Season 2, Episode 9

This episode brings to light an extraordinary story of courage, heroism, and fate. The episode was recorded during Remembrance week 2021 and is dedicated to the memory of Lieutenant Mitchell Sterlin, 16 platoon commander, during The RCR engagement on the outskirts of Ortona (Italy), in December 1943.

Ellin Bessner unveils the fantastic story of brave Mitchell Sterlin outside the RCR circles. Sterlin's story, his heroism and his humanity are well known to those who served or serve in The Royal Canadian Regiment, less so to the general public.

In 2019, Ellin published Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War II. She spent six years researching, travelling, and interviewing over 300 veterans and their families, to tell the untold stories of how and why Canada's Jewish community sent 17,000 men and women to serve under the Allied Forces during the Second World War. It is a story that has never been comprehensively told before and fills an important gap in the publicly known accounts of how a country of volunteers helped win the war. In her book, Ellin Bessner tells us who these Jewish Canadian were, why they enlisted, and what their lives were like as Jews in Canada, in the barracks, or on the battlefield. To paraphrase Peter Mansbridge, Bessner's book brings a part of our history out of the shadows.

Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War II, can be found on Amazon, on Ellin's website soon in our own gift shop.

Ellin Bessner is a Canadian journalist, a professor of journalism at Centennial College in Toronto, and a sought-after speaker on Canadian military and Jewish history. Ellin was born in Montreal and graduated with a degree in journalism and political science from Carleton University. She was a reporter and anchor for CBC News and CTV News. As a foreign correspondent based in Rome, Italy, she reported on the Mafia, Italian food, fashion, the opera, and, of course, on soccer. Ellin also covered several civil wars in Africa. Shes reported on Ottawa's Parliament Hill, the Canadian military, the Columbia space shuttle disaster, 9/11, and she's interviewed the late Prince Phillip and the Dalai Lama.

Contributors:

Ellin Bessner
The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum
Mark Vogelsang
Georgiana Stanciu

Season 2, Episode 8

This episode focuses on the transition from burying the fallen in graves near the site where they fell to the repatriation of bodies, by comparison a relatively recent practice that has seen ramp ceremonies on the tarmac, attended by family members and senior military or government officials. As our guest, Dr. Tanya Grodzinsky explains after reviewing the funeral procedures in the Canadian military since 1800s, this transition was made possible by changes in the policies related to the way the Canadian Armed Forces manage casualties.

Dr. Grodzinsky is a Emerita Professor in the History Department at the Royal Military College in Kingston, ON. She is also a 36-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, 16 of which were spent as military faculty at RMC, teaching history at the undergraduate and graduate levels. With an international reputation for her knowledge of the Anglo-American War of 1812, she has researched extensively other Canadian topics including 80 battlefield studies dealing with colonial North American conflicts and in Italy during the Second World War.

Most recently, Dr Grodzinsky has been preparing a volume covering the history of The Royal Canadian Regiment from 1946 to 2001. Today we have the opportunity to listen to her research about how the Canadian Armed Forces is commemorating the dead in war and peace.

Contributors:

Tanya Grodzinsky
Georgiana Stanciu
Mark Vogelsang
The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum

Season 2, Episode 7

In this episode, Michael Baker discusses war memorials in southwestern Ontario and what has happened to these memorials, now that many years have passed since the end of those two conflicts. While most Canadians are familiar with the cenotaph, they are but one type within a range of memorials that appeared to honour soldiers in the years following both world wars. Others included public buildings and parks, as well as a variety of monuments. It was also common for schools, churches, office buildings, and even factories to enshrine a list on their walls of those students, parishioners or staff members who had volunteered to serve their country.

A graduate of University of Western Ontario with degrees in history and education, Michael Baker is well known to the regional historians as the Collections Curator at Fanshawe Pioneer Village, and the Curator of Regional History at Museum London, but also as the editor of Downtown London: Layers of Time (1999) and the co-editor with Hilary Bates Neary, of 100 Fascinating Londoners and Street Names of London - An Illustrated Guide, both published by James Lorimer of Canada. He is a former president of the London Branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario and of the Heritage London Foundation and a past President of the Elgin Historical Society.

Contributors:

Mark Vogelsang
Michael Baker
Georgiana Stanciu
The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum

Season 2, Episode 6

In this episode, Brian McClure explores the history of the wooden battlefield crosses, grave markers placed at the burial sites, the debates over their replacement with headstones, and the decision that saw them shipped across the British Empire to next-of-kin or units to which the dead were affiliated.

Initially managed by the Red Cross, during the First World War, the burial of the dead became an official enterprise of the British Army in 1915. Two years later, the organization was named the Imperial War Grave Commission, and from 1921 to 1931 managed to setup 2,400 cemeteries in France and Belgium. Thousands of families were affected by the tragedy of losing their own and the depleted communities shared the grief.

Brian is a PhD candidate in the History Department at Western University in London Ontario. He has an undergraduate degree at Queen's University before beginning to travel overseas to complete his Master of Philosophy in modern Irish history at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland.

After examining the nature of First World War commemoration in Dublin, Brian returned to Canada to research personal memory and commemoration of the First World War in the British Empire. Brian researched memorials to individuals across the Commonwealth including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and his Ph.D. dissertation is titled, "He Gave His Life for the Empire: Memory, Memorials and Identity in the British Empire after the First World War."

Contributors:

Mark Vogelsang
Brian McClure
Georgiana Stanciu
The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum

Season 2, Episode 5

When the Second World War ended, a major disposal crisis emerged as much of this material became surplus. These assets had all been acquired with public funds, so the government enacted a disposal strategy to divest its surpluses to the best advantage of the Canadian state. With shortages of new goods running rampant in 1945 and 1946, the assets accumulated to fight were often the only things available for reconstruction and rehabilitation. So, what happened to Canada's leftover arsenals?

