The Valour and the Horror

"Successive interwar Canadian governments believed that the Canadian military should consist of a small core of professionals whose main job was to train the nonprofessional militia and the air and naval auxiliaries. The professionals of the armed forces were supposed to keep up with improvements in tactics and become familiar with the new military technologies that other nations were developing. It was understood that if Canada ever fought another war, it would do so as part of a greater British Empire war effort... the Royal Canadian Navy slavishly followed the traditions of the Royal Navy... and regularly trained with it. ...The height of a professional Canadian army officer's training came when he passed competitive examinations and earned a place at the British Army Staff College in Camberly, England, or in Quetta, India... "That was the idea; the reality was another matter. A constant round of budget-cutting invariably meant that there were fewer professional soldiers than the military needed to run its training programs, that modern weapons were always scarce, and the quality of the training that the militia received left much to be desired...." (Bercuson 1995: 6-7)

"The interwar Canadian Army consisted of the Non-Permanent Active Militia and the Permanent Force. The NPAM, or militia, was made up of weekend warriors who gathered at the local armoury once or twice a week to don First World War vintage uniforms and undergo "training." this training consisted largely of drilling and marching and learning essentials such as first aid. Practice with actual arms usually consisted of an hour or two each week on the rifle range (often in the basement) with the handful of .22 target rifles that the regiment possessed. Officers gathered for mess dinners on special occasions, and accompanied their men into the field in late summer or early fall when a militia camp was held. There, rudimentary exercises were conducted with other militia regiments in the region. The pay was virtually nonexistent (officers generally donated their pay to a regimental fund to cover the costs of uniforms and mess dinners), the training was primitive, the weapons scarce. There were no modern weapons to speak of. The militia was supposed to consist of just under 135,000 men in 1931, but it was only about 51,000 strong.
"The basic organisational element of the militia was the regiment. Modelled closely after British territorial regiments, Canadian militia regiments gathered men from a particular area or town into one unit. In time of war, the regiment was to be responsible for raising a force of men who would serve in the overseas army and who, it was expected, would maintain their identity and their ties with that particular regiment.... A regiment was supposed to be like an extended family, and members of particular regiments were taught the special traditions, history, and culture of that regiment. The theory was that, in combat, men would fight for each other as members of this extended family; that they would stand and die, if need be, for the honour of the regiment." (Bercuson 1995: 7-8)

One result of the regimental structure was that when a regiment died in fierce action, entire towns were depopulated of their young men.
"The backbone of the army was the Permanent Force (PF). In 1931, it was supposed to be 6925 men strong, but its actual strength was fewer than 4000. The PF was the professional army, which was intended to train the militia and to train itself for the time when it would be needed." (Bercuson 1995:) The Canadian Army had no control over its budget, but did control promotions and training through the Royal Military College in Kingston, and militia staff courses. Canadian military historians Col. John English and Dr. Stephen Harris believe the army did a poor job at both training and at promoting officers. "The man who dominated the interwar military, Major-General A.G.L. McNaughton, ... seemed to believe that military knowledge or experience was something that a good officer just picked up." (Bercuson 1995: 9) Historians judge him harshly, but he was worshipped by his men at the start of the war.

During the Depression, men signed up because there was no work, and the army would feed and clothe them. By the late l930s, the army contained some 5,000 men who worked mostly as strike-breakers.

Valour and Horror, Second World War, Canadian history, World War II, W.W.II