Browse "Military"

The CF-100 Canuck, manufactured by A.V. Roe Canada (Avro), was the first jet fighter designed and built entirely in Canada. It flew in front-line air defence from 1953 until the early 1960s.

Force 136 was a branch of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. Its covert missions were based in Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia, where orders were to support and train local resistance movements to sabotage Japanese supply lines and equipment. While Force 136 recruited mostly Southeast Asians, it also recruited about 150 Chinese Canadians . It was thought that Chinese Canadians would blend in with local populations and speak local languages. Earlier in the war, many of these men had volunteered their services to Canada but were either turned away or recruited and sidelined. Force 136 became an opportunity for Chinese Canadian men to demonstrate their courage and skills and especially their loyalty to Canada.

The capitulation of Montréal to the British on 8 September 1760 effectively completed Britain’s conquest of New France in the Seven Years' War (the war itself would continue until 1763, at which point the French colony formally became a British possession).

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III on 7 October 1763. It established the basis for governing the North American territories surrendered by France to Britain in the Treaty of Paris, 1763, following the Seven Years’ War. It introduced policies meant to assimilate the French population to British rule. These policies ultimately failed and were replaced by the Quebec Act of 1774 (see also The Conquest of New France). The Royal Proclamation also set the constitutional structure for the negotiation of treaties with the Indigenous inhabitants of large sections of Canada. It is referenced in section 25 of the Constitution Act, 1982. As such, it has been labelled an “Indian Magna Carta” or an “Indian Bill of Rights.” The Proclamation also contributed to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775. The Proclamation legally defined the North American interior west of the Appalachian Mountains as a vast Indigenous reserve. This angered people in the Thirteen Colonies who desired western expansion.

Wars often have many causes. Some are long-standing problems between nations, while others are dangerous sparks that inflame attitudes and push nations to a call to arms.

A key site for controlling the western theatre of the War of 1812, Fort Amherstburg (now Fort Malden) owed its existence to the shifting boundaries on Lake Superior in the wake of British and American diplomatic and military disputes.

A band of Americans and pro-American Canadians living in Upper Canada, the Canadian Volunteers were a company-sized regiment that fought on the American side during the WAR OF 1812.

The HMS St Lawrence was the largest warship ever built on the Great Lakes during the age of sail. During the War of 1812, supply, reinforcement and the movement of troops for attack all depended on the naval control of the lakes.

Their commander was Major Charles-Michel de SALABERRY, formerly of the 60th (Royal American) Regiment of Foot. His family had a well regarded reputation for serving the British Army, and he had served with the British against the French in the West Indies and at Walcheren.

On 12 July, Hull crossed the Detroit River unopposed and occupied Sandwich (Windsor). On 20 July, the general issued a bombastic proclamation to the Canadian militia to throw off their British shackles and embrace American liberty. Reconnaissance revealed that Amherstburg was weakly defended.

The siege of Fort Erie was a British blockade of their own fort located at the entrance to the Niagara River opposite Buffalo, New York, which the Americans had captured on 3 July 1814.

The War of 1812 as it was fought on the high seas included a variety of activities related to sea power, including clashes between ships, naval blockades, coastal raids, joint operations with the army and a commerce war involving privateers and letters of marque.

The North American heartland, linked by rivers running from the north, west, and south and flowing eastwards via the St Lawrence River, saw intense fighting during the War of 1812.

The British land forces that defended British North America during the War of 1812 were drawn from a number of organizations. The British "army" of the time consisted of the infantry, cavalry, the Royal Waggon Train and the Royal Sappers and Miners.

Privateering refers to government licensing of private vessels to wage war. In Canada, privateering dated back to Samuel Argall's attack in 1613 on PORT-ROYAL, Acadia. From 1756 to 1815 British privateers sailed from Halifax, Liverpool and other Atlantic ports, cruising as far south as Venezuela.

HMS Shannon and the USS Chesapeake fought one of the most celebrated naval battles of the WAR OF 1812. On 1 June 1813, the two ships met 20 nautical miles (37 km) east of Boston lighthouse, between Cape Ann and Cape Cod.

The war on the water was an essential, if not the most important, aspect of the WAR OF 1812. Great Britain was obviously at a disadvantage geographically when trying to defend its colony Canada in a conflict with the United States.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the British government raised regiments known as "fencibles" for home service. These temporary units were used to protect British interests wherever the units were raised, in Great Britain or North America, and were not to be deployed for overseas duty on foreign soil.

The Nancy was a schooner built in 1789 at the then-British port of Detroit, by a Montréal shipbuilding company under the supervision of John Richardson (whose daughter's and wife's names were Nancy).

The two schooners of the United States Navy, the Tigress and Scorpion, were constructed during the War of 1812 at Erie, Pennsylvania, in time to take part in naval actions in the Battle of Lake Erie on 10 September 1813.