Canada in World War II - Part 8: Fight to the Finish

The ruins of Dresden. In every destruction of a city there is
always one remaining statue to look over ominously.

The final pushes of World War II were far from clearing things out and running down the clock. The Germans still had some fight in them, even if the individual soldiers were losing their gusto. Hitler, unwilling to admit defeat, forced his trampled armies into fight after fight, in spite of the fact they were losing countless soldiers and had effectively no chance of victory. His final plan was to institute what he called the "people's storm", which drafted all German males between the ages of 16-60. With draft dodgers, people refusing to fight, and those attempting and failing to surrender to the Canadians or otherwise (the allied forces were dropping pamphlets promising a safe passage to those that surrendered) they began to follow through with executions. And not just a few: to compare, Canada and the United States had zero and one respectively. The Germans executed 20,000. In spite of all of this, many said that the fighting was no less intense than Normandy.

Meanwhile, the Canadians had a familiar problem that, like a nagging wound, refused to go away. We were running out of soldiers. Mackenzie King refused outright (as promised) to follow through with overseas conscription, but with groups of soldiers running at half capacity, he had little choice. In 1944, he flipped after pressure from his military advisors and took his NRMA (National Resource Mobilization Act - essentially conscripted home-front soldiers) and told them 16,000 of them would be fighting overseas. It was similar to Canada's conscription crisis in 1917, with many of the same issues and responses. Those that went over, not eager to fight and feeling betrayed by the Canadian government, were referred to as "zombies".

An American meets a Russian in Berlin. "American meeting
with Russian soldiers" isn't quite so cheery anymore.

Even the soldiers that volunteered were beginning to lose their heads. Battle fatigue was a serious issue, with some soldiers serving well beyond their limits and facing little understanding from on high about the effects of long-term warfare. With an enemy that seemed to never quit and a war that was endless, hope was running low. The message on high was to simply label escapism - either through desertion, purposefully wounding yourself, or simply refusing to fight - as a shameful act that betrays the soldiers they were fighting with.

Canadians celebrating with the liberated Dutch after
the Nazi defeat. After the war, the soldiers hung around a while.
The citizens were... appreciative. One Dutch reporter has
my favourite quote about this: "Dutch men were beaten
militarily in 1940; sexually in 1945."

What sometimes the front-line soldiers wouldn't see, however, was that they were indeed winning the war. The final push into Germany, called Operation Veritable for the Canadians, was a massive and costly but ultimately successful one. The First Canadian Army had control of thirteen national divisions consisting of 470,000 troops, the largest held by a Canadian commander. The Germans, on their own turf and therefore more eager to defend it, were fighting to the last, making the massive invasion force entirely necessary.

But it wasn't just troops moving into Germany. One million tons - which I would say is a lot of tons - of aerial bombs were dropped on Germany in 1944. More than 50% of the urban areas of Germany were destroyed. In February of 1945, after the failed last-ditch attempt of the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, the historic bombing of Dresden likely killed as many as 35,000 civilians in a hellish firestorm of bombing runs. It was met with controversial opinions: was it overkill, and the needless destruction of civilians, or were they doing what it took to end the war? Many today would condemn the actions but with looking at it through a modern lens, not taking enough into account of how it would have been at the time and the dire situation the world was in. 

Canadians celebrating on VE day. This was the
line-up for the liquor store.

Eventually, Germany was defeated while the Canadians were still liberating the Netherlands. The Nazis fought to the very end, seeing twelve Canadians killed on day Germany surrendered, May 7th, 1945.

So, I could give a big speech about how the war has had such long standing effects, what it meant for the world, etc. But I feel that's been done over and over by people who could do it much better than I could. I'll leave it instead with some specifically Canadian statistics. 44,339 casualties, 11,000 of them killed, came from Canada from D-Day onwards. 54,000 Canadians were wounded from the outset, and 29,000 listed as seriously disabled. Of the more than one million that served in uniform, almost 100,000 were killed or wounded. It's a shockingly high number considering Canada's total population was between 11-12,000,000 during the war. There would still be plenty more before the Second World War ends with the nuclear bombs on Japan. In a war that took an average of 25,000 lives a day, civilian and soldier, Canada played its part.

Canada in World War II - Part 7: The Scheldt and Dutch Liberation

Does it make sense to say that even Generals can get a little antsy to end a war?

The map of the battle. The river Scheldt is the lower river beneath the
peninsula. Or maybe an estuary. Wait, then what's an archipelago? I'm
sure it's not a rhombus, that's just a shape... anyway, the only thing
more complicated than figuring out what the area around the Scheldt is
is figuring out how to spell it.

