BRINGING the WAR HOME the PATRIOTIC IMAGINATION in SASKATOON, 1939-1942 Brendan Kelly University of Toronto

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UNL | Libraries University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Spring 2010 BRINGING THE WAR HOME THE PATRIOTIC IMAGINATION IN SASKATOON, 1939-1942 Brendan Kelly University of Toronto Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the American Studies Commons, Cultural History Commons, and the United States History Commons Kelly, Brendan, "BRINGING THE WAR HOME THE PATRIOTIC IMAGINATION IN SASKATOON, 1939-1942" (2010). Great Plains Quarterly. 2574. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2574 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. BRINGING THE WAR HOME THE PATRIOTIC IMAGINATION IN SASKATOON, 1939-1942 BRENDAN KELLY I n The American West Transformed: The histories of urban centers in wartime: Red Impact of the Second World War, noted histo Deer (Alberta), Lethbridge (Alberta), and rian Gerald D. Nash argued that the war, more Regina (Saskatchewan).3 However, these than any other event in the West's history, previous studies pay insufficient attention to completely altered that region.1 There is as the impact of "patriotism," a curious omission yet no equivalent of Nash's fine study for the given how frequently both government officials Great Plains north of the forty-ninth parallel, and ordinary citizens used their love of coun or what Canadians call the "prairies."2 This try as a rallying cry. In this article I focus on gap notwithstanding, historians of western Saskatoon, whose 43,027 inhabitants made it Canada have begun to explore at least one Saskatchewan's second-largest city, and exam key aspect of Nash's research: the war's impact ine the way in which patriotism was nourished on cities. Since 1995 there have been three in the collective mind by several war-related events in the city.4 Through what may be called the patriotic imagination, the war was made intense and immediate to prairie dwellers Key Words: Blitz, Britain, Nazi, newspapers, Prairies, far removed from its conflict zones.5 Star-Phoenix Unlike a London or a Leningrad, North American cities like Saskatoon never experi Brendan Kelly earned his Master's in History from enced bombardment. For patriotism to flour the University of Saskatchewan in 2008. His thesis, ish in such locales, the war overseas had to "A City Reborn: Patriotism in Saskatoon During the Second World War," was supervised by Dr. Bill be imagined-and, to a degree, vicariously Waiser. He has also written on the negotiation of First experienced-at home. In The American Nations treaties in Western Canada. He is currently West Transformed, Nash devoted two chapters pursuing a PhD in Canadian History at the University to the metamorphosis-cultural, economic, of Toronto. and demographic-of wartime cities. While a study of this transformation is rewarding, it [GPQ 30 (Summer 2010): 183.201) should not completely eclipse other features 183 184 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2010 of the urban home front. This caveat applies dropped from the sky, and black-garbed enemy especially to the Canadian prairies, where the soldiers from outside the city, some of them changes wrought by the war were far less pro with swastikas and rising suns chalked on their found than the ones on the Great Plains. Put uniforms, advanced on such strategic points simply, an analysis of how the patriotic imagi as City Hall, the police station, and the news nation mobilized Saskatoon to support the war paper plant. Local radio station CFQC, also is useful in understanding its wider impact on seized by the raiders, broadcast propaganda western Canadian cities as a whole. I have con over its airwaves. Its mayor and civic officials centrated on the pre-1943 war years, a period taken prisoner, Saskatoon was deprived of when Canadian casualties were relatively low. leadership in its darkest hour.s In the end the The popular imagination, subdued during the mock invasions inspired Saskatoon's patriotic Great Depression, took flight during this time. imagination on the three levels that are cen In what follows, I consider several ways in tral to this argument: through sympathy with which the patriotic imagination was nourished Britain's actual experience of being bombed in the city: through empathy with war-torn by the enemy; through the dramatization of Britain, through the fear that the European Saskatonians' own fears that they might be conflict might move to the Canadian prairies, tested by a German invasion; and, finally, and through Saskatonians' awareness of their through the experience of seeing Canadian soldiers, both at home and abroad. soldiers acting out in war games those skills The mock invasions of September 1941 that they would use in earnest when in combat and October 1942 constitute a paradigm of overseas. how the patriotic imagination in Saskatoon was nourished. On the night of September 24, BRITAIN IN PERIL: