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.