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In late October 1814, deep into the War of 1812, a flying column of American horsemen riding east under a full moon reached the Thames River near Moraviantown, a settlement [...]

In August 1887 the French scientific journal La Nature noted favorably the role the velocipede, or bicycle, was beginning to play in European military maneuvers: For a few years past [...]

In 1993 aUnited Nations force of Canadian and French peacekeepers was tasked with creating a buffer zone between warrings Serbs and Croats. It come too late It was Sept. 16, [...]

Just after 1 p.m. on Jan. 15, 2006, a convoy carrying members of the Canadian Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) entered Kandahar through its twin gates, known--with a tongue-in-cheek nod to [...]

Just after dawn on Christmas Day 1941 wounded Canadian Pvt. Sid Vale lay in his bed in Hong Kong's St. Stephen's College, then in use as an Allied military field [...]

'Crime of the Century!' roared The Times of London headline. On a clear Saturday in December 1875, a massive explosion had caused dozens of casualties, many fatal, in the German [...]

Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape From Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison, by Ben Macintyre, Crown, New York, 2022, $28.99 The New York Times has [...]

The date was Oct. 13, 1944, and Canada's 1st Battalion, Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), was paying the price for having launched an attack on Friday the 13th. A gray [...]

Some Americans went Canada to avoid Vietnam. Some Canadians went the other way Tom Tompkins enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1963. Five years later, he was a Special Forces [...]

As the light faded over Normandy, France, on June 7,1944, Maj. John Donald 'Don' Lear-ment of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders was among many newly captured members of that Canadian [...]

ON MAY 17, 1917, the newly renamed No. 2 Construction Company (No. 2 CC, formerly the No. 2 Construction Battalion) arrived at Boulogne amongst a convoy escorted by Royal Navy [...]

Lt. Hampden Cockburn Lt. Richard Turner Sgt. Edward Holland Canadian Army Victoria Cross South Africa Nov. 7, 1900 Boers, who today number some 1.5 million souls, are the descendants of [...]

MOST CANADIAN CAN recall the shooting rampage in and around Parliament Hill on October 22, 2014: Michael Zehaf-Bibeau fatally shot Corporal Nathan Cirillo as he stood as the ceremonial guard [...]

Unlike the other three divisions in the Canadian Corps, the 4th would not achieve a quick victory at Vimy Ridge. Instead, they faced a bloody uphill challenge On the first [...]

NOTE TO READERS: Unexpected health complications and hospitalization necessitated a delay in publication of the third and final installment of Bob Gordon's series linking the 38 years of General Sir [...]

By the spring of 1917, advances in the use of artillery resulted in the highly effective creeping barrage. The guns literally set the pace of the attack. In the pre-dawn [...]

Prior to assaulting the ridge, the Canadian Corps had to dig tunnels, lay pipelines, and stockpile munitions. It was a Herculean effort of logistics. On January 19, 1917 British First [...]

His civilian career began as a lowly paid teacher, but Currie found wealth and success in Insurance and then real estate. The militia was in a sorry State, but Currie [...]

There was virtually no martial heritage or pedigree for the young lad in small town Ontario who would rise to became one of Canada's most acclaimed generals General Sir Arthur [...]

The Devil's Trick: How Canada Fought the Vietnam War By John Boyko Alfred A Knopf Canada, 2021 If one considers Canada's role in Vietnam, the phrase 'draft dodger' immediately comes [...]

ON MAY 8, 1945 a New York Times headline announced 'The War in Europe is Ended.' Mollie Panter-Downes' 'Letter from London,' published in the New Yorker on May 10, 1945 [...]

OVER THE PAST DECADE, video shot on the battlefield by combatants has proliferated on YouTube. Firefights in Afghanistan and Iraq abound. Less widely known is the availability of old school [...]

Seven Days in Hell: Canada's Battle for Normandy and the Rise of the Black Watch Snipers, by David O'Keefe, Harper Perennial, Toronto, 2019, $29.99 During World War II Canada's 1st [...]

The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History, by Margalit Fox, Random House, New York, $28 Had author Margalit Fox presented this story [...]

SHE EARNED THE title 'fightingest' ship in the Royal Canadian Navy, During World War II, the vessel sank greater enemy tonnage than any other RCN warship. Her commanding officer, Commander [...]

On June 21, 1952, Wilfrid Reid 'Wop' May, a giant in Canadian aviation, died of a stroke while hiking with his son to Timpanogos Cave, near American Fork, Utah. May's [...]

OVER THE LAST decade, the Canadian government has bungled military procurement issues repeatedly. Little else could explain the fanfare and hullabaloo that surrounded the announcement of a new Defence Procurement [...]

Last month, early American losses forced a shuffle of military and political leadership, resulting in plans for the amphibious attack on the vulnerable and poorly defended York. In preparation for [...]

In an attempt to seize the strategic initiative, the Americans mounted a bold amphibious assault across Lake Ontario in the spring of 1814 Across Ns western Upper Canada, the 1812 [...]

The French and British had contended for European domination for centuries before the French Revolution. The French Revolution's republicanism and Napoleon's aggression only fed the fires that already burned. Between [...]

Throughout the 20th century, the War of 1812 was most frequently memorialized in the breech. The bicentenary of the American declaration of war on Great Britain in June 1812 has [...]

The origin of wireless telegraphy in the Canadian forces is shrouded in the mists of time and the myths of memory. According to the History of the Royal Canadian Corps [...]

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on Dec. 11, 1889, Coulson Norman Mitchell graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1912 with a degree in engineering before embarking on a bicycle tour [...]

In a little-known chapter of the War of 1812, an armed American incursion into Upper Canada successfully laid waste to critical infrastructure. When finally confronted by Canadian militia, the result [...]

AT MIDNIGHT ON Tuesday, June 6, 1944 the staff at 3rd Canadian Infantry Division headquarters had reason to be well satisfied. On D-Day, Canadian forces met with tremendous success. Although [...]

Patton's Last Gamble: The Disastrous Raid on POW Camp Hammelburg in World War II, by Duane Schultz, Stackpole Books, Lanham, Md., 2018, $29.95 Much has been made in recent years [...]

Appel: A Canadian in the French Foreign Legion, by Joel Adam Struthers, Wilfred Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Ontario, 2019, $24.99 The silver screen has firmly planted an image of la [...]

In a few short weeks he downed 27 Axis aircraft. A deeply religious, nonsmoking teetotaler who eschewed profanity and possessed little more than a grade school education, George Beurling was [...]

AS 1944 DAWNED, a spent First Special Service Force (FSSF) returned to its barracks at Santa Maria. The Force had fought throughout December, successfully clearing the mountainous shoulders of the [...]