Sixyearsofwar`.doc

Chapter VDefending the Soil of Canada, 1939-1945 The Nature of the Problem MANY?people assumed, during the years before 1939, that in the event of another war Canada would be in greater direct danger than in 1914-18. Even after war began, this assumption continued to be influential. As we have seen, on 3 September 1939 the Prime Minister, sending his first formal cable to Mr. Chamberlain concerning military cooperation, remarked that the primary task for the Canadian Government would naturally be the defence of Canada, which under present circumstances is a more pressing and urgent undertaking than it was in the last war.* Nevertheless, no real menace to Canadian soil developed at any time during the war. There was no invasion; there were no landings from the sea or bombings by aircraft, nor is there any evidence that the Germans or Japanese ever seriously considered such enterprises. It is true that Canada was in peril, and the peril was deadly; but it never took the form of an imminent threat to her territory. This was due to fortunate geographical accidents, and the possession of powerful allies, which made it possible to conduct the war on the further side of great bodies of water; and Canadas main contributions butions to winning it took the form of active help to those allies in distant theatres. Had the joint Allied effort there failed-in particular, had the Germans overrun the United Kingdom as well as the rest of North-West Europe--the direct danger to Canada would have become infinitely greater. As it was, Canadians, for the second time in the century, were able to defend their interests on foreign soil and defeat their enemies before they came to Canada. No more serious immediate threat to Canadas own shores developed than a few shells from a Japanese submarine, some ineffective bomb-carrying balloons, and sporadic operations by German U-boats in her coastal waters. *This chapter deals only with the Armys share in home defence. For the work of the Navy