CANADA’S PART

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 September 1943, Page 4

CANADA’S PART

ROLE IN WORLD WAR NOTABLE CONTRIBUTION. IN MEN AND PRODUCTION. Canadian troops engaged in the conquest of Sicily, and their latest achievement at Kiska added further to the laurels they have already won in the war at the defence of Hongkong, in the Dieppe raid and, to a lesser extent, in the Tunisian campaign. In addition there is the long record of service by the Canadians who form 25 per cent of the flying strength of the Royal Air Force and man the ships of the Canadian Navy. Participation in the Sicilian campaign apparently marked the end of the former policy of preserving the Canadian army as a single unit. More familiar to New Zealand through this country’s participation in it is the Empire air training scheme based on Canadian airfields. To a large extent this magnificent effort has overshadowed other aspects of Canada’s tremendous undertakings in the war. The statement that 6 per cent of her manpower has been mobilised does not reflect the huge production of materials for war, now reaching the rate of over 2,500,000,000 dollars 1 worth a year. The figure represents a huge output of food, aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, guns and ammunition. Speaking in the House of Commons in Ottawa in June, Mr C. D. Howe, Minister of Munitions, said that aeroplane production was 80 a week, including the Mosquito, and that ship launchings were at the rate of six a week. Automobile factories were producing 4000 motor vehicles and 450 fighting vehicles, while munition plants V. ere making 940 heavy guns and 13,000 smaller weapons a week. Canada had sent 1400 tanks to Russia and she was retaining only 3Q per cent of her production for herself. The rest was goin°- to the United Slates, Britain, RusNew Zealand, Australia, India, Africa and China. . Apart from the sending of two divisions to Britain early in 1940, little was heard of Canadian troops until they took a large share in the heroic defence of Hongkong against the Japanese in 1941. The units engaged were the Quebec Royal Rifles and the Winnipeg Grenadiers, the first having battle honours dating back to 1862. The Grenadiers were formed shortly before the last war and underwent their baptism of fire in 1916. The next major operation in which Canadian troops took part was the combined operations raid on Dieppe on August 19, 1942. Five thousand of them made the landing and they suffered 3350 casualties, 2547 of that number being posted missing. There were 180.000 Canadians overseas last December, and since that lime reinforcements have arrived in Britain at least each month. A detachment of officers and non-commissioned officers went to North Africa in January to gain battle experience with the British First Army in Tunisia.

The General Officer Commanding the Canadian Expeditionary Force is Lieu-tenant-General A. G. McNaughton, a veteran of the last war, wounded at Soissons in 1918. At 42 he was appointed Chief of the General Staff. At 55 he is today a leader of whom the Canadians speak affectionately as “the General.” Scientist as well as soldier, he believes that “machines and intelligence arc the things to win the war, not young lives.”