1st Canadian Army had to be heavily supported by British logistic support - check out the Army Troops lists sometime and it becomes apparent just how much. E.L.M. Burns also wrote about what a logistical drain the 1st Canadian Corps was on the British 8th Army when it was sent to Italy. Canada insisted on doing so, for political reasons, and because all those useless corps troops went with them, there were damaging infantry shortages in Normandy and Italy which had serious political ramification back home which eventually cost the Prime Minister his seat, as well as dethroned a couple of defence ministers. (Not to mention costing a lot of untrained and hastily remustered infantrymen their lives.)Kingfish wrote:Overall you are correct but you have the Canadian Corps swapped around. 1st Canadian Corp fought in Italy, and was brought over in Operation Goldflake to join 1st Canadian army in NWE. 2nd Canadian Corp fought in Normandy and then on to the low countries.gambadier wrote:Eh, 1st Cdn Army comprised two corps until the beginning of 1945 - 1st Cdn Corps and 1st British Corps, in early 1945 is was joined by 2 Cdn Corps that had been in Italy. As I understand it the total of 3 inf and 2 armd divs in 1 Cdn Army was not reached until the 2nd corps arrived.
The OOB for 1st Cdn Army varied, but generally consisted of the five Cdn divisions you mentioned, two Cdn independent armored brigades, the 1st Polish armd division and (I believe) the brigade-sized formations from both the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia. And of course the 1st British Corp.
BTW, two other Canadian formations that were not part of 1st Cdn Army are the 1st Canadian Parachute battalion and the 1st Special Service Force, a combined US/Canadian commando-type unit.
There may have been a little bit of merit in having a corps in Italy, in that Canadian senior commanders had a place to earn battle experience. Crerar never commanded a formation in battle until he had the chance to command the 1st Corps on the quiet Arielli front. I wonder how much difference it made to his eventual command of 1st Canadian Army in NW Europe. Simonds did well as a division commander in Sicily, well enough to progress to II Cdn Corps and his reputation as the best battlefield commander of the war, perhaps tied with Hoffmeister for that distinction.
But there is reason to think all those senior Canadian formations on the battlefield were as much a drain as they were a help, particularly that corps in Italy. A smarter move would have been to simply leave the two divisions under British command and use the net savings of thousands of troops to reinforce infantry units in the field, preventing the costly and divisive conscription issue from coming up. Politically, that was perhaps not possible.
Canada's biggest contributions were away from the battlefield, though these were uneven. Tank production outstripped that of other Commonwealth nations like Australia, NZ, South Africa, but produced very little in the way of usable AFVs. We sent some Matildas and Valentines to the Russians (who may have thought WTF?) and in the end produced a number of Rams that became useful as Kangaroo APCs in both 1st Cdn Army and 2nd British Army.
The merchant navy and efforts on the North Atlantic Run may have been far more important to the war, as well as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, though the merits of the actual CBO will be debated till Kingdom Come.
