Max Hastings slanders 1 Canadian Army

[TColvin]

In his otherwise fine book, 'Armaggedon' (ISBN 0 333 90836 8), Max Hastings dismisses the performance of 1 Canadian Army (page 156);

"Individually, many Canadians made fine and brave contributions to the war. Lt-Gen Guy Simonds was among the outstanding corps commanders in N-W Europe. Some Canadian officers who volunteered for service with British units showed themselves exceptional soldiers. But collectively, the Canadian Army was a weak and flawed instrument because of the chronic manning problems imposed by its nation's politics. Canada's soldiers paid the price of their prime minister's pusillanimity on the flooded battlefield of Holland in the winter of 1944".

I take exception to this on several grounds.

1. Hastings quotes no source for his conclusion, suggesting it is solely his own. His book contains at least one example of indigestion, which is unsurprising given its immense scope and the speed with which it was written. (Page 501; "Charles Farrell, a Scots Guards squadron commander, thought as he drove his Sherman across Germany..." Farrell in fact commanded a Churchill and not a Sherman, as anyone who has read his book 'Reflections' could not help knowing. It even includes a picture of Ike discussing the thickness of the Churchill's frontal armour with Farrell. I will not bother to explain that although Hastings condemns Allied tanks and drove some of them at Bovington, he shows little understanding of the problem or the causes.)

2. I know of no example of a Canloan officer who was not regarded with respect by his British peers, and usually with admiration. Therefore "some Canadian officers" should be replaced by "almost all Canadian officers".

3. The serious manning problems referred to were not unique, as Hastings implies, to 1 Canadian Army, which may have been better off than others in this regard. Shortage of infantry was endemic everywhere including in the US Army. The British disbanded two divisions, including a D-Day assault division, in order to maintain infantry numbers, and ignored the hundreds of thousands of surplus RAF wallahs and trained aircrew doing almost nothing in Britain, and only a tiny number of whom were transferred. Complaints of being sent untrained recruits were commonplace in the British infantry, as they were in the Russian and German armies also chronically short of men.

4. The Canadian Army abroad was unique in being comprised of volunteers. It has always been said, and I believe it strongly, that this resulted in Canadians being man for man more effective than any other troops in any army with the exception of some elite volunteer units like commandos. I do not include the airborne in this comparison since there are serious reservations about their abilities referred to by Hastings, and of course lacking heavy weapons they could not be effective.

In conclusion, I would take issue with Hastings not because he calls the Canadian army flawed but in suggesting that any other army was better. 2 British Army was certainly worse. The German name for Canadians was 'Tommy SS'. This reflected favourably on their skills and commitment even though it also implied a reputation for killing prisoners.

I would appreciate it were Max Hastings to join this discussion and either justify his statement or withdraw it. We don't need another myth about WWII, especially in a book that achieves IMHO a balanced judgement on many contentious issues including the British area bombing campaign.