Effects of WWI, WWII, and the Cold War in Canadian Military History - an essay

INTRODUCTION
Canada was involved in three major conflicts in the 20th century namely the First World War, the Second World War and the Cold War.    
At the beginning of World War I, Canada was still a British colony but the sacrifices and outstanding achievements of the Canadians during the war paved the way towards independent nationhood. Unlike in WWI in which Canada was automatically at war when Britain declared war, it was in World War II that Canada, for the first time, declared war independently. By the end of WWII, Canada emerged to be the third largest navy and fourth largest air force in the world. In the Cold War years, Canada started to become active in the international stage through United Nations peacekeeping missions in order to prevent the start of a third world war.

AIM
     The aim of this essay is to compose an argument on the short term and long term consequences of the three major conflicts in the 20th century namely WWI, WWII, and Cold War. I will accomplish this aim by having three major headings of the three major conflicts mentioned above and then discussing the consequences related to them. This will be done in the Discussion. My conclusion will follow afterwards.

DISCUSSION

World War I:
     The short term consequences of the First World War on the Canadian military are the growth of the navy, excellence of Canadian aces, and the international recognition of the Canadian Corps for its combat effectiveness. At the beginning of the war, the navy had only two old cruisers, the Niobe and the Rainbow, that were purchased from Britain. The Niobe at Halifax and the Rainbow at Esquimalt began service as training ships. When war broke out, the total strength of the Royal Canadian Navy was only 350 regular personnel and 250 volunteer reserve. These small numbers of manpower also accompanied inadequate trainings. Additionally, the dockyards are outdated and poorly maintained. Canada has the longest coastline in the world, but ironically only had these few and limited resources. However, during the summer of 1915, the RCN patrolled the Gulf of St. Lawrence using seven ships. In the spring of 1917, about 1200 recruits and 47 officers had been sent to the United Kingdom. Because of the threat of U-boats in the Atlantic shipping which transported personnel, food, weapons, ammunitions, and war materials, the Admiralty of Britain advised Canada to increase its number of vessels. As a result, Canadian ships increased to 22 patrol vessels and the government also ordered the construction of 12 trawlers. Canada is now building naval vessels and the following months more orders of trawlers was placed by the Admiralty. Also Canadian sailors learned important maritime skills such as patrol, convoy escort, minesweeping, and anti-submarine operations. 
     In 1914, the Canadian Aviation Corps (CAC) was formed by Sam Hughes, the Minister of Militia, in an attempt to create an air force during WWI because European nations were using military airplanes in their operations. It had only one plane, the Burgess-Dunne and was never used. A year later, the CAC was disbanded. Britain, however, told Hughes that Canada can help in the aerial war effort by sending Canadian pilots. The use of aircraft is important in military reconnaissance, patrol, escort, and air combat. In 1917, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) had shortage in suitable squadrons needed for the war. The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) filled up this shortage by providing naval squadrons in which Canadians made significant contributions in Allied operations. Commander Mulock from Winnipeg was one of the squadron commanders that are well respected of his successes. Canadian fighter pilots “Billy” Bishop, Collishaw, MacLaren, Barker, McKeever, and Claxton were among the most prominent in RFC. Among the Canadian aces with the highest kills were Billy Bishop (72), Ray Collishaw (62), and Billy Barker (50). The most publicized event in the air was the strafing of a German airfield on the Arras front by Bishop on June 2, 1917. His action won him a Victoria Cross, the tenth to be won by an airman and the first by a Canadian flyer.            
     The Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) was the Army created in 1914 and sent by the Canadian government to Europe to defend the British Empire and help the Allied forces in World War I. Canada's permanent army in July 1914 numbered only 3000. In the early stages of the war, thousands volunteered. Majority of them were British immigrants and native-born Canadians of British stock. A small percentage of the volunteers were Aboriginals and Asians which included East Indians, Japanese, and Chinese. The supply of volunteers exceeded the demand. One of the selection criteria of recruiting officers was based upon the race of the applicant. They had complete discretion of whom to accept.
     An important consequence of the war was the composition of a contingent with multi-national and multi-cultural backgrounds. As non-white candidates were becoming more and more insistent to enlist, the authorities settled on a compromise, which is to create separate units and distinct regiments under the careful supervision of white officers. In October 1914, the First Contingent of the CEF of some 36,000 sailed for England. Their transport from North America to Europe was a huge milestone for the Royal Canadian Navy. At that time, the CEF convoy was the largest to ever cross the Atlantic. The First Contingent went to England for training then sent to France. The First Contingent later was named the 1st Canadian Division. Later, there were four divisions in France and they were collectively known as the Canadian Corps. A 5th Division was formed in England but was disbanded and used for reinforcements. Sir Arthur William Currie became the first Canadian to command the Canadian Corps. Starting out his career from the pre-war militia, he became the first Canadian to attain the rank of general. Innovation was a defining feature of the Corps' approach to operations and organization; innovators in these areas were rewarded with promotion and degree of autonomy. The Corps plans, rehearses, innovates, disseminates information effectively so that it is understood from the top all the way to the lowest ranks. Anything that did not work or have caused a lot of casualties will be avoided in the next operations. The Corps keeps learning from previous errors and constantly improving.  Currie took command of the Corps in June 1917 and harnessed the Corps' characteristic features to achieve an even higher status. The most famous success of the Corps was in the Battle of Vimy Ridge where both the British and the French failed. Because of its battle experiences and superior resources and organization, and as evidence by its success throughout the 100 Days campaign, the Canadian Corps was by the late 1918 one of the best, if not the best Allied corps on the Western Front. By the end of the war, they earned an elite reputation. They were referred to as "storm troopers" and "shock troops". Accomplishments of the Corps were assessed, reassessed, analysed, and reanalysed by historians, scholars, and analysts and indeed they were credited for their military combat effectiveness. 
     The long term consequences of World War I are the equality of Canada with Britain, and the independent nationhood of Canada. In the beginning of the war, Canada, being a colony, was not consulted in matters of the war strategy nor informed of war developments. Prime Minister Borden requested that Canada should also be involved in the discussion of war strategies and have an active role in the decision-making process. In 1917, when the Imperial War Conference met simultaneously with the Imperial War Cabinet, the resolutions recognized Canada as an autonomous nation equal in status with Britain. Overall, some 600,000 Canadians fought in the Great War; 60,000 of them died. With a population of only eight million, Canada made a great contribution and also paid a high price. One out of ten Canadians who went to Europe did not make it back to Canada alive. In the League of Nations, Canada was rewarded a seat for her sacrifices. In the Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War, Canada earned a separate signature marking its nationhood status. 