That's certainly how it feels retrospectively looking back at Operation Market Garden. With Normandy taken, the idea was to plunge the dagger into Germany itself, quickly and decisively, ending the war once and for all. However, there were a number of problems: the Germans were far from done, they were set to fight much more aggressively since it would be the first time fighting on home turf, and soldiers and supplies were thinning dramatically for the allies (although, to be fair, for the Nazis as well). For all that Operation Market Garden was seen as controversial and perhaps needlessly risky, although much of that comes from historians looking back on it now. What perhaps would have worked better would be to free up the major port city of Antwerp in Belgium before committing so many forces towards Germany, as it would have been easier to support Antwerp - and the Dutch river Scheldt that leads to it - with a larger force. While Antwerp was in allied hands, without the river the city was largely ineffective. Market Garden resulted in a massive failure, and in many ways it was up to the beleaguered and half-strength Canadians to come in and clean up the mess, taking the river and the city which should have been done with a larger force and greater planning.

Geographically, Antwerp is far down the river Scheldt, and much of the German defences were centred around a jutting peninsula flanked by the Scheldt and another river. The peninsula itself was a fortress, protected not only by a large German force led by experienced eastern-front commanders, but also by one strong and rightfully feared enemy of all in the World Wars: mud. So much mud. Much of the area was flooded, and efforts to build trenches would find that they'd fill up with water almost instantly.

Soldier: "The Buffalo is a slow moving, loud, amphibious
transport. How should we use them, sir?"
Commander: "In a surprise attack!"
Soldier: "Did you hear the words I just said, commander?"
Commander: "Surprise! Surprise!"

The plan was to have a multi-pronged assault that would overwhelm the German defences. On October 9th they planned a surprise attack, with a main frontal assault and another coming from behind with an amphibious assault of Buffalos, an amphibious transport with an aircraft engine. You would think that to make it an effective surprise attack you would need speed and silence, but the Canadians and their Buffalos had neither. The engines - I mean, they're aircraft engines - were exceptionally loud, and the transports moved at the rip-roaring thrill-ride pace of 3 knots per hour. (5.56 kilometres per hour. Wikipedia doubles it for similar vehicles, but I trust my books.) They might as well have attacked in paddleboats, as those would have gotten there faster.

Video games have lied to me. Flamethrowers always
only shoot a few yards in distance. These things are lobbing
flames like they're shot out of a cannon. Flamethrower
tanks have range! Who knew?

Somehow - somehow! - the secrecy was kept and the surprise attack held some success. While on the way, Dutch children would ride by on bicycles shouting encouragement to the Canadian soldiers, as the people there were in the process of being starved to death.  Subsisting on a set amount of calories a day, the people were thrilled at the prospect of Canadian liberators. Fortunately for both the occupied and the liberators, the Canadians started defeating the Germans through slow, ditch-by-ditch or house-by-house fighting. Defending unconventionally, the Nazis would disguise pillboxes as small houses (complete with curtains and everything) and have fake trees and haystacks with machine guns hidden inside. In fact, much of the fighting in general was unconventional. With the water the way it was, dykes were often filled with mines, meaning nowhere was safe on the battlefield. Even tanks were rendered ineffective by the water as they would frequently get stuck.

What helped make the difference towards the eventual Canadian victory was once more the use of planes. Typhoons, a new plane that was proving to be exceptionally effective, helped provide air support throughout the campaign and with only anti-aircraft weapons to shoot them down with minimal actual aircraft to counter them. The Germans surrendered on November 3rd, the operation succeeding with over two thousand German casualties and 12,700 taken prisoner.

"Come tiptoe, through the tulips,[Defeat the Nazis,]
With me..."

With the estuary taken, that didn't mean the Netherlands was free of Nazis. Antwerp couldn't really start shipping until the Germans were forced out of the nearby fortified city of Walcheren. Battle fatigue and loss of personnel was beginning to take hold of the Canadian forces, but the mission still had to be completed. To ease their assault, they planned to bomb the many dykes surrounding Walcheren and flood the area, restricting the Nazis' movement and forcing them onto smaller patches of dry land - allowing them to be bombed from above more easily. This was met by the Dutch with more than a little sadness; they still had 30,000 people still living there, and that would put them not only in danger but it would severely devastate their town. However, war was war, and on October 31st the dykes were bombed. The ensuing battles were successes and by November 28th tons of cargo was being sent in to support the supply-starved allied forces through the Antwerp ports, a massive turning point in the war.

