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Graphic: The Dambuster Raid Anniversary
Operation Chastise was a daring attack on German dams carried out on May 16-17, 1943 by Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron, flying modified Avro Lancasters, known as “The Dambusters,” the aircraft dropped a bomb specially developed to skip along the surface of a reservoir, over the anti-torpedo netting, and into the dam wall before detonating at a preset depth.
Book excerpt: North from Pachino
A new graphic novel, excerpted this week in the National Post, tells the story of Canada’s involvement in the Second World War.
From the book Canada At War: An Illustrated History of Canada in the Second World War © 2012, by Paul Keery. Illustrations by Michael Wyatt. Published by Douglas & McIntyre, an imprint of D&M Publishers Inc. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
Plane of ‘highest scoring’ living Canadian fighter ace found in Egypt
A Second World War fighter plane, just discovered in the Egyptian desert 70 years after it was crash-landed there by its British pilot, is generating excitement among vintage aircraft experts in Canada who suspect the long-buried Kittyhawk P-40 — literally unearthed from the sands of time — was once flown by one of this country’s great aces in the air battles of North Africa: Saskatchewan-born James “Stocky” Edwards, now 90 and living in Comox, B.C.
Edwards is, in fact, considered to be the “highest scoring” living fighter ace in Canada, credited with 19 “confirmed kills” and many additional damaged and destroyed enemy aircraft on the ground.
The ladies of Bomb Girls ‘went from baking pies to making bombs’
Michael MacLennan, the head writer of a new miniseries centred on the women who worked in Canadian munitions factories during the Second World War, gives a succinct explanation for what is one of Bomb Girls’ most striking, immediate features: “It can be difficult finding conflict today,” he says.
Sitting in the office of a 1940s-era furniture factory in southern Etobicoke that was converted to an expansive set for the Global series, MacLennan talks about how Bomb Girls, which deals with characters who risked their lives for the war, didn’t know if their husbands and sons would return home alive, and even wondered if Hitler would bring the fighting to North America, doesn’t have to stretch the imagination to create drama. “It’s a relief, so to speak, to write where the issues are so starkly drawn,” he says.
Japanese government apologizes to Canada’s World War II POWs
The Japanese government apologized Thursday for the mistreatment of captured Canadian soldiers during the Second World War.
Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney acknowledged the apology while leading a delegation of veterans to Japan. It was delivered by Toshiyuki Kato, Japan’s parliamentary vice-minister for foreign affairs.
“This important gesture is a crucial step in ongoing reconciliation and a significant milestone in the lives of all prisoners of war. It acknowledges their suffering while honouring their sacrifices and courage,” Mr. Blaney said in a statement. (Photo: National Archives of Canada)
Archival photos reveal horror of the Pearl Harbor on 70th anniversary of the attack
Seventy years ago this week, Navy veteran Lou Gore was startled by the muffled thuds of explosions and a burst of commotion while cleaning up from breakfast below deck on the USS Phoenix, a cruiser docked at Pearl Harbor.
Hurrying topside, the 18-year-old seaman first-class was confronted by pandemonium he was unable to immediately comprehend — flames shooting skyward, roiling clouds of dark, acrid smoke, swarms of fighter-bombers buzzing low overhead.
“We didn’t know (at first) those were Japanese planes,” Gore, now 88 and visiting the islands with nine members of his family, recalled in a recent interview. “We didn’t know what was happening. I just did my job.”
Photo: The USS Shaw explodes during the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii December 7, 1941. December 7, 2011 marks the 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack in which over 2,400 members of the United States military were killed. Picture taken December 7, 1941. (Department of the Navy/Naval Photographic Center/Reuters)
Photos: War letters
Brothers, Stephen and Frederic Vickers from St. Catharines were prolific letter writers during their World War two service. While Stephen an instructor stayed in Canada, stationed in Barriefield near Kingston, Ontario, Fredrick, described as a troop leader with the 15th Field Regiment of the Royal Canadian Artillery was stationed in Belgium, Netherlands and Germany at the end of the war. They both attended McMaster University in Hamilton where their letters are now archived. (Photos by Glenn Lowson for National Post)
WWII shipwreck could yield $200M reward
When the SS Gairsoppa was torpedoed by a German U-boat, it took its huge silver cargo to a watery grave. Seventy years later, U.S. divers said they are working to recover what may well be the biggest shipwreck haul ever.
Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration on Monday confirmed the identity and location of the Gairsoppa and cited official documents indicating the ship was carrying some 219 tons of silver coins and bullion when it sank in 1941 in the North Atlantic some 490 kilometres off the Irish coast.
That’s worth about US$200-million today, which would make it history’s largest recovery of precious metals lost at sea, Odyssey said. (Handout/AFP/Getty Images)
Chanel No. F-7124
Coco Chanel acted as a numbered Nazi agent during the Second World War, carrying out several spy and recruitment missions, a new biography claims.
Chanel was feted as a fashion pioneer who changed the way women dressed and thought about themselves. Her life has been the subject of countless biographies and films, which have charted her career but also her darker side as a Nazi sympathizer and collaborator.
But according to Sleeping With the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War, the creator of the famed little black dress was more than this: She was a numbered Nazi agent working for the Abwehr, Germany’s military intelligence agency. (Photo: Coco Chanel in 1944 in Paris/Agence France-Presse)
On the occasion of our fifth anniversary, way back in 2003, the National Post put together a series of front pages, wondering what they would have looked if we’d been around in previous ages. They’d been long forgotten until a dusty poster turned up under a reporter’s desk and now revived here. (Pages by Rob Mckenzie and Kagan McLeod)
Previous: National Post, 1929
Previous: National Post, 1867
Previous: Medieval Post
Previous: Imperial Post
Previous: Prehistoric Post
Regular dad was crack WWII code breaker
To his four kids, he was a regular dad with some irregular talents. Cliff Stewart could fix the family toaster in a blink. Radios, television sets, family cars — anything with wires that went on the fritz, and out came the tools.
“His ability to solve problems — his technical skills — he could always figure something out and make it work. He could literally fix anything,” said Tom Stewart, his eldest son.
To his family, Cliff Stewart was Dad, the super-whiz. But to his World War II comrades, Cliff Stewart was something else. Behind the extraordinary technical talents around the house was an extraordinary secret, a tale of intrigue and espionage that featured Mr. Stewart at the centre of it as a super spy and code breaker.
It was an occupation he never, ever, spoke about, not until the last years of a long life that ended when Mr. Stewart passed away at his home in suburban Charlottetown last weekend. He was 91.
Mr. Stewart’s spent time at Camp X, a top-secret training facility in southern Ontario where he honed his craft with budding assassins, demolitions experts, frogmen, forgers, a man called Intrepid and Ian Fleming, a British naval intelligence trainee and future author of the James Bond books.
