1936 - March 1940. In Europe, war clouds gather as Germany re-arms and Hitler propounds his "master race" doctrine. September 1st, 1939, the old battleship Schleswig-Holstein fires the first shot of World War II. Germany overruns Czechoslovakia and Poland. Canada makes an independent decision to enter the war. The first Canadian troopship sails from Halifax.
April - Novermber 1940. With devastating speed, Germany takes Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. In Paris, Hitler stands as master of all he surveys. On June 10, Mussolini declares war. The British withdraw from Dunkirk. Mackenzie King feels the Canadian puls on the conscription issue. England is strafed by the Luftwaffe and the Britons accept Churchill's challenge of "blood, sweat and tears."
September 1940 - October 1941. The Battle of the Atlantic begins. German U-boats take their toll on Canadian convoys. The purge of Jews begins. German armies march into Russia expecting a pushover, but are thrown back in disorder. Mackenzie King is booed at Aldershot. Men of the Winnipeg Grenadiers and Royal Rifles leave for a fateful mission in Hong Kong.
December 1941 - June 1942. The war is now global and pressures on Canada mount. Without warning, Japan strikes at Pearl Harbor. Canadian Japanese are moved inland from the coast. Canadians adjust to food rationing and salvage drives. The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan makes Canada, in Roosevelt's words, "the aerodrome of democracy." In Ottawa, Winston Churchill makes his "Some chicken, some neck!" speech.
July - September 1942. A time of defeat and disaster. Hitler is at the apex of his power. A Canadian division probes at Dieppe and is repulsed with heavy losses. Canadian factories take over production of the fabled Lancaster night bomber; Canadian bush pilots ferry the big planes across the Atlantic. German U-boats penetrate the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
October 1942 - July 1943. The inherent strength of the Allies begins to be felt. Canadian munitions factories operate at peak capacity. U.S. Marines land on Guadalcanal and the Solomons. Montgomery's 8th Army strikes Rommel at El Alamein; the RCAF joins air strikes against Germany.
July 1943 - January 1944. The objective at last - Fortress Europe. The Canadian 1st Division, flanked by the British and the Americans, pushes into Italy. Italians surrender quickly but the Germans resist stiffly. Ortona, a 15-th century town, dubbed "Little Stalingrad", riddled with bullets and grenades, is taken by Canadians in fierce and costly street fighting.
December 1943 - June 1944. Canada, war seasoned, girds for the final assault. In London, Commonwealth prime ministers meet and Mackenzie King holds out for Canadian independence in foreign policy. In the Arctic, Canadian ships sail the Murmansk run with supplies for beleaguered Russia. The Italian campaign intensifies; Canadians cross the Gustav and Adolf Hitler Lines. In the south of England, the Allies poise for attack.
June - September 1944. D-Day, June 6, 1944. In the early morning hours, infantry carriers, including 110 ships of the Royal Canadian Navy, cross a seething, pitching sea to the coast of France, while Allied air forces pound enemy positions from the air. Cherbourg, Caen, Carpiquet, Falaise, Paris are liberated. Canadians return, this time victorious, to the beaches of Dieppe.
June - December 1944. V-1 rockets, and later V-2s, rain destruction on Britain. Their launching sites are mopped up by Canadians advancing on Pas de Calais. Canadians return to Flanders, Vimy Ridge. The 3rd Division spearheads the attack on the Scheldt estuary. Germans make a last ditch stand in the Battle of the Bulge. The dikes of Walcheran are smashed. In the English Channel, Canadian sailors man swift motor torpedo boats against German U-boats.
September 1944 - March 1945. On the eve of victory, Canada faces and internal crisis; acute shortage of men for overseas precipitates the conscription issue, threatening national unity and the King government. In Europe, Canadian divisions fight their way to the top of the Italian boot, then regroup for the final onslaught on Germany. They engage in the battles of the Reicwald and Hochwald forests and finally cross the Siegfried Line.
April - August 1945. Hitler said, "Whoever lights the torch of war in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos." In 1945, his swaggering conquerors goose-step no longer. Germany is beaten. VE Day celebrations verge on the hysterical, buy occupying armies uncover the sobering import of the tyrannies of Belsen, Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Franklin D. Roosevelt dies. In Japan, the world's first atomic bomb is dropped.
August 1945 - 1946. Japan surrenders. World War II is over, but the scars are deep. Canadian prisoners are released from the Japanese war camps. In Canada, as elsewhere, the monumental task of rehabilitation begins. In Ottawa, the Gouzenko case shocks the nation. The trials at Nuremberg begin. The United Nations is formed. Canada, now a much stronger, independent nation, enters the Cold War.
(1943) The was on the information and propaganda fronts, and the hopes for the future founded on cooperation.
(1963) A vivid review of life in Canada between the end of World War I and World War II. Years of prosperity were followed by the Great Depression, as Canada went through a severe maturing process. For those who lived during this era, the film is full of nostalgia and reminiscence; for younger Canadians, it offers an eye-opening glimpse of Canada's past.
(1941) A classic presentation of the strategy ofthe Battle of Britain, the film shows, with penetrating clarity, the relationship of the various forces that went to make up the island's defenses. Here is the Royal Air Force in its epic battle with the Luftwaffe, the Navy in its stubborn fight against the raiders of sea and sky, the coastal defenses, the mechanized cavalry, the merchant seamen, and, steadfast behind them all, Britain's tough, unbending civil army.
(1944) Allied troops land on the Normandy coast and drive eastward to Germany. Opening scenes are of the D-Day landings and establishment of Canadian forces on the beachhead. Pictures of bitter street fighting and of pin-point bombing tell the story of Caen's capture and the advance towards Falaise. Made from footage filmed by units of the Canadian Army Overseas.
(1942) Women are taking an increasing important place on the various war fronts. In England, their jobs include ferrying planes from factory to airfield, and operating aint-aircraft guns. In Russia, they are fighting on the front lines as well as acting as parachute nurses, army doctors and technicians. Canadian women too, are entering new fields every day. Many have joined active service auxiliaries, and thousands labour day and night in factories turning out the tools of war.