Although the Netherlands was still held by the Nazis in many areas and would remain so until the end of the war, the Canadians would continue to push through and free the starving people. To this day, the Dutch annually send thousands and thousands of tulips to Ottawa as a thank you for liberation. Add them to the list of cultures that likes plucky little Canada.

Canada in World War II - Part 6: D-Day

D-Day was the big one. The largest naval armada ever put together was to storm the beaches of Normandy against a dug in, exceedingly well defended German force that had been occupying France for years. Both sides had prepared in endless training regiments for this day, and if the Germans held it could very well turn the tide of the war. With 6,900 vessels including 1213 warships (we had 126 of those between the two categories) it felt like an all-or-nothing battle. Both sides had

I know, I know, this is an American photo at Omaha beach,
and it's part of Canadian culture to be fiercely not
anti-American but not-American. But it's one heck of
a photo. So... slag off.

advantages; for the allies, the Luftwaffe was all but destroyed, rendering their air support useless and making reconnaissance a mess. Also, a series of successful spy network ploys - "accidental" leaks of Canadian documents - meant the Germans believed they were attacking elsewhere. The Nazis, however, had the age-old advantage of being in a prepared defense. Typically, attacking forces would want a tremendous numbers advantage if on the assault as an even footing would make a very lopsided battle if one had to move towards the other.

With everything prepared, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Canadian infantry divisions, with 18,000 troops in the 3rd division - the tip of the spear. These soldiers had been training for years on how to take Normandy, and they would be focussing on Juno beach, one of five beachheads between two divisions of British soldiers. On the day of the attack 21,000 Canadians would make it ashore with 2,000 vehicles, joining 130,000 other allied soldiers. To prepare themselves for this, some sang raunchy songs, one ship had their padre have a quiz over the intercom system of the boat to take their minds off things, and others shaved their heads or styled it as a Mohawk in what they called "assault haircuts". (I wonder if any of the Mohawk haircut guys had an awkward conversation with the quiz guys after asking what they did to prepare. Varying levels of intensity, I suppose.)

For the Nazis, a sunny stroll through the barricades
was a delightful way to spend an afternoon.

After all the preparation, training, prayers, songs, and what-have-you, the ships began firing on the beaches at 5:30 a.m. Naturally, the Canadian beach got the least amount of shelling. Their goal was to take a port and two small cities in front of them which were to be leveled by tanks and infantry pushes which still held heavy amounts of defenders in spite of the bombing. To show that training only went so far, one soldier remarked "They don't teach us how to react when someone suddenly becomes a lot of pieces in front of you." Men that would have spent years learning how to assault the beach would be killed before they even landed, sunk in landing crafts or shredded by machine gun fire the moment they got out. Many of the casualties came in the first brutal fifteen minutes of landing.

A major help to the ground forces were the addition of specialty tanks, collectively called "funnies" due to their strange looking or unconventional nature. These included a flame-throwing tank called a Crocodile (Because how do you make a tank scarier? Add fire!), armoured bulldozers, and flail tanks. The lattermost was a tank that had a massive apparatus that came in front of the machine tha

A flail tank in action. I bet they gave these tanks cool
nicknames, like the "Tickler". Or the "Whip-it". Or
the "Spinning Jenny". I'm here all day, folks.

t spun large chains at a very high speed. These chains would whip the ground, setting off mines that would otherwise blow the legs - or worse, as they often went waist height - off the soldiers. The Americans neglected to use the "funnies" and sorely regretted the error.

Eventually reaching the towns, the French Canadian soldiers greeted the occupied citizens that had been under Nazi control for 1,453 days in their own language. Of course, the citizens and the soldiers were thrilled to free them, but the day was far from over. The final goal was Carpiquet airfield fourteen kilometres from the original landing site. We weren't able to reach it, but that is no knock on the Canadian forces; we went the furthest distance at 11 kilometres, but at the cost of 359 killed adn 715 wounded. While those numbers are high, it was half of what was anticipated.

The HMS Belfast firing on Juno Beach. The
fire on the right is live ammunition; the left
is a bonfire used for marshmallows, smores,
and other such tasty treats.

The next day the Canadians dug in and awaited the expected counterattack. The Nazis would want to push them back to the beaches, effectively cutting off reinforcements and ending the battle. Fortunately for Canada, the Germans were left wanting for soldiers, having depleted their supply over the years of fighting. Their response was to send teenagers - the Hitler Youth, or Hitler-Jugend. Although young, the Hitler Youth showed great tenacity and fought as ferociously as any other, and the counter attack cost both sides dearly. The Canadians managed to hold, but barely.

