The Human Cost of War in Canadian Military History

Abstract

The Cream of Crop: Canadian Aircrew 1939-1945. Allan D. English. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996. Battlefields in Air: Canadians in Allied Bomber Command. Dan McCaffery. Toronto: Lorimer, 1995. Murder at Abbaye: The Story of Twenty Canadian Soldiers Murdered at Abbaye dArdenne. Ian J. Campbell. Ottawa: The Golden Dog Press, 1996. Hell on Earth: Aging Faster, Dying Sooner: Canadian Prisoners or Japanese During World War IL Dave McIntosh. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Ltd., 1997. Significant Incident: Canada's Army, The Airborne, and Murder in Somalia. David Bercuson. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1996. The Gallant Cause: Canadians in Spanish Civil War 1936-1939. Mark Zuehlke. Vancouver/Toronto: Whitecap Books, 1996. Are Canadians an unmilitary people? We might be forgiven for thinking so. Since 1950s, Canada has become peacekeeper to world par excellence. Canada has consistently provided armed forces to serve United Nations on peace support missions throughout world. And, understandably, Canadians take pride in this role. Images of peacekeepers adorn coffee-table books, monuments, stamps and even our money. At a time when other nations resolve their differences through war, Canadians claim to be world's observers and umpires. All of this, however, has a tendency to overshadow two important facts. First, while peacekeepers may preserve peace, they are none less trained soldiers. Second, Canada does have a significant military history that both predates and coincides with our career as a peacekeeper. This history includes participation in five wars during this century alone. Military topics in Canadian history continue to attract public and academic interest. Early work in field of military history often produced little more than by bloody blow accounts of battles. While this writing served a purpose, its preponderance resulted in neglect of significant dimensions of Canadian military experience. Aside from tales of war heroes, human element was overlooked; experiences of ordinary soldier remained largely untold. The military history has made progress by recovering these unheard voices from past and expanding range of subjects considered worthy of study. Topics now include training grounds, home front and even reactions and experiences of the enemy. The books examined in this review each reveal something of changes in way military history is being written. All of them remind reader of individual, or collective, human cost of war. Allan English's The Cream of Crop is a significant departure from traditional military history. There are no accounts of air battles and bombing missions in this study of Canadians who served with Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and Royal Air Force (RAF) during Second World War. Instead, English provides a behind scenes exploration of key issues that had a direct bearing on effectiveness of Allied aerial war effort. Aircrew selection and training receive considerable attention, as does controversial issue of crew removed from service on grounds that they had demonstrated a lack of moral fibre [IMF]. By taking into account these two issues, English's analysis sheds new light on overall effectiveness with which British and Canadian authorities organised people in production and operation of machinery of war. This, English suggests, was of fundamental importance to Canada's war effort (5). Early work in field of aviation medicine, carried out during First World War, is discussed and provides context for English's assessment of this medical field's development during both inter-war period and Second World War. He finds that lessons learned in earlier conflict, particularly those relating to aircrew training, went unremembered. …