Training in Canada

I did what every junior officer that was given a head quarters troop, and I set out training them and establishing a relationship with the men I was going into action with. And, learning how to run a troop, then learning how to run a squadron, and then taking part in the regiment and learning how to operate in a brigade. I mean, it was an awful lot of training. The Canadian Army in 1939 was 4,000 strong and MacKenzie King, who had, like the present Government, allowed it to run down to practically zero and gave it no money, all of the sudden decided that he was part of a bigger thing and he sent 1,500 of them overseas on the First Division. That left 2,500 in all of Canada. We put 600,000 men in the field. Nobody there to train us. If you had one Regular Force officer, you were lucky and we didn’t have one. We trained ourselves. So we were pulling ourselves up by the boot straps. It was a long hard job to get ready for combat, which is a tough environment.