Veronica Foster, an employee of John Inglis Co. Ltd., who became known as 'Ronnie The Bren Gun Girl,' poses with a finished Bren gun in the Bren gun plant in Toronto in 1941.Supplied
On the 80th anniversary of D-Day, we memorialize the sacrifice, in blood and lives, of the Canadians who liberated Europe. Largely forgotten, however, are the economic, technical and industrial achievements that made victory possible – how Canadian business retooled, innovated and threw up new factories overnight, and the mind-boggling quantities of stuff they churned out.
Canada didn’t just clothe, feed, equip and arm the more than one million Canadians in uniform (out of a population of just 11 million). Stimulated by unprecedented federal spending and borrowing, industry shook off the Great Depression, and was soon building and exporting massive quantities of, well, everything.
According to the official postwar history from the federal Department of Munitions and Supply, “prior to the war, Canada’s aircraft industry consisted of eight small plants with … an average annual production of approximately 40 aeroplanes.”
Less than half a decade later, “the industry had a plant area of close to 15,000,000 square feet, 116,000 employees and was turning out over 4,000 aeroplanes a year.” Canada built 16,418 aircraft, with 5,096 exported to the U.S., and 4,854 to Britain and other allies.
As the site of the British Commonwealth Air Training Program, Canada also became “the aerodrome of democracy.” At its height, this continent-spanning educational institution operated scores of airfields, was staffed by 104,000 men and women, and had 11,000 trainer aircraft.
Though far from the war zone, it was still a dangerous business. From 1942 to 1944, there were an average of five fatal accidents a week. But by war’s end, the BCATP had graduated 132,000 aircrew. About half went to the Royal Air Force and other allied air forces.
Then there were the trucks. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler produced more than 815,729 transport vehicles in Canada, mostly trucks. Our army had more trucks per soldier than the Americans. And our vehicles were widely exported.
“By 1941,” says the official history, “Canada was the main source of mechanized transport for the British Empire.” According to Canadian War Museum historian Jeff Noakes, Canadian truck production outproduced that of Nazi Germany “by a massive margin.”
The official history describes Canada’s 1939 shipbuilding industry as “practically non-existent.” But “from these small beginnings, naval vessels delivered from Canadian shipyards during the war period comprised 487 escort ships and minesweepers, 391 cargo vessels, 254 tugs and auxiliary vessels, and about 3,300 special purpose craft.”
The U.S. produced its famous Liberty ships, which could be assembled quickly and cheaply. Canada had its equivalent: the Park and Fort ships. The former joined Canada’s merchant marine; the latter were transferred to Britain. Most were a standardized design for 10,000 tons of cargo. Almost 400 were built.
West coast shipyards were also busy upgrading Soviet ships, which carried Canadian aid across the Pacific. From the fall of 1941 to the spring of 1944, according to historian James Pritchard, Canadian supplies to Russia included “1,388 Valentine tanks, 1,348 weapons carriers, 29 radar sets, 30,000 tons of aluminum and 27,000 tons of copper.”
The Soviet Union was the second-biggest recipient of Canadian aid, after Britain. If someone had remembered that history, Anthony Rota might still be speaker of the House of Commons.
The John Inglis factory in Toronto – now the Liberty Village neighbourhood of condos – was retooled to make small arms. Its most important product was the Bren light machine gun. By the summer of 1942, Inglis was producing at a rate of 120,000 a year. Thousands were exported to China. (More history: Our Chinese allies were the Republic of China, which now governs Taiwan.)
The U.S. had its Lend-Lease program, under which it basically gifted material and weapons to Britain, the Soviets and other allies. Canada had its equivalent. In January, 1942, Canada announced the Billion Dollar Gift. Britain was broke, so Canada promised to give it $1-billion in goods and a $700-million interest-free loan.
Within months, the British needed more. So did the Soviets and other allies. Ottawa passed the United Nations Mutual Aid Act, which delivered $2.5-billion in aid. Bankrupt countries couldn’t afford to pay for the output of Canada’s mines, farms and factories, so Canada paid.
To put those numbers in perspective, Canada’s annual gross domestic product was $5.6-billion in 1939, and $11.8-billion in 1945.
According to historian Jack Granatstein, Canadian wartime industrial production was worth more than $9.5-billion, plus another $1.5-billion spent on defence construction and war plants – all paid for by the government.
Relative to the size of the economy, it would be as if Canada had, over the past six years, spent more than $3-trillion on the military and in-kind foreign aid.
Lessons? Legacy? Maybe that will be the subject of a future column. For now, all I have to say is: Lest we forget.