Canada at War, 1939–1942: The Air Training Plan, the Atlantic, Hong Kong and Dieppe

Approaching this lesson

This lesson and the next describe battles in which many Canadians were killed, wounded or captured. They are described factually, without graphic detail. Behind every number is a person with a family, and many Canadian families still remember relatives who served.

Hook: a small country, a huge effort

In September 1939 Canada's armed forces were tiny: a few thousand regular soldiers, a handful of warships and a small air force. By 1945, more than one million Canadian men and women (from a population of about 11 million) had served full-time, and Canada had one of the largest navies and air forces among the Allies. How did Canada build such a war effort, and what did it cost?

The aerodrome of democracy: the BCATP

In December 1939, Canada agreed to host the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Canada had wide open spaces, was out of range of enemy aircraft and was close to American factories.

• Air schools opened across the country, from Prince Edward Island to British Columbia.
• By 1945 the plan had trained 131,553 aircrew: pilots, navigators, wireless operators, air gunners and others. Most were Canadians.
• U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt called Canada "the aerodrome of democracy."

Many BCATP graduates served with RAF Bomber Command over Europe, including in the RCAF's own No. 6 Group. About 10,000 Canadians died serving with Bomber Command, one of the heaviest losses of any Canadian service. Bombing German cities was meant to destroy industry and morale; it also killed many German civilians, and historians still debate its morality and effectiveness.

The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939 to 1945

Britain depended on food, fuel and weapons shipped across the Atlantic. German U-boats tried to sink those ships.

• Merchant ships sailed in convoys from Halifax and Sydney, Nova Scotia, protected by warships. The Royal Canadian Navy built dozens of small corvettes for escort duty and grew from a handful of ships to hundreds.
• The most dangerous zone was the mid-Atlantic "air gap", beyond the range of land-based patrol aircraft, until longer-range planes closed it in 1943.
• In 1942, U-boats even entered the Gulf and River St. Lawrence and sank ships close to Canadian shores, including the passenger ferry Caribou in October 1942.
• Canada's merchant navy sailors faced great danger. More than 1,600 Canadian and Newfoundland merchant mariners died. For decades they did not receive the same veterans' recognition as the armed forces.

The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest campaign of the war, and Canada's largest contribution at sea.

Hong Kong, December 1941

In late 1941, 1,975 Canadians, mainly from the Royal Rifles of Canada (Quebec) and the Winnipeg Grenadiers, were sent to help defend the British colony of Hong Kong. Many were not fully trained. On December 8, 1941, hours after attacking Pearl Harbor, Japan attacked Hong Kong. The garrison surrendered on Christmas Day.

About 290 Canadians were killed in the battle. The survivors became prisoners of war and endured years of brutal treatment, hunger and forced labour; about 267 more died as prisoners. More than 550 of the 1,975 never came home. The defeat shocked Canadians and increased fear and hostility toward Japanese Canadians at home (Lesson 13).

Dieppe, August 19, 1942

Canadian soldiers had been training in Britain since 1939 but had not yet fought in Europe. On August 19, 1942, 4,963 Canadians, with British commandos and others, made an amphibious raid on the German-held port of Dieppe, France. The plan went badly wrong: the landing lost surprise, the beaches were overlooked by strong defences, and tanks struggled on the stone beach. Within hours, 916 Canadians were killed and 1,946 taken prisoner.

Consequences and debate: Allied planners later said the lessons of Dieppe (the need for heavy bombardment, specialized landing equipment and not attacking a defended port head-on) helped make D-Day succeed in 1944. Historians still debate whether those lessons justified the cost.

Secret war: Camp X

In December 1941, a top-secret training school opened on the shore of Lake Ontario between Whitby and Oshawa. Camp X trained Allied agents in sabotage, radio and other skills before they were sent behind enemy lines. It was linked to British Security Coordination, an intelligence organization run from New York by Winnipeg-born William Stephenson. Its powerful radio station, Hydra, relayed secret messages across the Atlantic.