From 1942 to 1944, fifteen German submarines destroyed or severely damaged twenty-seven ships, including three Canadian warships, a U.S. Army troop transport, and the Newfoundland ferry Caribou. More than 250 lives were lost. It was the only battle of the twentieth century to take place within Canada's boundaries, and the only battle to be fought almost exclusively by Canadian forces under Canadian, rather than alliance, high command. And for more than forty years the battle was characterized as a Canadian defeat.
Roger Sarty became professor of naval, military, and Canadian history at Wilfrid Laurier University after twenty-three years as a historical researcher and manager for the Canadian government. As deputy director at the Canadian War Museum, he led exhibition development for the new museum building that opened in 2005.
For six months in 1967, from late April until the end of October, Canada and its world's fair, Expo 67, became the focus of national and international attention in a way the country and its people had rarely experienced. Expo 67 crystallized the buoyant mood and newfound sense of confidence many felt during Canada's centennial. It becomes clearer, though, as its forty-fifth anniversary approaches in spring 2012, that Expo was something more than just a great world's fair. For many Canadians, it became a touchstone, a popular event that penetrated the collective psyche.
John Lownsbrough is an award-winning journalist whose work over the years has appeared in Toronto Life, Saturday Night, Maclean's, Report on Business Magazine, Chatelaine, The Globe and Mail, and the Literary Review of Canada. His social history The Privileged Few: The Grange and its People in Nineteenth Century Toronto was nominated for the City of Toronto Book Award.