World War II:
     The short term consequences of World War II led to the growth of the army, created the Canadian Women’s Army Corps, and made Canada to have the third largest navy and fourth largest air force in the world. In 1939, the strength of the Permanent Active Militia, also known as Permanent Force is about 4000. In 1940, their title was renamed Canadian Army. A year later, under General McNaugton, the army grew to 125,000 men. As a result of American car manufacturers having branches operating in Canada in the 1920s, the automotive industry was employed to make war materials such as military trucks, tanks, armoured vehicles, and armoured personnel carriers. These advances in technology also required the army to change their doctrine and battle tactics. What worked out during WWI may not necessarily work in WWII. This modernization resulted to the creation of Canadian Armoured Corps in 1940 which required reorganization of infantry regiments with tanks. To assist Britain, Canada built up a much larger army and converted the entire economy to war production. By 1943, the Canadian Army had grown to three infantry divisions, two armoured divisions, and two tank brigades. The Allied Invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, was one of the most important and successful operations in WWII. In this operation, the Canadian Army’s contributions were the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. In the following month after the landing, the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division and the 4th Canadian Armoured Division was added. The most remarkable effort of the Canadian Division was that they penetrated further inland than any other Allied division on D-Day. During the entire war, 730,625 men and women joined the Canadian Army.   
     In WWI, the CEF consisted of women mostly serving as nurses. In WWII, women started to make significant contributions to the war effort. In 1941, the Canadian Women's Army Corps (CWAC) was created. During the war, about 50,000 women enlisted and carried out clerical, communications, and administrative duties. They remained subordinate to men of the same rank and were paid less than males. Close to 3,000 women in the CWAC were sent overseas to the United Kingdom, Italy and other parts of the Allied theatre in Europe.
     In 1939, the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) had fewer than a dozen fighting ships and 3000 personnel. The navy had 6 British-built destroyers and 4 home-built coal-fired minesweepers. In the Battle of the Atlantic (1939 - 1945), the longest military campaign in WWII, the RCN played a vital role in transporting war supplies for the Allied cause. The RCN was tasked with the enormous responsibility of escorting the convoys from North America to Britain through the Atlantic Ocean that was filled with lurking German U-boats. At its height, in autumn 1943, there were 229 Canadians ships, 21,000 seamen and 11 Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) maritime patrol squadrons with supporting facilities that had been committed to the Atlantic struggle. By the end of 1944, Canadian shipyards had launched naval ships, such as destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and some 345 merchant vessels. In Operation Overlord, the RCN contributed 110 vessels crewed by 10,000 sailors in support of the landings. Aside from sea support, the RCN had other crucial duties such as anti-submarine operations, shipping escort, food, material and personnel transport, sweeping sea mines, and gunfire support against coastal enemy defences. The navy also made significant contributions to Allied operations in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Arctic, and in European waters. Throughout the war, Canada had made over 25,000 successful escort voyages and delivered over 164,000,000 tons of cargo. By the end of the war, the RCN was responsible for destroying 52 enemy submarines while 59 Canadian merchant ships and 24 warships were sunk during the Battle of the Atlantic. By 1945, the RCN had grown fifty-fold, to over 400 warships including three aircraft carriers and two cruisers and nearly 100,000 personnel, making it the third largest Allied navy - indeed the third largest in the world.
     At the outbreak of the war in 1939, the RCAF had only 50 military aircraft and only 1000 personnel. The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) was one of Canada’s greatest contributions to the Allied victory. It was created by an agreement in December 1939 between Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand for the purpose of training the aircrews of these Commonwealth countries. Air superiority was a key factor in the Allied offensive operations. In order to achieve this, there must be superior military aircrafts, pilots, and aircrews. Canada was selected to be the primary location for a number of reasons: large training space, good weather, good economy, great talents (as shown by the aces in WWI), and most importantly it was away from enemy forces. It was the training ground for pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, aviators, radio operators, air gunners, flight engineers, and aircrews. BCATP would deliver 20,000 Canadian, British, Australian, and New Zealand aircrew a year. To maintain the BCATP, the RCAF had to replace British resources with planes, engines, and equipment purchased in the neutral United States or from Canada’s primitive air industry. At the end of 1940, there were 521 aircrew that graduated - mostly to be turned around as instructors. By the end of May 1942, the BCATP had graduated 21,824 pilots, observers, navigators and every other category needed for bomber crews. By the end of 1943, schools were graduating 3,000 flyers a month. In its history, the BCATP generated 131,355 aircrew graduates, including about 50,000 pilots. At its peak, the BCATP had 231 training bases located across Canada, over 10,000 aircraft and over 100,000 military personnel. More than half of its graduates were Canadian. By the end of the war, the BCATP had trained over 130,000 aviators, nearly half the Commonwealth’s air crews. The biggest and costliest Canadian air commitment was Bomber Command. Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command was formed in 1936. Its purpose was the strategic bombing of Germany’s military and industrial facilities. By October 1942, five RCAF squadrons served in Bomber Command. At the outset of 1943, eleven Canadian bomber squadrons were assembled as 6 Group. The 6 Group which was one-sixth of the total strength of Bomber Command was from the RCAF.  One third of the 48 RCAF squadrons that served in Britain were attached to the Bomber Command.
     Canadian pilots fought in the Battle of Britain in 1940. They successfully defended Britain from Germany’s Luftwaffe air attack. In May 1942, thanks to British pressure, the RCAF began to acquire the long-range Liberator bombers. Only in August 1943 did the first Lancasters appear. In the Normandy Landings of 1944 (Operation Neptune), the RCAF had helped prepare the invasion by bombing targets inland and providing aerial support. There were 15 RCAF fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons during this campaign. During WWII, the RCAF conducted international operations in Great Britain, Northwest Europe, North Atlantic, Newfoundland, Iceland, USA, Egypt, Italy, Sicily, Malta, Ceylon, India, and Burma. About 14,000 aircraft, including Lancaster and Mosquito bombers, were built in Canada. Between 1939 and 1945, the RCAF enlisted 232,000 men and 17,000 women and operated 86 squadrons, including 47 overseas. By the end of the war, the RCAF had 48 squadrons overseas and 40 more in Canada. The war indeed made Canada to have the fourth largest air force in the world.
     The emergence of Canada as a “middle power” and international actor with her own foreign policy were the long term consequences of World War II. The war made Canada to prosper economically. The war caused the whole country to focus on the production of war materials which ensured full employment. It has made the whole country to take advantage of technology and utilize it to achieve military strength and superiority. It has made the army, navy, and air force to reach unprecedented heights. The war has caused the large scale production of airplanes, ships, tanks, shells, guns, and other war materials. Canada stood third among the nations in the number of fighting ships, fourth in airpower, and high in the list of armies. The war also made Canada to be completely independent from British control and allowed it to be allied with the superpowers in war operations that were international in scope. With the founding of the United Nations (UN) in 1945 after World War II, Canada got more involved in the international community. The Prime Minister St. Laurent has said Canada as a "power of the middle rank". This reference to Canada as a middle power has been realized by its economic position, military might, and its active involvement in international organizations such as the UN and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. By being a member of these organizations, Canada believed it could prevent the occurrence of a Third World War. The Second World War caused two superpowers to emerge. As these two superpowers expanded their influence in other countries which often caused conflicts, Canada would like to stay in the middle to prevent these superpowers to impose their will on developing nations. In the Korean War in the early 1950s, Canada intended to fight for UN’s cause of collective security. Also, in the 1956 Suez Crisis, Pearson’s peacekeeping efforts highlighted Canada’s position as middle power. By having peacekeeping as part of foreign policy, Canada believed it can preserve Canada’s interests as well as the interests of other developing nations by acting as mediator to prevent the dominance of superpowers. Conscious of its position as a rising middle power, Canada attempted to get recognition for states like itself. It wanted the Great Powers to recognize its middle-power status. Canada tried to avoid letting the Great Powers control everything.