This episode features Dr. Alex Souchen, an historian specializing in warfare, society, and the environment. He is the author of War Junk: Munitions Disposal and Postwar Reconstruction in Canada (UBC Press, 2020). He received a PhD in History from the University of Western Ontario in 2016, and has held Postdoctoral Fellowships at Wilfrid Laurier University and Trent University. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Royal Military College of Canada.

Contributors:

Mark Vogelsang
Georgiana Stanciu
The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum
Alex Souchen

Season 2, Episode 4

Sean Campbell follows the displaced soldiers of Poland who were on a personal journey of redemption. In the British Army, they found themselves contributing to the Allied cause on several fronts from Bomber Command's air war to the Invasion of Italy of 1943.

In "Hussar: My Grandpapa and the Polish Experience Under British Command in the Second World War" Sean Campbell follows the displaced soldiers of Poland who were on a personal journey of redemption. This talk charts the unique journey of General Stanislaw Mazcek's 1st Polish Armoured Division, attached to Crerar's First Canadian Army, during the liberation of Western Europe. It highlights men such as Sean's grandpapa who helped to redeem the Polish homeland as a member of the division's 2nd Motorized Artillery Regiment.

Sean is the Visitor Experience Manager at the Diefenbunker: Canada's Cold War Museum in Ottawa. He is a graduate of Western University's Masters in Public History program in London Ontario. His primary research interest in Canadian military history has taken him to the First and Second World War battlefields of Europe to explore and bring to life the lives of his military ancestors from both conflicts.

Contributors:

Mark Vogelsang
Sean Campbell
Georgiana Stanciu
The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum

Season 2, Episode 3

The legacy of the Battle of Hong Kong was shaped by bitter political clashes, allegations of a conspiracy to sacrifice Canadians in a far-off British colony, and a pattern of government negligence in the treatment of veterans combined with the rejection of the official commemoration for this battle.

In November 1941, Britain requested support for guarding their remote Asian colony, Hong Kong. A small force known as "C" Force, formed of Winnipeg Grenadiers and Royal Rifles of Canada, basically two infantry battalions were shipped to the Pacific. A former member of The RCR, Brigadier John Kelburne Lawson, was appointed to command this unit. Expecting to perform routine garrison duties, they were taken by surprise on 11 December 1941, when the 38th Division of the Japanese Army first attacked. Outnumbered, poorly equipped and unprepared for combat engagement of that scale, the two Canadian units held positions, but eventually suffered a heavy defeat, with many killed in action or in prisoner of war camps, and as many wounded. On Christmas Day 1941, Britain surrendered Hong Kong to the enemy, which brought bitterness among the survivors.

This episode features Brad St.Croix, who shares the results of his research on the topic of the Battle of Hong Kong (December 1941). Brad is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Ottawa. He also runs the Twitter account On This Day in Canadian Military History, where we first met. He profiles here a different event of Canada's military past each day of the year.

Brad's research interests include the Canadian involvement in the two world wars as well as Commemoration and Remembrance. He is currently working on his dissertation about the Canadian legacy of the 1941 battle of Hong Kong. Brad was a researcher for the Canadian War Museum, but he also worked with the Canadian Research and Mapping Association by providing narratives to accompany interactive maps on the Second World War. He has written and published several articles on the world wars, such as "Close Encounters" on the topic of the ambiguous role of the fifth columnists during the battle of Hong Kong (in War Journal, 2018). He also signed the article on Canadian labour during the First World War for the 1914-1918 Encyclopedia of the First World War.

Contributors:

Mark Vogelsang
Georgiana Stanciu
The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum
Brad St.Croix

Season 2, Episode 2

Chad Martin shares his findings about Arthur Leith Ross, a "small-town kid" with aspirations of adventure and military glory. An avid researcher, mostly of his hometown, Palmerston, Chad's love of history led him on journey through schooling at Wilfrid Laurier University and Sir Sandford Fleming College.

Following a tenure as the Curator of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Chad moved on to consulting for museums, specializing in artifact collections storage and preservation and exhibit development. In his personal time, Chad started the No One Goes Project, a prolific digital platform focused on the "continued preservation and documentation of the diverse history of Palmerston."

In this episode, Chad presents his research on a native of Palmerston, Arthur Leith Ross, whose memory is preserved on a small plaque in the Palmerston Public Library which states: "Late of the Lancashire Fusiliers and Northern Nigeria Regiment West African Frontier Force and Subsequently Chief Transport Officer of the Protectorate, who died 26th August, 1908." Inspired by his father's service in the 30th Wellington Rifles, Arthur joined the militia as a teenager and dreamed of achieving a Field Marshal's baton someday. His ambitions took him on a perilous journey across the Atlantic to South Africa and then on to some of the many wars of burden for the Empire. His adventures not only led him to the love of his life, but ultimately his tragic demise.

Contributors:

Mark Vogelsang
Georgiana Stanciu
The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum
Chad Martin

Season 2, Episode 1

This presentation explores the trajectory of and motives for the shift in the church's discourse between the two world wars (1919-1939). The presentation demonstrates that the shift in perspective was a result of a number of influences, a primary one being the unprecedented and traumatic losses experienced during the Great War. The familiar rhetoric of war simply could not stand in the face of such losses.

Professor Gordon Heath is Professor of Christian History and Centenary Chair in World Christianity at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario. Among his published titles are Doing Church History: A User-friendly Introduction to Researching the History of Christianity (2008), and A War with a Silver Lining: Canadian Protestant Churches and the South African War, 1899-1902 (2009).

Contributors:

Mark Vogelsang
Gordon Heath
Georgiana Stanciu
The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum