Seventy-five years ago today, a little-known Canadian colonel — a half-blind veteran of the First World War — sat pen in hand before a dark cloth-covered table on the quarterdeck of the American battleship U.S.S. Missouri.
Allied warships had assembled in a long, grey line in the stifling heat of Tokyo Bay — a mute audience for the moment the victors met the vanquished.
Along with a host of military glitterati that included U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Col. Lawrence Cosgrave accepted the surrender of the Japanese empire on Canada’s behalf. He signed on the wrong line, causing a minor kerfuffle that was soon rectified by MacArthur’s chief of staff with a stroke of his own pen.
The Second World War ended at that moment.
A copy of the Sept. 2, 1945 Japanese surrender document, displayed aboard the USS Missouri historical site at Pearl Harbor, Oahu. ( Murray Brewster/CBC News)
The most deadly and destructive conflict in human history — a war that killed at least 75 million people worldwide, claimed 45,000 Canadian lives and left another 55,000 Canadians physically and mentally scarred — was finally over.
Once the shooting stopped, said historian Tim Cook, war-weary Canadians were eager to forget the war — or at least to move on from it. Few people know, and even fewer appreciate, the somewhat droll role Cosgrove played in that great moment three-quarters of a century ago.
That act of collective forgetting bothers Cook. It’s reflected in the title of his latest book: The Fight for History: 75 Years of Forgetting, Remembering and Remaking Canada’s Second World War.
One of the book’s working titles was “The Deafening Silence.”
“It’s not easy to talk about our history,” Cook told CBC News. “History often divides us.”
Cook — one of the country’s leading military historians and authors — said he’s baffled by Canadians’ apparent reluctance to come to grips with the war’s legacy.
Historian Tim Cook: “History often divides us.” (CBC News)
Following the First World War, Canadians built monuments from coast to coast. Canadian soldiers who served in that war — Cosgrave among them — wrote sometimes eloquent and moving accounts of their experiences under fire.
That didn’t happen in Canada following the Japanese and German surrenders in 1945, said Cook.
“We didn’t write the same history books. We didn’t produce films or television series,” he said. “We allowed the Americans and the British and even the Germans to write about the war and to present it on film.”
Some Canadian war correspondents wrote books in the immediate aftermath of the victory, hoping to speak to history — but senior military commanders and leaders subsequently shied away.
Unlike the American and British generals who wrote Second World War memoirs (Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton and Bernard Montgomery), Canadian commanders Harry Crerar, Andrew McNaughton, George Pearkes and Guy Simmonds all chose to remain silent and allowed biographers to tell their stories — sometimes decades after the fact.
Cook said the reluctance of many returning Canadian soldiers to discuss the war beyond the tight circles of Royal Canadian Legion halls — a silence that persisted for decades — also contributed to Canadians’ lack of engagement with the country’s experiences in the Second World War.
The ‘comfortable’ image of Canada the peacekeeper
The advent of peacekeeping has also tainted Canada’s view of the conflict, he said.
While some critics have argued successive governments have exploited the peacekeeping mythology, Cook said he’s very proud of Canada’s peacekeeping legacy. But peacekeeping “became a very comfortable symbol for us,” he said. “I argue in the book that it too has contributed to the silencing of the Second World War.”
In the 1960s, Cook said, Remembrance Day ceremonies in Canada suffered from dwindling attendance. It was only in the 1980s and 1990s — when the war was being re-examined through American popular culture properties likethe hit movie Saving Private Ryan — that a deeper appreciation began to take root, he said.
Cook argues that revival of interest happened almost too late — at a time when many veterans had already passed away and few living Canadians remembered the war as a personal experience.
“We shouldn’t expect the Americans or the British and the Germans and the Japanese to talk about the war” in the same way Canadians experienced it, he said.
“If you don’t tell your own story, no one else will.”
History can be “dangerous” for politicians, Cook argues, because of the divisions it leaves behind (the conscription crisis of 1944 damaged English-French relations in Canada) and the effect of its darker chapters — such as the internment of Japanese citizens — when they come to light.
Many of the international institutions that were born out of the Second World War are under attack today. That’s just one reason why remembering the war is so important, said Cook.
“I’m not suggesting we should write heroic history and that we need to chest-thump and stand behind the flag. But I do think we need to tell our stories.”
The American battleship USS Missouri hosted the Japanese surrender ceremony on Sept. 2, 1945. It is now a museum in Oahu, Hawaii. ( Murray Brewster/CBC News)
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — The San Francisco 49ers placed All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey on injured reserve because of his lingering calf and Achilles tendon injuries.
The move made Saturday means McCaffrey will miss at least four more games after already sitting out the season opener. He is eligible to return for a Thursday night game in Seattle on Oct. 10.
