CANADA lets down CANADIAN ARMY: Then and Now

LIFE IS chock full of ridiculous ironies.

If you're a Canadian…here's one you should never forget.

This WW II CANADIAN ARMY VET from the documentary "D-Day - Canada's 24 Hours of Destiny" is complaining about Canada sending him off to war, with inferior equipment. He wished the Canadian Army had been outfitted with American rifles which were semi-automatics…not single shooters.

Do you think a Canadian soldier running into the heat of the battle, toward a slew of Nazis, has time to cock his gun before… EVERY. SINGLE. SHOT. HE. TAKES?

No?!

Seems kinda' crazy, right?!

Well, then you might be surprised to learn the Canadian government of WW II, expected, exactly that.

Are you sitting down Canada?

Are you sitting down America?

Is everyone, in the United Kingdom, also sitting down?

The American guns our Canadian vet is talking about…the ones he wished he'd had on D-Day in Juno, France instead of the inferior British designed Lee-Enfield bolt action rifles…weren't even American guns at all!

He's talking about the M-1 Garand, here, folks.

And the M-1 Garand was designed for the American Army, by a French-Canadian, from St. Rémi, Quebec, named John Garand!!!

How do you like them McIntosh apples?

A incredible, groundbreaking, general issue gun designed by a Canadian, certified for use in 1936, acquired and used by the entire U.S. Army that same year…but a gun…unavailable to enlisted Canadians during WW II.

Go figure—

Don't ever ask if your Canadian government knows how to wage a war. They don't.

The Lee-Enfields the Canadian Army used (No. 1MK-IVs) were made in Long Branch, at the Long Branch Arsenal in Toronto. Millions were made there!

WHY? Why…we weren't making M-1 Garands there, instead…I'll never know?!?!

The M-1 GARAND, lauded by General Patton as the "greatest battle implement ever devised" was historically the first semi-automatic rifle to be issued, as the standard service rifle, to the infantry of any nation, specifically the U.S. Army.

The M-1 replaced the immediately outdated bolt-action M1903 Springfield in 1936.


REGARDLESS of Canadian soldiers being ill-equipped for D-Day, how'd Canadians do on D-Day?

"Before dawn on D-Day, 230 heavy bombers from RCAF No.6 Group pounded German shore batteries with 860 tons of bombs. And in the daylight hours, RCAF fighter squadrons flew top cover for the invasion beaches. Fifty Canadian destroyers, frigates and corvettes assisted in covering the invasion, providing anti-submarine escort and bombarding shore targets.

14,000 CANADIANS STORMED ASHORE on Juno Beach and were the only force to capture all their initial objectives that day, at a cost of 1000 casualties, of which 350 were fatal." (© WWII.CA-CANADA AT WAR)