“We underestimate the Canadians"

[Hanno Spoelstra]

“We underestimate the Canadians,” said British military historian James Holland in a 2022 episode of his podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk with co-host Al Murray, “and they don’t get the credit they deserve for their part in the Second World War.”
The author of various non-fiction books, including Normandy ’44: D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France (2019) and the most recent Cassino ’44: Five Months of Hell in Italy (2024), has long respected Canada and Newfoundland for their tendency of “punching massively above their weight whether it be in the air forces, whether it be in the Battle of the Atlantic, whether it be on land.”

In a Legion Magazine exclusive, the acclaimed writer and TV presenter discussed the significant role two former colonies played in defeating Nazi Germany, and his own role in continuing to highlight their enduring importance.

Continue reading "British historian James Holland highlights Canada’s WW II contributions" at https://legionmagazine.com/they-neve...contributions/

[Ed Storey]

Much of this stems from the fact that we as Canadians did not tell anyone, including ourselves, about our wartime accomplishments. Instead we let others, namely the Americans and the British, do the talking for us. This still continues to this day with minimal press coverage of historical events being the most obvious example.

Of course it never helps when a Canadian magazine who advertises itself as 'Canada's History' magazine uses artwork of an American paratrooper on its cover and tries to pass it off as "A member of 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion descending from the sky" in its attempt to tell the story of the Battalion's race to the Baltic.

Clearly we still have a long way to go in not only recognizing our accomplishments but also what wartime Canadians actually looked like.