The next while was a return to form in slow pushing tactics, and by June 11th 2,831 Canadian soldiers were casualties. The Canadians - with British support - finally took the airfield with an artillery concentration that exceeded the historic battle of Vimy Ridge by far. But this was just one of many. After countless small skirmishes and a few large scale battles, the allied forces eventually took Normandy after 77 days. 200,000 casualties would be for each side, with the Germans losing another 200,000 in prisoners. 18,000 of those casualties were Canadians.

With Normandy taken, the allies were ready for the final push - the long-awaited stab at Germany. With Russia closing in on Berlin as well, it felt only a matter of time before the war was over, but how many more would die in the process? With Hitler refusing to surrender (in spite of a few assassination attempts) the war seemed to continue on forever.

Canada in World War II - Part 5: The Invasion of Italy

After the debacle that was Dieppe, Europe was wary of land invasions but nevertheless knew they must be done. The way they planned to do this was not to push through the fortified defences along the French coast (although they'll get there soon!) but through what Churchill famously described as "the soft underbelly" - Italy. How much the Canadians wanted to contribute was a controversial matter; King hoped to stay out of the ground war for as much as possible to avoid further casualties and a conscription crisis if they lost too many soldiers, but General Andrew McNaughton felt that their long-standing infantry were itching to get into a fight. Attacking into Sicily was the time to do so, and while King was hesitant, there wasn't any backing out.

Unloading tanks and soldiers shortly after the initial invasion. An often
forgotten bonus of fighting in Italy was you got to wear shorts.

Knowing far too well the consequences for attacking into the fortified beaches, the Allies came up with a brilliant plan to trick the Nazis into defending the Peloponnese region instead of their true target, Sicily (you can read up on it here). The plan worked beautifully, allowing the massive armada consisting of six battleships, two aircraft carriers, fifteen cruisers, 119 destroyers and more than 2,000 landing craft to sail towards Sicily on July 9th. After the lead assault waves came the 160,000 allied reinforcements backed by over 600 tanks and 14,000 other vehicles. Far from another Dieppe, there was relatively small resistance. In fact, the Italian heat caused many of the allied soldiers (Canadians included, of course) to trade with the Sicilians for parasols and headwear to ward off the sun.

The first while went about as well as it could. The Canadian portion of the army moved from town to town through Assoro, Leonforte, and Agira, with the fighting slow and methodical with forward bombing and deliberate, heavy pushes to clear out the German forces. The Italians, meanwhile, would often surrender without much of a fight as they weren't in it for the long haul the way the Germans were. By the time the Canadians continued their push through Messina and Regalbuto by the end of July and early August, effectively pushing the Germans out of Sicily, Mussolini would be deposed. The Germans got word the Italians had planned to surrender, and for Italy the outlook of the war changed very suddenly. The Nazis became occupiers rather than allies, as they stole their supplies, murdered officers and took prisoners as they believed they had to defend Italy and would do it with or without the help of the Italians.

The "Loyal Eddies" in Ortona. The term
"street fight" held different connotations then.
"Never bring a knife to a gun and tank fight,"
they'd say.

With the allies' initial strikes successful, the Nazis made their stand on the Italian mainland with one of the major battles in World War II for Canada taking place in the port city of Ortona. Founded by the Trojans, the ancient city held some of Germany's best defenders. It would be here they would no longer go through a fighting retreat, but dig in and hold. The hungry and battle-weary Canadian forces assaulted the outskirts of Ortona with a heavy artillery bombardment from across the nearby Moro river, forced into a frontal assault through a five kilometre long trench as large as 200 metres wide which the Germans were defending strongly. Unable to flank due to German counter-attacks and numerous tank mines along the way, they had to fight right through it. Even bombing their defences was difficult as the maps they held were dreadful while the Germans' were up to date and effective. Nevertheless, they got through it with heavy casualties until they reached Ortona.

In the town itself would be brutal, close-quarters urban warfare. The Germans would blow up houses to create strong points, lay booby traps, and lay mines all across the place. The way the Loyal Edmonton Regiment (the "Loyal Eddies") took to attacking it was to cross from balcony to balcony and move top-down to avoid walking into traps placed on bottom floors. They'd come in from above, lob grenades down, and progress through. The battle was finally over by December 28th after an uncomfortable but quiet Christmas.

Running low on weapons and ammunition, some men
were armed with comically over-sized shovels.

