A Visit to the War Museum

We are still on vacation from our kid duties, but the rainy weather has hindered our gadding-about-ed-ness. So, a last minute decision took us into Ottawa to do something indoor-ish — to visit the war museum.

It opened in its present form a few years ago, but it wasn't until now that we made the time and effort to visit.

The first hall commemorated the War of 1812. This is a special display because it is the bi-centenary. Please forgive the low and bad light in all of these photos.

Ready to enter the War of 1812

What I realized in a nutshell is that three of the four sides in the war could legitimately claim at least a partial victory: the Americans, the British and the Canadians. The fourth, the Native Peoples, were the big losers.

The Americans won in the sense that they were able to re-assert their independence from England. The British won because they were able to maintain their colony while still being able to concentrate on their more important dispute with France. The Canadians won because they were able repel all American attempts at invasion. The Americans had thought to increase their territory and fully expected Canadians to embrace them, but that did not happen.

The Native Peoples under the leadership of Tecumseh threw their lot in with the more amenable British, but at the end of the conflict the Americans kept their nation intact and were ready to expand westward with little regard for the welfare of the Aboriginals.

Sue, being the kindhearted person that she is, decided to come to the assistance of this
poor soldier, who has been on duty for 200 years,
by helping him hold his rifle.

Somehow we got turned around and headed into the post WWII display next. Canada has essentially been a peacekeeping nation, and our first endeavour (I think) was in Cyprus. Sue sat at this model of a Cypriot cafe and was able to listen to actual recorded messages of soldiers calling home.

Mockup of Cypriot cafe

Next and still working backwards through time, we visited the WWII display.

This is Der Fuher's limo with a huge mural of Nazi soldiers in the background at one of his rallies. This gave me the shudders to think how one lunatic was able to exert his influence and power over a whole nation.

I was amazed at the size of this torpedo from a German U-Boat. These U-Bootes penetrated quite a way into the St Lawrence River. You can perhaps tell from the map at the back right.

There was a section of the conflict in Italy, which I found quite poignant because Sue's dad was a soldier in that theatre. He was a tank driver. Here Sue poses by a tank of that vintage.

Her Dad drove a tank, perhaps similar to this one. Maybe even this one for all we know.

Rationing of food was a wartime reality as shown by the notice in this grocery store.

I was able to recognize some of the canned goods from my boyhood days.

Well, I didn't seem to take any WWI pictures, but I do remember one poignant story. A group of injured soldiers were being driven to the treatment centre, and this one young lad had them sing a rousing rendition of It's a Long Way to Tipperary to keep their spirits up. By morning he was dead. So sad. It tears me up even now.

On our way out, we passed a mural in honour of the women and children who were left behind during and even after the war. I thought it fitting to have a modern woman pose with these stalwart persons.

Loss

And that was one day of our little summer vacation. We have so much for which to be thankful, but it saddens me to think of what our forebears had to endure.