cover image Mobilize! Why Canada Was Unprepared for the Second World War

Mobilize! Why Canada Was Unprepared for the Second World War

Larry D. Rose. Dundurn (UTP, Canadian dist.; IPS, U.S. dist.), $28.99 trade paper (331p) ISBN 978-1-4597-1064-1

This debut book from a veteran broadcast journalist guides the reader through the extended sequence of short term decisions and appalling judgment by Prime Minister Mackenzie King and cronies that would leave Canada virtually unarmed as war with the Axis loomed. Determined to limit Depression-era public spending, King was disinclined to halt the progressive erosion of Canadian military preparedness that began as soon as the First World War ended. Awareness that insular Quebec would view overseas entanglements with hostility and a profound misapprehension of Hitler's goals only exacerbated the Canadian reluctance to contribute effectively to British and global security. The result was a Canada that faced the Second World War with a handful of aircraft, archaic equipment, a nation needlessly dependent on other nations' military largess. The picture Rose paints in the 13 chapters of his book of a Canadian military crippled by governmental foolishness seems oddly familiar to modern eyes; underfunded armed forces and fumbled military acquisitions prove an enduring theme in Canadian history. The author's account is straightforward, well-organized, firmly presented and utterly damning. (Dec.)