The following phases of the Italian invasion came through stalemate battles over massive lines, similar to World War I. First, the Gustav line, the heavily defended landscape that was taken from the 11th of May to the 18th, was eventually overrun by a massed force of French, American, Polish, British and Canadian forces. The advantage the allies held at this point in the battle that was critical in keeping the Germans off-balance and unable to properly reinforce was superior air support. By now the Luftwaffe was in tatters, lacking the numbers to stand against the ever powerful allied power in the air. Reconnaissance was near impossible, and the allies used that to attack where the Germans weren't expecting.

With just the Hitler line left, the combined force of ten national groups and around 500,000 soldiers went to push their objectives on the 23rd. The Canadians were performing Operation Chesterfield, an attack that went against many of the soldiers that they had fought so savagely against in Ortona. In once again a World War I style battle, the Canadians used a creeping barrage before pushing through with their infantry. Taking the Hitler line was a costly affair, with 1,000 casualties for Canada alone on May 23rd. Nevertheless, it was a victory. Italy was shattered, the German lines were falling, and it paved the way for Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy. Unfortunately, they were unable to exploit the retreat, where so often the largest amount of casualties come, because of one major issue not commonly associated with warfare.

Traffic.

A painting of Ortona. Brilliant juxtaposition of scattered
weaponry in the forefront with damaged buildings in the
background, a stunning take on the ravages of war. Plus,
the sky looks pretty.

With thousands of vehicles pushing through only so many Italian roads, the allied forces ground to a halt. Worse yet, the British decided they would join with the Canadian vehicles to avoid a well-defended stretch not far away, adding another 20,000 vehicles to the mix.

While the assault into Italy was a success, there were many lessons to be learned. First, an amphibious assault can be successful with proper planning. Second, the Nazi's lack of air support by this time in the battle was something to be exploited. And third, blame the British for everything, because that's what they were doing to us.

Much Ado About Vikings

Today, as a break in the Canadian War History series, we'll be talking about vikings. The Scandinavian ones that is, not the Minnesotans. You know, if we were talking about the latter I'd probably have more to write about. The history of the vikings is sparse at best; it relies heavily on archaeological evidence (which allows your history to be more of an educated guess), the vikings didn't have a written word beyond runestones that were more for everyday markings rather than full stories (and if you're hoping for reliable oral history, well, ask yourself why the game "telephone" is played) and what is written about it comes from people writing semi-mythological accounts literally hundreds of years later. So, as it turns out, most of the really cool viking stuff? A lot of it is fluff, stuff that's wormed its way into popular culture one way or another. Heck, they don't even wear horned helmets.

A replica viking longboat. I hope the real vikings
had cooler emblems than "elderly person with hobo-stick".

Minnesota, you've lied to me.

Let's talk about what we do know. Most of this comes from written works of the people they've attacked or from archaeological evidence proving that they were at least existing in certain places, if not much else.

Who are these guys?

First, lets clarify the term "viking". Vikings are Scandinavian (plus Iceland). That's common knowledge, but there's a little bit more to it here. The word viking is strictly an English term, and not so much the language but the people from England that were being raided at the time. They would refer to these large, blond-haired seafarers as vikings as they came from the ports in Viken, a Norwegian district. The vikings themselves wouldn't have called themselves vikings, nor would the French, the Romans, or anyone else save for the English.

Complicating things is that "viking" refers just to these raiders. If you were Scandinavian, but a farmer, heck, even a king that's hanging out there, you're not really a Viking by this standard. You didn't sail from Norway to attack Britain. Nevertheless, the catch-all term has become commonplace enough to work across the board.

Runestones: they might look super cool,
but not really doing too much in the
"explaining your people's history"
department. Plus, they're probably cursed
or something.

As for who these people were, it covered a bit of a spread. Many were exiled from the Danish lands and could choose raiding as a lucrative and exciting option, in many ways hardly a punishment at all. Many others sailed across to new lands because Norway, a mountainous and cold climate, was running out of proper farmland and some sought a new life elsewhere. Others just wanted plunder because there was a heck of a lot of it.

While people know vikings for the raiders, it's a bit of a misnomer (half-nomer?). Yes, they raided - but that was only a portion of the viking age. Typically, they would come over, raid relentlessly, steal a bunch of crap, and then settle down on a pleasant farmland in Britain, France, Scotland, Ireland or what-have-you, find a nice wife and live a quiet life. Really. The average progression for vikings finding new land was as follows: raid, extort, trade, settle. Once they raided enough they had a bit of a namesake and would be able to extort their way through the following few times. Eventually the kings would get word and send a large enough army to not make it worth the bloodshed to raid/extort, so they would trade instead. Once trading was lucrative, well, you might as well set up a trading post. Boom. Settlement. If you're wondering how you go from having a civilization relentlessly destroying your villages to giving Sven some silver for a top-fashion goat-fur blanket, just remember that this is happening over almost three hundred years. Think of it like this. Remember Germany? We're cool with them now. Have been for a while. It makes sense for them too.

