On War & Society

The Nigerian Civil War which began in 1967 was precipitated by a series of military coups that destabilised the nation. The southeastern Igbo region declared itself the Republic of Biafra, prompting a retaliatory declaration of war and a crippling embargo by Nigeria's military government. The ensuing conflict lasted until 1970, resulting in over 100,000 military casualties and more than a million civilian deaths from ethnic cleansing, malnutrition and disease. Humanitarian efforts provided critical relief for up to two million people.

Amidst the conflict international humanitarian organisations played a crucial role. Kyle Pritchard sits down with Walter McLean to discuss the fragility of post-colonial governments and institutions, the complexities of ethnic nationalism versus territorial integrity, and the challenges faced by international organisations in addressing humanitarian crises when geopolitical interests are at play.

Walter describes the dedication and sacrifice of the ground and aircrew of CANAIRELIEF, one of the largest humanitarian airlifts in history, organised by Joint Church Aid. The mission was vital in protecting countless lives and highlighted the dire need for coordinated global efforts in crisis response. The operation involved nightly flights to deliver food and medical supplies to the besieged population, showcasing remarkable dedication and sacrifice. The tragic loss of four Canadians who died in a crash in August 1969 is commemorated in the CANAIRELIEF memorial plaque at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Toronto.

Walter McLean is the co-founder of the Canadian University Services Overseas (CUSO) and was Presbyterian Chaplain to the University of Nigeria between 1962 and 1967. In 1976, he was elected Alderman for the City of Waterloo. He was then the Secretary of State for Canada in 1984, Minister of State and Immigration between 1985 and 86, and Special Representative of African and Commonwealth Affairs between 1987 and 1993. He was also the Commonwealth Observer at the 1994 election in South Africa at the end of apartheid.

Episode host: Kyle Pritchard, Digitial Content Manager at the Laurier Centre for the Study of Canada

The First World War was a literary conflict producing some of the most memorable poems, novels and plays of the twentieth century. While the Second World War left behind a striking visual record, including famous pictures such as Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima and Wait for Me Daddy, the First World War is not generally remembered as a visual conflict. But the war’s visual record is massive. States promoted the use of photography at the front for their historical and propaganda value. Kodak’s portable pocket vest camera was promoted to soldiers, whose private albums took on greater meaning after the war as tokens of remembrance and objects of mourning. Often treated as mere visual representations of the war’s textual record, historians are also now considering the history of the photographs themselves. Who took them and for what purpose? What did the photographer leave out of the image and why? As material objects, what did they mean to the owner and how they remembered their war experiences? In this episode of On War & Society, Dr. Beatriz Pichel, author of the new book Picturing the Western Front: Photography, Practices and Experiences in First World War France discusses the visual legacy of the First World War, the importance of treating photographs as primary sources, the controversies over colourisation and the future of photographic history in an age of visual abundance.

In 1965, in the coastal province of Phú Yên, US Armed Forces embarked on an effort to pacify one of the least-secured regions of South Vietnam. Often described as the “other war” to win the “Hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese, pacification was, in reality, a destructive process that relied on the means of conventional warfare to succeed. Clearing, holding, and destroying communist incursions in the provinces would win the loyalty of the South Vietnamese and therefore the war. Nearly a decade later, US Armed Forces were gone and, Phú Yên, like many other provinces, was under Hanoi’s control, not Saigon’s. For these reasons, historians have taken a greater interest in how pacification was conducted on the ground. In this episode, Dr. Robert Thompson explains the significance of pacification to America’s defeat, his thoughts on Ken Burn’s popular documentary, and some of the myths that have shaped our understandings of America’s War in Vietnam.

Canada’s military history in Northwest Europe has been told many times. On 6 June 1944, Canadian forces landed on Juno Beach as part of Operation Overlord, before quickly establishing a bridgehead and moving inland where they encountered, but ultimately overcame, stiff resistance. As the German Reich shrunk in the face of the Allied advance, the Canadians were tasked with liberating the Netherlands. Images of jubilant crowds greeting the  Canadians have been seared in the collective memory. If you visit Normandy today, you will find tokens of thanks in the monuments and local traditions that scatter the Norman coast. But liberation was not achieved simply through tanks, bombs, and bullets. At the sharp end were not just German forces but also civilians who found themselves caught in the path of war. Their presence presented several military and humanitarian problems. Liberation was a messy business. David Borys, producer of the Cool Canadian History podcast and author of the new book, Civilians at the Sharp End: First Canadian Army Civil Affairs in Northwest Europe, joins our program to discuss the monumental task facing Civilian Affairs, their crucial role in military operations and humanitarian aid, and the myths and realities behind the liberation of Northwest Europe.