McCaffrey got hurt early in training camp and missed four weeks of practice before returning to the field on a limited basis last week. He was a late scratch for the opener on Monday night against the Jets and now is sidelined again after experiencing pain following practice on Thursday.
McCaffrey led the NFL last season with 2,023 yards from scrimmage and was tied for the league lead with 21 touchdowns, winning AP Offensive Player of the Year.
The Niners made up for McCaffrey’s absence thanks to a strong performance from backup Jordan Mason, who had 28 carries for 147 yards and a touchdown in San Francisco’s 32-19 victory over the New York Jets. Mason is set to start again Sunday at Minnesota.
After missing 23 games because of injuries in his final two full seasons with Carolina, McCaffrey had been healthy the past two seasons.
He missed only one game combined in 2022-23 — a meaningless Week 18 game last season for San Francisco when he had a sore calf. His 798 combined touches from scrimmage in the regular season and playoffs were the third most for any player in a two-year span in the past 10 years.
Now San Francisco will likely rely heavily on Mason, a former undrafted free agent out of Georgia Tech who had 83 carries his first two seasons. He had at least 10 touches just twice before the season opener, when his 28 carries were the most by a 49ers player in a regular-season game since Frank Gore had 31 against Seattle on Oct. 30, 2011.
The Niners also have fourth-round rookie Isaac Guerendo and Patrick Taylor Jr. on the active roster. Guerendo played three offensive snaps with no touches in the opener. Taylor had 65 carries for Green Bay from 2021-23.
San Francisco also elevated safety Tracy Walker III from the practice squad for Sunday’s game against Minnesota.
BRUSSELS – Canada walked away with some hardware at the Diamond League track and field competition Saturday.
Alysha Newman finished third in women’s pole vault, while Marco Arop did the same in the men’s 800-metre race.
Newman won a bronze medal in her event at the recent Paris Olympics. Arop grabbed silver at the same distance in France last month.
Australia’s Nina Kennedy, who captured gold at the Summer Games, again finished atop the podium. Sandi Morris of the United States was second.
Newman set a national record when she secured Canada’s first-ever pole vault medal with a bronze at the Olympics with a height of 4.85 metres. The 30-year-old from London, Ont., cleared 4.80 metres in her second attempt Saturday, but was unable conquer 4.88 metres on three attempts.
Arop, a 25-year-old from Edmonton, finished the men’s 800 metres with a time of one minute 43.25 seconds. Olympic gold medallist Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya was first with a time of 1:42.70.
Djamel Sedjati, edged out by Arop for silver in Paris last month, was second 1:42.87
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2024.
MILAN (AP) — Bologna’s preparations for its Champions League debut are not going well though it managed to spoil Como’s first Serie A home match in 21 years on Saturday.
Bologna came from two goals down to salvage a 2-2 draw to gather three points from its opening four matches.
Bologna hosts Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday. Its only other appearance in Europe’s top competition was in 1964 in the preliminary round of the old European Cup.
AC Milan is also winless as it prepares for a Tuesday Champions League match against Liverpool. The Rossoneri hosted promoted Venezia later. Juventus drew at Empoli 0-0.
Como made a great start in the fifth minute when Patrick Cutrone attempted to roll the ball across the six-yard box but it took a huge deflection off Bologna defender Nicolò Casale for an own goal.
Bologna thought it was gifted a way back into the match on the stroke of halftime when referee Marco Piccinini signalled for a penalty following an Alberto Moreno handball, but he revoked his decision and instead gave a free kick because the handball was just outside the area.
Bologna improved after the break but found itself further behind when Cutrone raced onto a through ball and cut inside past a defender and fired into the far bottom corner.
Tommaso Pobega hit the post for Bologna, which finally pulled one back in the 76th through substitute Santiago Castro.
Another substitute helped the visitors snatch a point when Samuel Iling-Junior curled a fine strike into the top left corner in stoppage time.
Unbeaten sides
Juventus, and more surprisingly Empoli, are among six unbeaten sides.
Empoli held Monza and Bologna to draws either side of a shock 2-1 win at Roma. Juventus’ perfect start to the season was ruined by Roma in a goalless draw before the international break.
On Saturday, there were few clearcut chances in Empoli although home goalkeeper Devis Vásquez made spectacular saves to fingertip out a Federico Gatti header and deny Dusan Vlahovic in a one on one with the Juventus forward.
Empoli had a good opportunity in the 73rd minute following an Alberto Grassi one-two with Pietro Pellegri but the finish was straight at Mattia Perin.
The host could have won it right at the death but Gatti flew in with a great sliding block to keep out Emanuel Gyasi’s close-range effort.
Juventus hosts PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League on Tuesday.
