World War II is Canada’s only morally justifiable war. But that doesn’t mean media coverage of its European conclusion should ignore the unsavory elements of Canada’s role in the conflict.
The entire front of Thursday’s Globe and Mail celebrated “Victory and Valour: Canada and the world mark 80 years since the war in Europe came to an end.” CBC, Toronto Star and other outlets have also recently published simplistically laudatory pieces about Canada’s role in the horrible conflict.
Unlike Canada’s seven other major wars, WWII was ultimately justifiable. But Nazi expansionism’s threat to British interests, not opposition to fascism or antisemitism, led Ottawa to battle.
In the lead-up to WWII, Mussolini’s Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia), the only independent African country. Ottawa’s overall position opposed collective League of Nations action against Italy and ultimately recognized Italian sovereignty over Ethiopia.
Another significant backdrop to WWII was the struggle between fascism and liberal democracy in Spain. In that country’s 1936 elections a left-wing coalition government won office. The Catholic church, landed gentry and big business immediately looked to overthrow the government with the help of General Francisco Franco, commander of Spain’s overseas military. In this armed struggle, Franco was assisted by Hitler’s Germany, fascist Portugal and Mussolini’s Italy. In April 1937 Ottawa passed the Foreign Enlistment Act in a bid to block Canadians from fighting on behalf of the Spanish Republican government.
During this period Canada also found no fault in supplying war materials to the fascist Japanese army that occupied Korea and massacred the Chinese in Manchuria. In the years leading up to the start of the European front of WWII, Japan was the third largest importer of Canadian non-ferrous metals. Throughout the mid-to late-1930s leftist organizations, peace groups and self-styled “friends of China” called for an economic and military boycott of Japan to end Canada’s complicity with Japanese expansionism. But corporate Canada “promoted trade with Manchuria and the rest of the Japanese empire.”
Canadian support for fascism in Japan and Spain in the years leading to WWII should bedevil the notion that Canada joined the war to combat this perverse political system/ideology. Prime Minister Mackenzie King, in fact, was sympathetic to European fascism. Canadian and British officials sympathized with Hitler’s antagonism towards the Soviet Union and European left.
Nazi expansionism’s threat to British interests led Ottawa to war. As Desmond Morton and Jack Granatstein explain, “Canada went to war in September 1939 for the same reason as in 1914: because Britain went to war.” And the war was a huge boost to Canada’s depressed economy.
The Canadian Forces committed major humanitarian crimes during the war. Most ominously, Canadian bombers helped destroy German cities and civilian infrastructure. A large number of Canadian pilots participated in an effort to destroy three dams in the Ruhr Valley. In Dam Busters: Canadian Airmen and the Secret Raid Against Nazi Germany, Ted Barris details a bid to flood the region and destroy the civilian economy.
The aim of the strategic bomber offensive was to crush civilian morale. According to the British general in charge of bomber command, Arthur Harris, “the destruction of German cities; the killing of German workers and the destruction of civilized life throughout Germany … the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives; the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale; and the breakdown of morale … [These] are expected and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not byproducts of attempts to hit factories.” The bombing effort left 600,000 Germans dead and more than five million homeless. But the raids had only a minimal impact on German war production until late in the campaign.
During WWII Canada’s defence zone included the West Indies and British Guyana. Supporting the colonial system, Canadian troops replaced British forces in Jamaica from 1940-1946, as well as in Bermuda and the Bahamas during segments of this period. Perceptions of race underlay the deployment of Canadian troops. According to Defence Minister Norman Rogers, the governor of Jamaica “had intimated that it will be risky to remove all white troops.” The situation in the Bahamas was even more sensitive. In June 1942 rioting broke out over the low wages received by Black labourers. Canadian troops arrived in the Bahamas just after the riots and their main task was to protect a paranoid governor, the Duke of Windsor.
Canadians fought by land, sea and air in colonial Africa. Describing a support mission in 1943 a Hamilton Spectator headline noted: “Canada Supplied 29 Ships and 3000 of Her Sailors for North African Action”. Many Canadian fighter pilots also operated over the continent. More than a half-dozen Canadian pilots defended the important RAF base at Takoradi, Ghana, and others traveled there to follow the West African Reinforcement Route, which delivered thousands of fighter planes to the Middle East and North African theatre of the war. A team of French-speaking Canadians with broadcasting skills grouped in Accra, Ghana, supported the Allied invasion of French North Africa.
Canadian troops fought to protect British rule in Asia as well. Ottawa sent 1,975 troops to defend Hong Kong in the fall of 1941. “Hong Kong constituted an outpost which the Commonwealth intended to hold,” read an External Affairs message to London in response to a request for troops. Partly to help Britain regain Hong Kong, several Chinese- Canadians were covertly deployed into China. According to Roy MacLaren in Canadians Behind Enemy Lines, 1939-1945, they were sent because “whenever the Japanese capitulated, it would be useful to have on hand a team to enter Hong Kong promptly to help re-establish the British writ there.”
Canadians also helped re-establish the “British writ” in another Asian island city-state. One of Vancouver Lieutenant Colonel Arthur R. Stewart’s first tasks in Singapore was to raise the Union Jack over municipal buildings to greet the first Allied troops to return. A few hundred Canadians fought with British, Australian and US special forces who carried out secretive operations in Malaya, parts of China and some Pacific islands. The Number One Canadian Special Wireless Group was dispatched to Australia during the war. Its 330 members mostly monitored Japanese signals throughout the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). Canadians also participated in psychological warfare efforts in Burma, Siam, Indochina, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. In early 1945 over 3,000 Canadian airmen served with the Royal Air Force or Royal Canadian Air Force in Southeast Asia. Canadian Air Force units attacked Japanese positions in India and Burma and also provided transport support.
Dozens of Canadian army officers aided the re-conquest of Burma, which had been a British colony for a century. Canadians also helped Britain re-conquer Malaya (Malaysia). At least 16 Chinese-Canadians were sent behind enemy lines to carry out sabotage missions, organize local resistance and prepare for the collapse of Japanese control. After the Japanese defeat they aided the British in suppressing the independence movement there. Canadians helped disarm the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army. Major CD Munro and Sergeant Charlie Chung were sent to the northern part of the state of Kedah “where trouble had developed with the local guerrilla forces.” At the start of 1946 a few dozen Canadian intelligence officers served in the radio station at Kuala Lumpur and aided psychological warfare operations.
Rather than whitewashed propaganda, the public deserves a full accounting of Canada’s role in World War II. The good, the bad and the ugly truth about our support for imperialism.
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