So these raiders/extortionists/traders/settlers really got around. Iceland became a permanent settlement, Greenland was home for a good 300 or so years, and many permanent and eventually assimilated Scandinavian cities (many still bearing vaguely Scandinavian names) exist all over France and the U.K.. The vikings even sailed as south as Constantinople to do mercenary work for the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. They likely founded Kiev on the way. Then, of course, there's the recently discovered North American connection - but we'll get back to that later.

What I'm getting at here is the vikings had a massive influence that stretched many borders, leaving their influence as they went. Raiders they were, but that's hardly the full story.

A Viking in London:

793 was the true beginning of the "viking age". The first victim was the Lindisfarne monastery, which, upon meeting the vikings, was promptly plundered. Monasteries were the standard target, and while the vikings were pagan, it wasn't because they wanted to destroy the Christian religion. Rather, it was because the Christian people had a tendency to store all their pretty, shiny things in places that were typically defended only by monks, and by that I mean not really defended at all. Strangely, it kind of worked out for England; the vikings would take these things and later trade them, meaning that wealth that was all stored in the churches ultimately got delivered to the merchants and thus distributed across the land. Kind of a bloodthirsty, innocent-holy-man-killing Robin Hood (new HBO series?). Oddly enough and in spite of everything, the vikings really took to Christianity, many of them becoming Christians themselves.

After the successful first raid, many more would follow. They were so successful that they started setting up camp so they could attack more easily, as trade eventually became more lucrative than raiding. It's interesting; they actually controlled a massive part of England. They destroyed two whole kingdoms and all but annihilated a third, leaving only Wessex. Around then the vikings became a strong political force, influencing how England was run for many years to follow. As time went by, what really ended the viking run wasn't being cleared out but more of an eventual assimilation.

Forays into France:

During the beginning of the 9th century (bear with me, I know that's a boring start to a sentence) France wasn't really France. They were the Franks, an empire stretching far and wide across what would be Germany, Austria, Switzerland and most of Italy. Descendents of Charlemagne, their leaders were rich and powerful.

But not so great at defending their coastlines.

A depiction of vikings attacking Paris. The French, armed
with baguettes and a saucy attitude, would eventually
have to pay them large sums to leave.

It seems the vikings most likely had traded with the French before their raids began around 830 A.D., but at one point they realized something. They were given two options: "trade some items for some money", or "take all items for no money". They decided on the later. The reason the powerful Frankish empire couldn't stand up to these raiders was because they kind of caught them at a bad time. Right in the middle of a civil war, the empire was split between a number of warring factions that couldn't coherently fight them all at once until 862 when everything came together again. However, at that point the damage was done. During that century 30,000 pounds of silver was paid just in extortion fees to the vikings, some of which by Paris itself. Yes, the vikings could very well have taken Paris. Who knew?

Similar to England, they followed their raid, extortion, trade, settlement pattern. The region of Normandy - and it's interesting writing about this after having read a bunch of World War II stuff, because you hear words like Normandy and the Somme except in reference to vikings - was actually a viking settlement, and the name is in reference to this. Think about it. Normandy - land of the northmen.

Christopher Columbus? Phff.

The Scandinavian people moved west piece by piece. First, they went to Iceland because the mountainous Norway was getting crowded, and with things getting overpopulated the farmland became a little too tight.

The story of finding Greenland was a little more interesting, but take it with a grain of salt as this would have been written literally hundreds of years later.

A wild, violent man named Erik the Red was exiled from Norway and made his way to Iceland. After getting in a fight over farmland (a fight that ended with a man dead) he was exiled once more and sailed west, fortuitously stumbling upon Greenland. It's said that he called it Greenland to entice people from Iceland to come settle there.

In the 12th century they had not
yet discovered how to paint things
to look frightening or intimidating.
These viking raiders can only be
described as "derpy".

Erik the Red then had a son, and seemingly one with a wanderlust that wasn't due to being kicked out of his country. Leif Erikson sailed further west, likely upon hearing tales of lost sailors who saw land. Venturing out, he found his way to North America and was impressed; plenty of trees, many places to set up camp, hockey... a good home. On the next trip he brought settlers to get things started, and settled in a place in Newfoundland which he named Vinland. Leif Erikson was then the first European to reach North America, hundreds of years before Columbus, around 1000 A.D.. It was, however, an ill-fated adventure, but we're not entirely sure why. All we know is the archaeological evidence has proven that there was indeed a small viking settlement, possibly destroyed after war with the natives. There has been no solid proof that there is anything else - except for a single viking penny, found in Maine. As a fun fact, they did stay just long enough to have a kid. Snorri, the first North American European.

