About how many Canadians and Newfoundlanders served in the Second World War?
- About 10 million
- About 60,000
- About 7,000
- More than one million
Answer: More than one million
More than one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders served in the Second World War, out of a population of 11.5 million, which was a high proportion. Newfoundland was then a separate British entity. Of those who served, 44,000 were killed.
Learn more: The Second World War
- The war began in 1939 when Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator of Germany, invaded Poland and conquered much of Europe.
- More than one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders served, out of a population of 11.5 million. Of these, 44,000 were killed. Newfoundland was then a separate British territory.
- Canadians fought in the unsuccessful defence of Hong Kong (1941) against Imperial Japan, and in a failed raid on Dieppe, France (1942).
- The Royal Canadian Air Force took part in the Battle of Britain. Over 130,000 Allied air crew trained in Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
- The Royal Canadian Navy’s finest hour was the Battle of the Atlantic, protecting merchant convoys from German submarines. By the war’s end Canada had the third-largest navy in the world.
- Canadians took part in the liberation of Italy in 1943–44.
- On D-Day, June 6, 1944, 15,000 Canadian troops stormed and captured Juno Beach in Normandy. About one in ten Allied soldiers on D-Day was Canadian.
- The Canadian Army liberated the Netherlands in 1944–45 and helped force the German surrender of May 8, 1945. Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945.
- Canadians of Japanese origin were forcibly relocated and their property sold without compensation. The Government of Canada apologized in 1988 and compensated the victims.