PREFACE
September 1, 1939: Germany invaded Poland. Two days later both Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. On September 10, Canada entered the war. Prime Minister Mackenzie King reassured the country there would be no conscription. By the end of that month, sixty thousand men across Canada volunteered.
"Many who had fought in the 1914-18 war watched their sons march off." 3
I was conceived in February of 1940, five months after WW II had started. During my second month of growth in utero, the German armies invaded Den- mark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. The near capture of the entire British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk on the northern coast of France transformed the war. A few days later France fell and Charles DeGaulle escaped to London. On June 10, fascist Italy joined forces with Germany and Italian citizens living in Canada and Canadians of Italian origin suspected of being fascists were arrested.
As Germany intensified its air attacks on Britain, Canadian munition supplies became essential and factories stepped up their production. Air training and air- craft manufacture were expanded to aid Britain against the German Luftwaffe. A large number of women entered the work force. Sugar, meat, butter and milk rationing began in order to ensure adequate supplies for the troops.
I was growing in my mother's womb during the summer when the Atlantic Ferry Service came into being and bombers built in the United States were flown to Montreal, Quebec, and from there made the hazardous crossing to Britain.
Although the United States remained neutral along with the Soviet Union, it helped Britain by providing fifty overage destroyers and started its first peacetime draft. Mackenzie King was re-elected as prime minister. The Ogdensburg Agreement, drafted on August 18, 1940, pledged the United States to defend Canada from invaders. This contract marked a shift from Canada's traditional alliance with Britain to a recognition of an involvement with its neighbor, the United States.
These were the circumstances of the world into which I was born.