Cold War:
     The Cold War’s short term consequence was the rearmament of the Canadian military. Curiously, Canada’s Cold War rearmament, which quadrupled the size of the armed forces within a few years of the outbreak of war in Korea, provided the country with the ability to play a major role in peacekeeping in the years that followed. The Korean War posed a great possibility of a third world war. The Soviet influence of communism to China and North Korea created huge fear of a nuclear war. General MacArthur considered using nuclear weapons in the Korean War and asked permission from Pentagon to use them in his discretion. Had nuclear weapons been used by the US, retaliation of nuclear attack would be a sure consequence. As a result of this conflict, Canada’s defense objectives included the building of military strength in the event of total war and the defense of Canada and North America from direct attack. From 1950 to 1953, armed forces strength rose from 47,000 to 104,000. By 1953, the defense budget had reached $1,907 million, ten times the 1947 level.
     The Cold War’s long term consequence was the defense of Canada and North America. The Distant Early Warning (DEW) system that began in 1954 was an agreement between Canada and US to address the threat of Soviet bomber attack on the North Arctic region. It was a system of radar stations to provide and early warning of Soviet invasion. The development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) with ranges greater than 3,500 miles and containing numerous nuclear warheads led to the signing in 1957 of both Canada and US of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) for the joint cooperation in the detection, warning, and defense against nuclear missile threats from the USSR. The two countries jointly developed a series  of plans for the land, sea, and air defence of the continent.


CONCLUSION
     The First World War gave Canada a taste of autonomy and independence from British control. It also highlighted Canada’s combat effectiveness in the battlefield. The Second World War led to the emergence of Canada as a middle power. WWII gave Canada complete independence from Britain. It also allowed Canada to expand its military strength and participate in international operations. The Cold War provided Canada a new role as a peacekeeper in its intent to prevent a third world war. It also prompted Canada’s rearmament and defense. Those three wars transformed Canada from a British colony into a major international power capable of mediating between superpowers.