Victory in the St. Lawrence Canada's Unknown War

IntroductionSetting up the defence of a country as unique as Canada sometimes proves to be a greater problem than inspiring a "will to win" to support that defence. True, the difficulties of leadership so necessary to winning any war are often overlooked, but the problem of defending over one thousand miles of coastline is often minimized to such a degree that lack of adequate preparation courts disaster.Examine Canada's eastern defence posture, for example. I first saw Gaspeacute; in the early summer of 1942, at the height of Canada's greatest trial. I can still see those fog-shrouded yet beautiful rolling hills, soon to burst forth in autumn's yellows and golds. The day that I arrived on the 'Bullet', the antiquated steam train which miraculously managed to stay on long neglected tracks, found the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence swathed in a gentle mist, peculiarly beautiful, as the still, cool water of the Gulf reflected the gold of the setting sun. The train took the last full sweep of this beautiful vista before heading inland to Gaspeacute; town. Historic Perceacute; rock lay just at the water's edge outlined in shimmering yellow -- a background to a coastline much as it'd been since Cartier's time. But what a change from the once peaceful, virgin waters of 1534.Four centuries later, these very waters erupted in hatred as the Nazi incursions increased and men cried out as today's modern ships, though bereft of the encumbrances of the wooden ships of the sailor from St. Malo, found, that despite the superior steel ship of today, they were more vulnerable than even the most decrepit vessels in the era of "Wooden ships and iron men". While today's ships were steel, they were nevertheless being ripped open, not by the hazards of the sea, but by giant, hideous torpedoes, whose can opener like thrust let in the sea while a thousand tortures were inflicted on the men who manned the ships.Neither Cartier nor Nelson -- the latter who sailed this same shore in the Albermarle in 1783 -- ever envisaged, in their wildest dreams, anything like this. Dogged Cartier and Brave Nelson; how they would have revolted at the carnage as brave men were killed by deception and not by the sea; killed by an invisible foe. Nelson's cry, "England expects every man to do his duty" would not avail here. This enemy could not even be seen let alone be joined. While Canada mistakenly sent its sons overseas, thinking it was the place to fight the vitals of an enemy whose evil had now shocked the sensibilities of good men everywhere, we left our own shores naked. Worse, the shores of our friendly neighbour to the south also bore the brunt of the Nazi's initial attacks, after itself suffering a "day of infamy" only six months earlier at Pearl Harbour. Like us, they too were to find the extreme weapon of subterfuge, the submarine, even more menacing than that black Sunday in 1941. The ensuing slaughter caught both countries by surprise, but especially Canada.Canada also had another problem when National Selective Service became the butt of controversy. When war hit the United States, "the Draft" was taken as a matter of course; in Canada, it got bogged down in the semantics of a dilettante Prime Minister who never really had a feel for a free people's will to fight. This lack of confidence later exploded overseas in Aldershot in 1941 when Prime Minister King, reviewing Canadian troops anxious to fight, was roundly "booed". It was no secret that servicemen listened more to Churchill and Roosevelt for direction rather than the top man in Canada.Ignoring a signal call to battle, he uttered his now famous phrase... "Conscription if necessary but not necessarily Conscription". This dilemma reached up into the highest station of municipal government when the Mayor ofEssex, James W. is the author of 'Victory in the St. Lawrence Canada's Unknown War', published 2004 under ISBN 9780919822566 and ISBN 0919822568.