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Lest We Forget

WW I... 619,636 men and women, the latter as nurses, fought for Canada during World War I, or The Great War as it sometimes referred to. Casualties numbered 59,544 dead and 172,950 wounded. It was Canada's costliest war, but in the fields of France the spirit of our nation was forged.

Over 600,000 Canadians enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) during the First World War (1914-1918). The «CEF database» is an index to those personnel files, which are held by the National Archives. In addition, over 173,849 pages of Attestation papers have been scanned and made accessible through the database.

WW II... The three armed services (Army, Navy, Air Force) of Canada fielded over a million personnel during World War II, and some 42,000 never returned home, to be laid to rest in places of honour spanning the entire world.

The Army, which reached a peak of nearly half a million men, fought in all the major campaigns of Western Europe. Its casualties numbered 81,000 including 23,000 dead.

The Navy played a part second only to that of the British Navy in keeping the lifeline to Britain open during the dark and almost fatal years of the Battle of the Atlantic. It expanded its strength fiftyfold to almost 100,000 and built, borrowed or bought more than 400 cruisers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, minesweepers, gunboats, torpedo boats, and landing craft. It convoyed 25,000 merchant ships and nearly 200 million tons of supplies, either part or all of the way to the United Kingdom. It sank 27 U-Boats and lost 24 warships. More than 4 in every 5 of 2000 casualties were fatal. There were not many second chances in the Battle of the Atlantic.

The Air Force put nearly a quarter of a million Canadians into uniform, steadily stepping up its overseas striking power to 48 squadrons. Of its 18,000 casualties, more than 17,000 lost their lives.

Excerpts from Ordeal by Fire by Ralph Allen.

Korea... A total of 21,940 Canadian military personnel took part in the Korean conflict, and 7,000 more served in the area between the cease-fire (July 27, 1953) and the end of 1955. Casualties numbered 1,557 including 312 dead. All but 14 casualties occurred in the Army.

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