Canada came of age during the Second World War

.....has focused on the details of actions at the battalion and company level. The evidence confirms my belief that historians have greatly underrated the achievements of the Allied combat troops who inflicted a series of defeats on the German army and thereby played the major role in the liberation of the people of North-West Europe.

It was a war of company and platoon commanders, sergeants and, above all, the junior NCO who lead troops into battle. Many of these were unlikely heroes for the infantry rarely attracted the biggest, the best and the brightest. The very ordinary young Canadians, the “long, the short and the tall,” who fought the battle to liberate North-West Europe turned out to be quite extraordinary. Bless them all!


A static battle of attrition, gains measured in yards and thousands of dead.


Total casualties for the Black Watch Regiment as a whole amounted 2,150 men. For service during the war over two hundred honours and awards were made to personnel of the Regiment.

After the war:

In the first decade after the war Canadians had little difficulty in giving meaning to the achievements and sacrifices of the men and women of the armed forces. The horrors of the Third Reich were fresh in everyone’s mind and no one doubted that Canadians has made a major contribution to the defeat of the “monstrous tyranny which had threatened the survival of Western Civilization."
This came under attack in the 1960s from a generation influenced by the war in Vietnam and rise of a new nationalism. All wars were suspect and the kind of patriotism which had formed the context for Canadian participation in the Second World War seemed to closely tie to Britain to be acceptable.

Darrell remembers one cold Remembrance Day in Naicam in 1969 or 70; the dead leaves were blowing from the North. The Legion was marching west up the main street, and I was wearing my army surplus jacket, the group of young people weren’t laughing but we didn't understand and we didn’t have the proper respect. I remember Dad eyes looking at me as he was marching. I wish in hindsight we would have talked to the veterans and shown them respect. Sign of the time.


However much we may honor the "Unknown Soldier" as the symbol of sacrifice in war, let us not mistake the fact that it is the "Known Soldier" who wins battles. Sentiment aside, it is the man whose identity is well known to his fellows who has the main chance as a battle effective. - Colonel S.L.A. Marshall.

The Canadians who landed in Normandy and the Canadians who fought through Buron and Authie, Verriers Ridge and the Falaise Gap deserve to be remembered by their country. They were not all saints, they were not all heroes. But there were saints and heroes among them, as they fought in the dust and hest of Normandy that summer of 1944. Remember them and remember their achievements. -J.L. Granatstein and Desmond Morton, Bloody Victory; Canadians and the D-Day campaign 1944.