Visited friends in St. Catharines, Ontario today and stopped to explore the local cenotaph. The tulips symbolizing Canada's role in the Liberation of the Netherlands aren't quite in bloom yet, though a few bulbs have shown their colour. #LestWeForget

I'll just be there the days of the conference. It's my birthday on Saturday, so I'll be out of there right when it wraps. Friday is best.

Possibly!!

Oof! It's not every day you are examining a service file and come across a report that the poor bloke's wife cheated on him back in Canada with an RAF trainee.

I wonder if L/Cpl Herman ever found out before he was killed in the D-Day landing on Juno Beach.

Panacea!

New warplane on display in my office: 430 Squadron RCAF Mustang Mk I (AG 455) as flown by Francis Goring when he was shot down and killed by anti-aircraft fire near Falaise on 12 August 1944.

Built by @flypastrush.bsky.social for a recent Juno BeCh Centre exhibition on the RCAF and #WWII.

Love the Jug!

I thought Iranian civilians were supposed to be like the French, not the Germans.

Really excited for this, Chris! Awesome to see a historian like yourself writing these sorts of books, especially during our own 'dark times'.

What a brilliant concept for a book! An in-universe collection of starfighter pilot memoirs by the pre-eminent rebel pilot of the Galactic Civil War.

Wedge Antilles was always a survivor, both in Legends and Canon. Great to see him used here.

I can't say I've had a more anticipated #StarWars book!

Well, the royal you combined to elect the guy for a second term. At least there's hope at the midterms. His pigs breakfast is bad enough.

I hear where you are coming from, but there's some scary stuff happening inside the US as well.

Not to mention how much your current leadership seems to be enabling other threats to act however they please.

The country that did the most to set one world order (c.1945) is now unraveling it.

I recall Ted Barris has the story of an RCAF pilot flying a Mosquito meteorological aircraft to help put together the weather report in his book.

Am taking bets on whether the Canadians will even Garner a mention.

Still, I missed the stage play so I am looking forward to this.

Taps the sign.

“Get it all on record now — get the films — get the witnesses — because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower, after visiting liberated concentration camps in April 1945

Back off, Brits. He's ours again.

Pretty darn good they may be, but Trump really wants the resources. He doesn't actually care about security.

Yeah, I figured as much.

The billion dollar gift (not sure what the final total was) plus Canada basically covered UK's share of the BCATP.

Canada's weight in the war wasn't just on the frontlines.

Finished @alanallport.bsky.social's Advance Britannia this weekend. Quite the achievement (him, not me).

I would have liked a bit more about certain Dominion contributions - including to help the Britain financially at the end of the war.

But at almost 500 pages of text there's so much there.

When researching Canadians who fought and died in WW2, I want to learn their backgrounds. To help the audience connect. To humanize the story.

As a historian, one thing that troubles me about recent events in the US is how many use the victim's background to villianize rather than empathize.

When does the IIHF kick the US out of hockey competitions, like they did Russia for Ukraine?

Richard Hammond's Strangling the Axis is very good on the specific subject of interdicting Axis logistics across the middle sea.

The Mediterranean Air War by Robert S. Ehlers Jr. was quite good from about a decade ago.

I have some ideas, but they are more air war in focus, or more air-land-sea + diplomacy. For the latter, there is Douglas Porch's The Path to Victory.

I'm already seeing plenty of parallels with Milner's Second Front (a more focused study, of course) regarding US-UK relations.

I guess the more likely comparison will be Daniel Todman's duology. I did appreciate his dives into popular culture and social history.

1944 as in written about ad nausium. Though I guess most of that is Normandy and Arnhem.

That is where I found it.

Would you say 1944 is the exception to that?

Japan/America's entry into the war certainly was a watershed.

Hah! Which was the least, least enjoyable?

I guess, I could re-jig the question as which part of Britain's war do you find more interesting?