Why is dday important to canada

The first task was to free North Africa and then to strike at Sicily and Italy. By , everything was ready for D-Day: plans were made, resources collected, soldiers trained and prepared.

And the politicians understood that the Nazis had to be destroyed, and Western Europe, the heart of democratic Europe, had to be spared from the effects of a brutal Soviet liberation. This was achieved, but narrowly. British and Canadian paratroops met the Russians days before they were to turn north to Denmark, and Copenhagen was spared. The Cold War had not yet been declared, but tensions between Moscow and the West were increasing. D-Day had started the liberation of Western Europe and the task was accomplished.

United States emerges as a superpower. The immense manufacturing might of the American heartland had turned out tanks, aircraft, ships and massive amounts of food, metals and minerals. The American Lend-Lease policy nominally loaned or leased supplies and equipment to the British, Russians and virtually every other Allied combatant but not to Canada, which operated its own program of mutual aid , but everyone understood that the flow of arms and supplies was a gift.

American industry won the war. So too did the American military. Starting from a relatively small base, the U. The victorious allies sought and received loans from Washington. Although Canadians forget this, the British also received a huge loan from Ottawa. North America, physically untouched by war, was rich; the Europeans struggled to cope. By , with the Cold War in full force, the U. Marshall, the army general who had successfully built up U. The Russians and their Eastern European neighbours were included, but declined to participate, suspecting a devious capitalist plot.

The superpower was changing the rules and creating its own world. And Washington clearly realized that a strong Western Europe was needed to hold the Soviet Union and resurgent Western European communist parties at bay. The Cold War. Canada was present at the start of the Cold War. The great alliance of wartime had been uncomfortable from the start, with Moscow mistrusting the capitalist powers as much as the West worried about the communists.

Communist parties in France and Italy, completely attached to and financed by the Soviets, became strong enough to have a chance to take power. The Marshall Plan was an American effort to recreate economies strong enough to provide a better life for Western Europeans and a way of keeping democratic governments in power.

But there was also a military threat from the Soviet Union and its satellites. In , the Soviets cut off land access to Berlin, the city controlled by the victorious powers but located deep within the Russian zone in Germany. A massive airlift kept Berlin supplied with food and fuel, and there were tense confrontations between American and Soviet soldiers.

Britain, Canada and the U. The Soviets still had a manpower advantage, and by they also had the atomic bomb, but the West had indicated that it was willing and ready to fight for its way of life.

The road from D-Day in to Western unity in was led by the Americans. Rehabilitation of Germany. This was hard to contemplate for the nations that had been crushed and conquered by the Nazis only a few years before, but the Germans had rebuilt their economy and adopted a democratic form of government. The Cold War and the Soviet threat sped up the process, as did French and German efforts to build strong economic ties. The Federal Republic of Germany quickly build up its industrial might.

West Germany—in stark contrast to the East German communist regime—became an economic superpower, the driving force for what became the European Common Market and eventually the European Union. Germany had revived, and the Berlin Wall, erected in by an East German government desperate to keep its people from fleeing to the democratic west, fell in A unified Germany became the strongest economic and financial power in a Europe that saw nascent democracies replace tyranny.

It had been a long, hard road with many twists and turns from D-Day to the new Europe of the 21st century led by Germany. The future remained uncertain, with Moscow again pushing the boundaries of the postwar rules-based order.

But there was no doubt that the United States had provided much of the military power that brought the Allied forces ashore on June 6, , and its economic might, demonstrated in the Marshall Plan, had sustained Western Europe as a bulwark of democracy. With substantial assistance from Britain and Canada, the U. JM: The impact at home was large. Psychologically, especially. An invasion had been expected for years. As we got closer to it, there was a sense of tension on the home front and amongst soldiers that this was coming.

And there was the sense of relief that it had finally happened. When all was said and done, the casualties, while not light, were not has heavy as they could have been. Following that, however, there did actually come casualty lists, which brought anxiety, fear, and heartbreak in many cases. We started to see these lists in the Italian campaign, but after June 6, they began to grow exponentially.

Before the year was out, because of the casualties and the need for reinforcements growing to an urgent status, we see the beginning of another conscription crisis in Canada, which Prime Minister Mackenzie King had been at great pains to avoid.

Despite this, Canadians began to look to the end of the war. They looked back at the end of the First World War and how the Canadian government had not really prepared Canadian society for the return of veterans and other issues. The D-Day assault really got the ball rolling on postwar planning. So it had quite a profound impact at home. Why do you suppose this is so?

JM: Certainly it lived on, not just for Canadians, but for all the participating nations. I think the enduring memory of D-Day goes back to a couple of factors. We know this was a tough nut to crack and the fact it was a success helps to keep it in the public memory. It also acted as a release valve on public expectations and fears of the time.

When it came off, it immediately took on this legendary status. I think most importantly, for civilians anyway, it was an easy battle for them to conceive and understand. Troops had to land, to stay landed, with their backs against the wall — in this case the English Channel — so that the measure of success was easily understood. It was also for the western nations the main show, the most decisive of all the western operations.

And it was launched against the main bulk of German forces. Up to now they had been fighting in North Africa and Italy, and although important, I think in the public consciousness, people conceived the D-Day operation as more central to the ending of the war.

JM: First, it was an extraordinary event in our Canadian history and in world history. And it signaled the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany. When I think of my own experience of when I was a kid, there were First World War veterans still living and now they are all gone. D-Day embodied the courage and determination to prevail in that war.

It was fought over issues that are still alive today — such as ideology, nationalism, and injustice. It was an exceptionally difficult and hazardous military operation. It was an operation in which Canadians took a major central part in the war. Thank you! In case you missed it, we included a curated collection of our online articles, audio, images and video about the Second World War from the past ten years. In , the last remaining Hawker Typhoon aircraft in the world came to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum for an extended stay.

Canadian troops were itching for a fight; they got their wish in the most ill-conceived assault of WWII. Episode 10 of the War of Video Field Guide. Close ad. Canada's History on your doorstep. Subscribe Now. After the brutal initial assault, the regiments began exiting the beaches by about The reserves that had landed on the heels of the first waves joined the push inland to further objectives.

After securing the beachhead objective, the Canadians were to cut the road between the Norman cities Caen and Bayeux and seize the Carpiquet airfield, on the western outskirts of Caen. They were also to link up with British forces on both flanks that had landed at Gold and Sword beaches. By nightfall, although short of their final objectives, Canadian units were firmly dug in on their intermediate objectives, and had penetrated further inland than any other assaulting force that day.

Some 14, Canadian troops assaulted the beach that morning, 3, of whom were in the first wave. By all standards, D-Day was an outstanding achievement for the assaulting Canadian and Allied armies. In most sectors along the assault front, the formidable Atlantic Wall had been shattered. From then on, a constant stream of personnel, armoured equipment, and supplies streamed ashore. The way had been opened for a sustained and merciless assault on the main body of the German army.

From that day forward, the result of the war was in little doubt, although Canada would still suffer the bulk of its 42, killed over the next 11 months. The army specifically lost 22, killed during the war. Today, when we think of this harrowing and terrifying operation, imagine that these men too had wondered how terrible it might be. But they lacked the knowledge that the operation would be successful, and they too worried and wondered whether they might ever return to their civilian lives in Canada.

For months prior, the operation had been the constant topic of discussion and speculation. Every man who took part had wrestled with his own private fears. The soldiers who defeated both made the liberation of Europe possible. Free [people] everywhere should remember them. He is now Museum Administrator at the City of Ottawa. The original can be found here.

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Sign in to manage your newsletter preferences Sign in. Sign me up! A gun crew of the destroyer HMCS Algonquin piling shell cases and sponging out the gun after bombarding German shore defences in the Normandy beachhead.

Credit: Lt Richard G. Credit: Canada. Credit: Lieut.