In addition, the vikings of Greenland (which due to a slowly changing climate lasted only about three hundred years before disappearing) seemed to have occasionally traded with the inuit of the Baffin Island. There have been small metal tools and other viking-esque materials found in and around there, and while the trade didn't seem substantial, it's certainly substantial from a historical perspective.

Closing Out:

If I learned one thing it's that the majority of what I knew about the vikings was from television, or perhaps more accurately, kids cartoons that had characters based on vikings. Horned-helmet boat people. As it turns out, their influence was substantially more than raiding and greatly changed the political and sociological landscape in Europe. The raids themselves were actually somewhat inconsequential; the countries they were taking from were wealthy and highly populated, and the raids were more of a nuisance. It was the lasting settlements that made the real difference, and while we might not notice it, the vikings substantially influenced much of the world we know today.

Plus, there's a football team named after them now.

______________________

The information for this blog was taken from Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. It's... dense. It's kind of like reading a textbook and I can't honestly recommend it unless you're really into the whole cultural world of the vikings rather than just the parts where they're raiding and pillaging. You know, the fun parts.

Canada in World War II - Part 4: Fighting on Land and Initial Failures

Canadians soldiers en route to Hong Kong. To avoid
conscription, the Canadian military accepted dogs into
their forces, but were considered lesser soldiers and
were not issued uniforms.

In a sense, the war started in 1937 with the invasion of China by Japan. In the wake of Japanese imperialism and a desire to control Asia, China took the brunt of things early on, their citizenry soon subject to brutal annihilation and torture, including the experimentation on civilians and other such horrors. (If you're interested, go check out the blogs I did on Nanking which detail the atrocities in a neat little summary.) The Western world had a stake in this due to the British ownership of Hong Kong, which was dangerously close to the invading and encroaching Japanese. (If you want to know more about the British ownership of Hong Kong, check out my other blog series on the Opium Crisis. This is so cool. Everything's coming full circle.) With the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, the fight for Hong Kong followed shortly after on the 18th. This was the first real test of Canadian ground forces in the second war.

With a prevailing sense that the Japanese were small, weak fighters, the Western world took them a little lightly. Not nearly prepared enough, the imperial defenses of Hong Kong, many Canadians and Indians included, were quickly overrun - largely due to an incompetent British general who, in spite of countless mistakes, blamed the soldiers for the loss. (Really, the British are taking the "snobby jerk" stereotype and thrusting it to the forefront throughout this war.)

Those that were taken prisoner fared about as poorly as anyone could in the Second World War; the men were tortured and beaten or outright murdered. Any women that were found were almost assuredly raped. While the popular theme of the war in the years to come focusses predominantly on Nazi atrocities, Japanese prison camps were far worse and far more deadly. They would be withheld medical equipment; food was composed of grass, rice, weeds and fish heads; malnutrition and disease was not the exception but the norm. This soldier's account gives a chilling description, but one that describes it far better than I could:
"The Japanese who bayoneted those helpless people in their beds just did it. They showed no emotion afterwards... the slaughter had been done so efficiently that it was impossible to believe that one human being could do such savage things to another human being... ears were cut off, tongues cut out and eyes gouged from their sockets hanging on their cheeks."

I know the writing is small, but blue = bad. It goes to show just how
dire the situation was. Thank goodness it isn't life Wolfenstein
where Hitler was actually a super-powered robot version of himself.
Then they'd be in real trouble.

It's funny thinking back to my school days that we focussed predominantly on the Canadian internment of Japanese-Canadian citizens - a dark time, of course - but neglected to mention the abuse of our soldiers overseas.

This would be the last major foray on land for quite some time. The next would go far worse.

By April of 1942, the Germans had the mainland. It's one of those things that when you go online and find maps that show the territory changes over the years of the war, you see just how close the Nazis were to really taking over everything. The British were near capitulation, the French were defeated, the empires of western Europe were collapsing, and the Americans would have been unwilling to attack if the rest had given in. Everyone - allied and enemy - knew that an attack on the mainland was going to buy ground only with blood, and the way they decided to try to breach this was by taking small potshots at the enemy to weaken them before a full invasion. It also served the purpose of pacifying Stalin, who under increasing pressure was beginning to grow weary of a Western front that was (and never was) anywhere near the bloodbath that was his border. So to test out the new plan, they sent in the Canadians. This ill-conceived, deadly plan would be put in the bad side of the Canadian history books. It was the battle for Dieppe.

