History Browser

On 6 June 1944, Allied forces invaded Western Europe along an 80-kilometre front in Normandy, France. Of the nearly 150,000 Allied troops who landed or parachuted into the invasion area on D-Day, 14,000 were Canadians.

Canadian airmen took part in various missions far from their main theatres of operation. These missions included reconnaissance, air transport, sea patrol and others, sometimes flying from remote bases.

This report is an account of the effect of enemy air action on units and men of the Canadian Army in the United Kingdom during the period 1939 – 1943, and of the part played by Canadian units in the defence of Britain against the enemy air force in those years.

WW1 saw many innovations in strategic and night bombing, aerial combat tactics, and the support of ground troops. Non-military targeting became part of the military strategy for air warfare, a development that later influenced the course of the Second World War.

Canadian forces are in combat for the first time in decades. Four Canadian fighter jets flew into Iraqi airspace, escorting allied attack planes in Operation Desert Storm.

This is the history of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion and its involvement in the Allied Invasion of France. The period covered is from D-day, June 6, 1944, to the unit's return to England on September 6, 1944. It replaces a previous report on this Battalion.

On October 28, 1940, the Italian Duce, Benito Mussolini, invaded northern Greece from Albania, which was at that time under Italian control. Although greatly outnumbered, within a month the Greek army had pushed the Italians back into Albania. Adolf Hitler was unwilling to allow Italy, his major ally, to be humiliated and he prepared to attack Greece, Britain's last European ally.

In June 1942, some 8,500 Japanese personnel, supported by naval forces, occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska, American parts of Alaska at the western end of the Aleutian island chain. Their aim, which was successful, was to distract the Allies and cause them to take resources away from more significant areas in the central Pacific. When the landings finally went ashore, the troops found that the Japanese soldiers had slipped away. Newspaper articles of the day discussed the battles of the far north.

By the end of the First World War, Canadians made up roughly one quarter of the strength of the British Royal Air Force formed in April 1918. More than 8,000 Canadians served in the RAF and its predecessors, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). This photograph shows one famous Canadian fighter pilot, Squadron- Commander Raymond Collishaw (1893-1975), along with his British and Imperial pilots at Allonville, France, July 1918. 208 Squadron was formed in February 1914 as Number 3 Squadron, RNAS. The aircraft in the background are the famous Sopwith F.1 'Camel.' (Library and Archives Canada, PA-002792)

This is the story of the participation of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion in the Allied Invasion of France. The period covered is from D-day, June 6, 1944, to the unit's return to England on September 6, 1944.