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SS St.Louis
On May 13 1939 the SS St. Louis set sail from Hamburg for Havana. On board were 937 Jewish refugees fleeing persecution from Nazi Germany after the horror of Kristallnacht, the pogrom of shop-burning and mass arrests the previous November. Each passenger carried a valid visa for temporary entry into Cuba. It was one of the last ships to leave Nazi Germany before Europe was engulfed in war. -
Hitler invades poland
At 4:45 a.m. 1.5 million German troops invade Poland all along its 1,750-mile border with German-controlled territory. Simultaneously, the German Luftwaffe bombed Polish airfields, and German warships and U-boats attacked Polish naval forces in the Baltic Sea. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler claimed the massive invasion was a defensive action, but Britain and France were not convinced. On September 3, they declared war on Germany, initiating World War II -
Battle of the atlantic
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign[5][6] in World War II, running from 1939 to the defeat of Germany in 1945. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, announced the day after the declaration of war, and Germany's subsequent counter-blockade. It was at its height from mid-1940 through to the end of 1943. -
Canada declares war
Britain’s declaration of war did not automatically commit Canada, as had been the case in 1914. But there was never serious doubt about Canada’s response: the government and people were united in support of Britain and France. After Parliament debated the matter, Canada declared war on Germany on 10 September. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King promised that only volunteers would serve overseas. -
Women allowed to The Formation of CWAC
The Canadian Women's Army Corps was a non-combatant branch of the Canadian Army for women established during the Second World War to release men from those non-combatant roles in the Canadian armed forces as part of expanding Canada's war effort. -
Dieppe Attack
The Dieppe Raid, also known as the Battle of Dieppe, Operation Rutter and, later, Operation Jubilee, was an Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe during the Second World War. The raid took place on the northern coast of France on 19 August 1942. The assault began at 5:00 a.m. and by 10:50 a.m. the Allied commanders were forced to call a retreat. Over 6,000 infantrymen, predominantly Canadian, were supported by The Calgary Regiment of the 1st Canadian Tank Brigade and a strong force -
Battle of Ortona
The Battle of Ortona (20–28 December 1943)[1] was a battle fought between a battalion of German Fallschirmjäger (paratroops) from the German 1st Parachute Division under Generalleutnant Richard Heidrich, and assaulting Canadian forces from the Canadian 1st Infantry Division under Major General Chris Vokes. -
D-Day
The Normandy landings (codenamed Operation Neptune) were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 (termed D-Day) of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, and contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front.