Dieppe was a French coastal vacation spot that was to be the assault point for 5.6 thousand troops. Canadians would be taking the lead on this with a support force of 250 British marines that had a plan for a covert code stealing mission intending to disrupt u-boats. Designed to be a lightning fast but brief assault, more of a smash-and-grab than an all-out-battle. Well, "designed" is generous. What would happen was a string of poor decision making, that, as always, leaves the poor soldiers to take the heat of the mistakes.

First, the general. Second cousin to the future queen, he was of royal blood and therefore given a position he didn't necessarily earn - which will show in the time to come. With the first plan for the invasion disrupted due to inclement weather, he decided he would attack the same place thinking the enemy wouldn't anticipate a commander continuing an assault that's already been foreseen. Surprise was gone. It's a bit like playing paper-rock-scissors and going paper twice in a row... except here instead of just two other options you have countless others and you're dealing with the lives of thousands of men, so... slightly off.

Second, the air commander didn't want to risk sending bombers into a place that was likely highly defended. Unfortunately, as they found out, it was highly defended but not by anti-aircraft guns. Of course, sending land forces into a place that's highly defended also seems like a risky move too, but... I digress.

Three German soldiers inspect a Canadian Churchill tank. The fourth man,
on the right, wasn't cool enough to be invited. Not being part of the "it"
crowd weighed heavily on the morale of the troops.

Third, the navy refused to commit as well. Not wanting to spread the navy too thin, they held back their forces and let the chips fall where they may for the unfortunate soldiers that would be strolling into a sniper-nest and machine-gun laden hellscape without proper air or sea support.

Lastly, the plan was to battle through, do a ton of damage, and promptly retreat. Now, if there's one lesson I've learned about medieval that seems to apply across the board from Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts, it's armies only get destroyed in battle every so often. The real damage is done in retreat, where the defenders or the attackers are routed and the counterattack is the most devastating. The problem with this hasty retreat is no one really considered how it would be done. You can have a fighting retreat, but you're backed against the ocean. Coordinating ships to come in and pick you up at the right time is one thing, but loading the men onto them and somehow avoiding the counter-attacking nazis is yet another.

So in spite of all this they went ahead. Meant to be a three-pronged assault, some attacking Puys to the north, another attacking Pourville to the south, and the remainder going headfirst into Dieppe through the centre. The men attacking Puys found themselves spotted ages before the landing, and the landing was no better. Finding only a 200 meter beach which, naturally, the machine guns were firmly planted towards, many were killed before they even left the landing craft. One such private was shot through the eye, dragged himself to safety, was then shot in the leg, and while bandaging his face was shot in the head. He blacked out, but survived.

Pourville, meanwhile, was taken relatively well. After a few hours of pushing forward, they retreated - but found that they had nowhere to retreat to as I mentioned earlier. The nazis still held cliff sides and the close-quarters nature of the fighting meant they couldn't safely get back on their ships. They left an exceptionally brave and self-sacrificing 250 to defend the 600 or so that managed to retreat to the ships.

The main assault did not fare near as well. Mines in the water destroyed many landing ships as they

Canadian wounded, a incapacitated tank, and the wreckage
of a landing craft. Dieppe in a nutshell. I'll admit it was
more enjoyable to read the World War I Canadian history
stuff where it was mostly page after page of us winning.

came in along with a withering assault of mortar fire. Tanks arrived fifteen minutes later than intended, and while many were shot down before they made it to land 27 still arrived. Unfortunately, Mountbatten had neglected to discuss with the British about the beach itself - which many of them would have visited as it was a popular tourist destination for them - and they discovered that chert, the rock on the beach, was far too high. Chert destroyed somewhere between six and nine of the tracks of the tanks, rendering them useless. Due to the mistiming of the landing, the rest couldn't get over the concrete barriers as the Canadian engineers didn't have a chance to destroy them as they were mostly killed in the landing itself. It was a nightmarish debacle, and one that would serve not as an example of how to have an effective speed-attack on land, but a terrible showing of how desperate a situation can be when proper planning is brushed aside.

4963 embarked, but only 2211 returned. It was the single most costly day in World War II for Canada. Mountbatten, the buffoonish general, was promoted to supreme allied commander in Southeast Asia, a comfortable position for someone of Royal Blood.

Ugh.