to work wrecking havoc on them. They penetrated deeper into Germany than any other Canadian unit, and ended the war meeting up with Soviet soldiers.

This is the medal set and cap of one of them. Corporal Frederick Topham won the Victoria Cross during the Rhineland campaign.

Canadians who had been prisoners of war in Europe were waiting to be freed. Some of them were in the worst POW camps behind German lines, such as in the camp that later became known as the site of the Great Escape.

The Normandy Veterans

 Canadians continued to fight their way through Normandy alongside Allied forces, driving the Germans back.

It was at great cost. This display case features medal sets for two men who didn't make it back. Private Oscar Beaudoin was killed on the second day of the campaign.

Corporal Arthur Wilkinson died on the 18th of June during the fight to drive the Germans out of Caen, days after sending a final letter to his mother.

First World War veteran Henry Duncan Graham Crerar rose to the rank of general, leading the First Canadian Army from early 1944 to the end of the war. He is buried with his men at Beechwood Cemetery here in Ottawa. Lieutenant George Blackburn saw action in Normandy and the rest of the war as a forward observation officer for the artillery, and after the war wrote three books on his wartime experiences.

Another Normandy veteran, and this one has its resting place in the museum. Forceful III is the name given to this Sherman tank by its crew of five, and the tank made it through the Normandy campaign and the end of the war. Its crew thought of it as home. While Shermans couldn't match a German Panzer individually, there were more of them, and that made the difference.

Major David Currie won the Victoria Cross for his actions late during the Normandy campaign, commanding a handful of men, holding a vital crossroads against repeated attacks by Germans. They captured over two thousand German soldiers.

What Germans could escape from Normandy did. The western Allies had won a significant but costly victory. But the war was not yet won.

As the Allies pushed further along, freeing Paris and going after the Germans, the Canadians got another assignment- clearing the Scheldt estuary of German forces. Doing that would allow Antwerp, which had come into Allied hands, to function as a port for resupply. It was a campaign that lasted weeks, with the Germans flooding the land as a delaying tactic.

This was the uniform of a soldier in the Scheldt Campaign.

Bloody Battle For Normandy

 Two extraordinary paintings hang together here in the Normandy section of the World War Two gallery at the War Museum. Invasion Pattern Normandy is by Eric Aldwinkle, depicting the air perspective of the D-Day landings. D-Day: The Assault is from the point of view of those on the beach itself fighting their way from the water. Orville Fisher was a commissioned Canadian war artist who had the peculiar distinction of being the only war artist who landed on the beaches of Normandy that day. While everyone else was fighting around him, he took out his pencil and waterproof sketchpad, and started to sketch what was happening. 

The quotes here speak volumes of that day. By the end of the day, Canadian soldiers had pushed further inland than their British and American counterparts.

A door leads out onto a balcony. The visitor gets a look at the Lebreton Gallery below, where tanks and other military equipment from a variety of countries and eras is to be found. A guide was speaking with visitors.

The Normandy campaign became a vicious one for the Allies.