The United States and the Philippines have been intimately bound by conflict. A US colony from 1898 to 1946, it remained an important US ally in the Pacific. In that time, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos fought and died for the United States, including against fellow Filipinos who opposed their US colonizers and against the Japanese occupation. Filipino immigrants also enlisted to serve on the Western Front in 1917, joined the US Navy in the 1920s, and served in American regiments during the Second World War. Despite these sacrifices, in 1946, US Congress passed the Rescission Act, retroactively barring these veterans from American citizenship and the benefits to which they were legally entitled.

Christopher Capozzola, Professor of History at MIT and author of Bound by War: How the United States and the Philippines Built America’ First Pacific Century, recently joined our program to discuss his new book, the colonization of archives, memory and forgetting, and the efforts of Filipino-American veterans to undo the broken promises of the past.

In April 1918, Canadian soldier Frank Toronto Prewett was buried alive on the Western Front. Managing to claw his way out of the earth, Prewett was reborn but with a lasting trauma that manifested in a curious way. while recuperating alongside Siegfried Sassoon and W.H.R. Rivers at Lennel House, Prewett started to act and identify as an Iroquois man. A gifted poet, his writing attracted the attention of some of the greatest literary figures of the war generation, including Sassoon, Robert Graves, Edmund Blunden, and Virginia Woolf among many others. But while these literary giants have stood the test of time, Prewett's work has only endured in a handful of anthologies devoted to North American Indigenous poets. His confusing and self-proclaimed postwar identity was only put to rest by a family member's DNA report indicating he had no indigenous ancestry. In this episode of On War & Society, Professor Joy Porter author of the new book Trauma, Primitivism and the First World War: The Making of Frank Prewett, discusses Pretwett's life and legacy, cultural appropriation, and the challenges of writing difficult histories.

The first half of Britain’s twentieth century was shaped by death. Between 1914 and 1918, over 700,000 men died in the First World War, followed by another 250,000 between 1918 and 1919 from the influenza pandemic. Over three decades later, another 380,000 were killed fighting in the Second World War as well over 60,000 civilians from German air raids. The shockingly high death toll of the Great War has often overshadowed that of the Second. Tales of hardships and tragedies left in the wake of German bombs were discouraged from the outset, and the stiff upper lip of the Blitz spirit has come to dominate popular myth. Perhaps for these reasons, scholars have been more reticent about writing an emotional history of death in Britain during the Second World War. In this episode, Lucy Noakes, Professor of History at the University of Essex discusses the reasons for this imbalance, the truths and falsities behind the myths, and the methods that make such a study possible. Whether Britons confronted loss with a quiet stoicism, utilitarian memorials or personalised inscriptions on headstones, the Second World War was nevertheless a war of emotions.

For a long time historians studying the First World War had to rely on the memoirs of soldiers, but over the last several decades, more and more letters have made their way into the archives as family members inherit and donate the written material of their relatives. These sources have initiated a new wave of scholarship devoted to identifying how civilian relationships were maintained, nurtured and interrupted by the war. But much remains to be learned. While we have long wondered about the psychological effects that war had on fighting men, what about their loved ones at home? After all, a significant number of soldiers left behind a spouse. In Canada alone, over 80,000 women were married to soldiers serving overseas. In this episode of On War & Society,  Martha Hanna author of Anxious Days and Tearful Nights: Canadian War Wives during the Great War, discusses the challenges and ethics of working with private correspondence as well as the differences between how Canadian and European wives experienced the Great War at home.

In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, five people were killed and another seventeen were injured from anthrax spores as part of a deliberate attack against members of the US media and Senate. Fears quickly spread that this was another incident of Islamic terrorism. As part of the US-led War on Terror, large sums of money and resources were mobilized in the name of biodefense and security, altering the ways in which medicine was practised on a domestic and global scale. However, it was quickly concluded that these spores originated in US labs, and the prime suspects were white male American scientists. In this episode, Professor Gwen D'Arcangelis observes how the anthrax scare and the current COVID-19 pandemic are part of a broader and ongoing history of American bio-imperialism. 

On the morning of 6 December 1917 two cargo vessells, the SS Mant Blanc and SS Imo collided in Halifax Harbour. The resulting catastrophic explosion occurred thousands of miles away from the Western Front but it was a direct result of the First World War. The war was also essential for what followed. Of the 3000 troop garrison located at Halifax, 1500 were awaiting transport to Europe and provided vital support and resources in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. In this episode, Professor Roger Sarty, a leading Canadian Naval and military historian discusses the late T. Joseph Scanlon's book Catastrophe: Stories and Lessons from the Halifax Explosion and the military history of the disaster in Halifax.