War Story

After surviving the German bombing campaign of British cities, RAF Bomber Command struck back against Germany. The campaign took a tremendous toll in lives, a cost also borne by the Germans on the ground. Hitting Back takes the viewer through a strategic bombing sortie, as experienced by Allied personnel on the ground and in the air, German military, and survivors of the attacks. The devastating consequences of raids, for both for the young men in the skies and the people on the ground, are vividly portrayed in this film.

Getting home was never easy for bomber crews: Flying with Bomber Command was the most dangerous service in the Allied forces during the Second World War. Of the 125,000 men who served in bomber aircrew, 55,000 were killed, including nearly 10,000 Canadians. Indeed, a majority of bomber aircrew did not survive the 30 sorties needed to complete an operational tour. Getting Home continues the incredible story of Bomber Command begun in Hitting Back. In this film, Bomber Command personnel and a Luftwaffe pilot take the viewer through the frightening reality of fighting in the skies as they try to get a damaged bomber home, providing an intimate, personal, examination of one of the Second World War's most protracted and deadly campaigns.

On 22 April 1951, the invading Chinese Army threatened Seoul, capital of South Korea. The Chinese forces had pushed back the United Nations defenders, but they still had to confront a heavily outnumbered Canadian infantry battalion of determined volunteers. Kap'yong is simultaneously one of the finest small unit actions in Canadian history and a neglected engagement in a war that has never received due attention in Canada. In Kap'yong: The Forgotten Battle, Canadian and Chinese veterans reflect on those fateful events of over 60 years ago.

During the Second World War, 250,000 Canadian women helped to build the arsenal of democracy. There was a two-tiered motivation for these workers from across Canada, mainly young women outside of the home for the first time, to seek employment in the arms industry. The government's official line asserted that women in industry released men for front line military service, but deeper and more personal motivations, namely a desire to help win the war and bring those same men home as soon as possible, prevailed. These young women met the challenges of factory work and helped to win the Second World War, and by doing so, paved the way for future generations.

The Sicily Campaign began with the largest seaborne invasion in history on 9-10 July 1943. The Allied forces of Britain, Canada, and the United States, in the first direct invasion of Axis territory, sought to knock Italy out of the war and attack Germany from the south. It took the Allies 38 days to overcome the fierce German opposition and secure the island. In doing so, the Canadians marched over 200 kilometres and played a pivotal role in the victory, but at the cost of 2,310 casualties, including 562 dead. However, the Germans re-grouped and prepared to make their next stand across the Strait of Messina. The battles for Ortona and Rome would follow.

The battle for Ortona was combat at its closest, most intimate, and most horrifying. Canadian infantry pitted against the toughest German paratroopers, pounding forward street by street, house by house, grenade by grenade. The War Inside is a personal retelling of one of the fiercest battles of the Italian Campaign from the searing points of view of Canadian infantrymen, a tanker, a stretcher bearer, and a German paratrooper.

From Ortona, the Canadians moved across the Italian peninsula to the Liri Valley, the mountainous area to the south of the Italian capital of Rome. With the Hitler Line shattered by Canadian infantry, the tankers of the 5th Canadian Armoured Division surprised the Germans with an audacious crossing of the Melfa River, but their American allies were given the prize of liberating the eternal city. The Road to Rome examines the incredible experiences of Canadian veterans, the victories and horrors of armoured combat, and the pivotal value, far too often neglected, of the overall Italian Campaign.

In Normandy, the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion proved itself to be in the vanguard of the best-trained and toughest units in the Allied forces. Established in 1942 – predominantly recruited from the cream of young and adventurous volunteers who boasted long experience in manual labour and contact sports – on the early morning of D-Day, 6 June 1944, the paratroopers, the only Canadian unit in the 6th British Airborne Division, were dropped behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France, equipped only with what they could carry. They fought surrounded by the enemy, with no guarantee that reinforcements would ever reach them. In spite of heavy casualties, they met all of their objectives and successfully held the eastern flank of the invasion, ensuring the Germans did not break through to counter-attack the Allied landing beaches.

In mid-September 1944, the remnants of the battered 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion returned to England from Normandy. After their success on the continent, experiences detailed in Out of the Clouds: Paras in Normandy, the Canadian veterans felt they deserved a chance to rest and reorganize. However, their new commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Jeff Nicklin, was a hard-driving disciplinarian. Worn down by a training regimen they regarded as punishing and unfair, the exhausted soldiers demonstrated their collective unhappiness with a three-day hunger strike. Their well-respected British Brigadier, James Hill, promptly straightened out the situation. Following an eventful interlude in Belgium and The Netherlands from 2 January to 23 February 1945 – making the battalion the only Canadian unit to fight in the Battle of the Bulge – the paras prepared for the final push into Germany itself. After rebelling against their disciplinarian new commander, they participated in the largest parachute drop in history, fought a successful battle, and then were tasked with confronting a new opponent: the Soviets. On the way, they are shocked to be the first unit into a Holocaust camp. The unit returned to a heroes' welcome.

In 1941, life as the Jews of Eastern Poland knew it was brought to an abrupt and brutal end. Entire populations were wiped out, but nearly 30,000 Jews escaped the ghettos and work camps. Taking to the nearby forests, they joined the growing underground resistance army, actively fighting the Nazis. Vengeance reveals this little known chapter in history through four partisans who tell their incredible stories of losing everything and fighting back.

On 16 November 1941, two Canadian battalions arrived in the British colony of Hong Kong. Their aim: Bolster the Empire's defences in the event of aggression by the restless forces of Japan, stationed only kilometres away in occupied China. Prisoners of the Sun features the revelations of five Canadian soldiers and a former Japanese prison guard. There is horror in their stories, but there is also, in the words of Canadian veteran George MacDonell, "honour and distinction".

On 16 April 1945, a mere three weeks before German surrender, the submarine U-190 fired a single torpedo that sank HMCS Esquimalt, the last Canadian naval vessel lost to enemy action, in the approaches to Halifax Harbour. Tragedy compounded tragedy as miscommunication and a long-delayed rescue effort cost the lives of 44 of the ship's 71 hands. In The Last Ship, the final survivor of HMCS Esquimalt, one of the senior officers of U-190, and three crewmen of the rescue vessel HMCS Sarnia, united by their collective experience, share their memories of this traumatic event.

During the Vietnam War, 50,000 draft-aged Americans crossed the border into Canada, choosing exile over going to war. As the conflict escalated and the anti-war movement blazed across America, these "draft-dodgers" and "deserters" were either criticized as cowards or held up as resisters. What they were, in fact, were young men forced to choose between their country and their values; between everything they knew, and what they believed. For some, the price of exile and its crushing loneliness would be too high. For others, Canada was a place of asylum and sanity and would ultimately benefit from their activism. In Hell No, We Won't Go! resisters share their incredible stories and, forty years later, reflect on the costs of this enormous decision.