SASKATOON HEARS THE 1941, the first attack occurred. The next day, in DRUMS OF DRAKE what could have been mistaken for a dispatch from Europe on the Wehrmacht's destruction Even before the Luftwaffe's bombing of of Warsaw or Rotterdam, the city's daily news England, most Saskatonians seemed disposed paper, the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, provided its to support the mother country? This loyalty readers with an alarming communique: was not altogether surprising in a city where census records show that 70 percent of the The city plunged into darkness, columns population traced its ancestry to the British of military trucks and jeeps loaded with Isles.lO During the royal tour in the summer soldiers armed with rifles and machine-guns of 1939 by King George VI and his consort, roared in from concentration points outside Queen Elizabeth, the first such visit to Canada the city. Motor trucks carrying the invaders by a reigning monarch, this allegiance to the sped through the downtown streets while Crown was patently clear. When the royal the sound of rifle fire and explosive charges couple passed through the city on June 3, 1939, filled the air. The atmosphere was acrid with Saskatoon was ablaze with red, white, and smoke. blue; flags were draped over buildings, miles of bunting lined the streets, and pictures of Citizens on the street were stopped by the their majesties were everywhere'!! Saskatoon's "enemy" and asked to show their registration population of about 40,000 swelled to an esti cards.6 At the Canadian National Railway sta mated 150,000, as all of central Saskatchewan tion a "fifth columnist" opened a nondescript seemed to converge on the city for a glimpse of trunk and pulled out a machine gun.7 On the monarchs.u The most distinctive feature of October 19, 1942, Saskatoon was the scene of the city's two-hour celebration was its "singing" an even larger "invasion." Massed formations Union Jack flag, composed of no fewer than 700 of airplanes roared overhead, paratroopers school girls who performed "Land of Hope and BRINGING THE WAR HOME 185 Glory" for the illustrious guests.u "No longer Saskatoon's imagination and strengthened the are kings and queens known only by hearsay, bond it felt to the British Empire. The Star through the printed word, or, at best, by photo Phoenix's assertion that June 3, 1939, was "the graphs or via radio," declared the Star-Phoenix's greatest day in Saskatoon's history" was not correspondent. The welcome received by the altogether hyperbolic.19 royal couple in the city, continued the journal Geographical distance could not weaken ist, was the best possible answer to "the old the bond that Saskatonians felt to the mother libel that Canada, particularly the new parts country. Ninety-eight percent of the men who and those populated by folk of alien origin, are enlisted in Saskatoon during the first days of falling away from the British Crown."14 the war were of British descent.2° For them With war looming on the European horizon, and their families, the idea of fighting for the the timing of the royal tour was opportune. "old flag" still resonated. More evidence of this While the royal couple's trip across the country sentiment was a remarkable military parade in the summer of 1939 received more coverage during the 1940 Saskatoon Exhibition featur by Canadian newspapers than did the worsen ing over eighty Saskatchewan veterans from ing situation in Europe, the visit was nonethe the Victorian era. City librarian J. S. Wood, the less fraught with symbolism for the coming keynote speaker for the event, observed that conflict. For one thing, this tour suggested that these men adorned with medals represented "a the world's democracies stood together in the long page in British history." Indeed, two of the face of growing totalitarian aggression.I5 Even eighty veterans assembled had actually fought more telling was the way in which the king and as far back as the Zulu wars of 1878, while others queen departed from formal arrangements by had served in such imperial hot spots as India, plunging into the midst of the cheering crowds, Burma, China, Egypt, and South Africa.21 a warm and spontaneous gesture that was in The Star-Phoenix's prediction that the whole stark contrast to Hitler's rigid and stationary affair would "stir" the patriotism of the crowd watch over Nazi troops who marched before proved an understatement: 7,000 Saskatonians him with cold precision during the Nuremberg not only packed the exhibition grandstand, rallies.16 At the Saskatoon train station, the but they also leaped to their feet and wildly king ordered the police lines to relax, allowing cheered the veterans who marched past them thousands access to a reserved enclosure where three abreast to the music of "Soldiers of the they were able to steal one final look at the Queen."22 The parade was essentially a celebra royal coupleP tion of Canada's service to the empire.

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