War Book Club Regina

Pride yourself on your knowledge of Canadian Military History? Why not check out this list of Wars involving Canada – maybe there are conflicts on this list you’d like to learn more about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Canada

And let’s now forget the wars that involved Canada before Canada was Canada, eh? Seven Years War, anyone?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_North_America#11th_century

Upcoming program of interest:

Sudeten Anti-Nazi Exiles in Saskatchewan:

Description: Join author James Trettwer to learn how a group of ardent anti-Nazis from the Czechoslovak territory of Sudetenland became exiles in 1938 and found their way to Northern Saskatchewan in the Loon Lake and St. Walburg areas. Learn why they chose Saskatchewan, how they survived on farming homesteads, and what became of the people once known as "Sudeten Canadians".

For more information, visit:

https://ca.apm.activecommunities.com/uregina/Activity_Search/3745

Movies discussed:

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957):

Both James Trettwer and I recall being freaked out by this movie when we were kids and watched it on TV: for me, the freak out was when two sailors are killed while in their tent:

“What’s that sound?”

“Sounds like a kid dragging a stick along a picket fence.”

“We ain’t got no picket fence here.”

“AWWWWWWWW!!!!!”

It’s actually an interesting little B-film and available on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RA12RHnYIA&t=2069s

Also on Youtube, Warren’s “Creepypasta” channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuVP-ZvhYjCm9ZWQs9WIXoQ

Next meeting, Tuesday, May 7^th at 7 pm, Central Library – Happy Reading!

Thursday, April 4, 2019

Canadian Aviation Historical Society, Regina chapter -- upcoming meetings

April 18, 2019 – Monthly meeting of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society, Regina Chapter.

Speaker – Frank Flegel, who'll talk about his days as a cropduster and charter pilot for Regina's Canadian Aircraft Ltd. in the 1950s and '60s.

Venue: The Eagles Club, 1600 Halifax St. Presentation at 7:0 p.m., supper with our speaker at 6:00 p.m. There is no charge to attend the presentation, though there is a $5 free-will "landing fee" to cover costs.

May 8, 2019 – guest speaker – Dan Dempsey. (Note change of date.) Dan literally wrote the book on Canadian military air demonstration teams. This former Snowbird is the author of the book a Tradition of Excellence -- Canada's Airshow Team Heritage. Dan said he's willing to bring and sign copies of his book's second edition for $90 each, a considerable saving from the original price of $125, but he'd like firm orders before he comes. If you will buy a copy, send a note to cahsregina@hotmail.com Venue: as above

May 25-26 -- Aviation Day open house at the Saskatchewan Aviation Museum and Learning Centre at the Saskatoon Airport.

June 20, 2019 – Chapter AGM – guest speaker likely Will Chabun on Roland Groome and his May 20, 1919 flight from Saskatoon to Regina, the first cross-country flight in the province’s history

Feel free to land!

Thursday, March 28, 2019

WAR BOOK CLUB MINUTES: March 5th, 2019

The (*) indicates the item is available thru Regina Public Library/SILS.

*The Battle at Belly River: stories of the last great Indian battle/Alexander Johnston:

https://www.reginalibrary.ca/search/179994

The Bloody Crucible of Courage: Fighting Methods and Combat Experience of the Civil War/Brent Nosworthy:

https://www.amazon.com/Bloody-Crucible-Courage-Fighting-Experience/dp/0786711477

*Concentration Camps: a short history/Dan Stone:

https://www.reginalibrary.ca/search/2474747

*Concentration Camps: a Very Short Introduction/Dan Stone:

https://www.reginalibrary.ca/search/2612679

*Enola Gay/Gordon Thomas & Max Morgan Witt:

https://www.reginalibrary.ca/search/1146

Grunts: Inside the American Infantry Combat Experience, World War II Through Iraq/John C. McManus:

https://www.amazon.com/Grunts-American-Infantry-Experience-Through/dp/0451233417

*Hiroshima/John Hersey:

https://www.reginalibrary.ca/search/23895

*Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze/Peter Harmsen:

https://www.reginalibrary.ca/search/1872218

Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon’s Grande Armee/John R. Elting:

https://www.amazon.com/Swords-Around-Throne-Napoleons-Grande/dp/0306807572

Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb/George Feifer:

https://www.amazon.com/Tennozan-Battle-Okinawa-Atomic-Bomb/dp/0395599245

Plus 2 from Will Chabun:

* Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany by Marthe Cohn, Wendy Holden. ISBN-13: 978-0609610541

Marthe spoke in Regina on Jan. 7 to a very large crowd. She was raised in France’s Alsace region and thus was fluent in French and German. Her family was required to leave Alsace in the autumn of 1939 and found its way to Poitiers, south of Paris. Significantly, their new IDs did not mark them as Jews. They stayed one step ahead of the Gestapo and its French collaborators until the liberation – though Marthe’s sister and boyfriend perished in concentration camps.

Marthe, by late 1944 qualified as a nurse, was attached to the 1^st French Army, where he linguistic skills soon were noticed. She trained very briefly as an intelligence agent and, after many false starts, was inserted via Switzerland into south Germany. Her information is credited with assisting the final French offensive in that area in April 1945.

Postwar, she served as an army nurse in Vietnam before returning home, marrying an American medical student and moving to the US.

https://www.reginalibrary.ca/search/2645919

2. Ottawa At War – The Grant Dexter Memoranda, published by the Manitoba History Society, ISBN 0-9692101-4-0. Available via http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/books/mrs11.pdf

Eighty years ago, Winnipeg was the unofficial capital of Western Canada. It was the third-most populous city in the country and packed with railway yards, government offices, manufacturing firms and warehouses. It took pride in its university and its largest newspaper, the Winnipeg Free Press, the editor of which was John W. Dafoe -- intellectual, and confidant of politicians, though beholden to none.

His reporter in Ottawa since 1924 had been Grant Dexter, who would regularly write off-the-record memos to Dafoe and his deputy on life and, especially, politics in wartime Ottawa.

It was not a pretty picture: generals overwhelmed by their responsibilities and politicians controlled by ego or a need to get re-elected. They were also the victims of circumstance: when Britain was threatened by German invasion, Canada rapidly expanded its military production, talking huge numbers of workers out of other industries just as the armed services were also enlisting soldiers. This set the stage for constant manpower crises. I’m at the stage of the first one, in 1942, which coincided with the referendum held to release the federal government from its 1940 promise to not send conscripts overseas. Doing so in 1917 had set off riots and furious controversy. PM King did not think the country could withstand a rerun.

Saskatchewan’s representative in the federal cabinet, James G. “Jimmie” Gardiner, does not come off well, swinging between being controlling – by unilaterally setting out for Britain to sell grain – and self-pity.

Coming off best in these memos are the senior civil servants who suffered under their mercurial politicians and kept the country afloat.

Next Meeting, Tuesday, April 2^{nd ,}– the snow is gone, the weather’s fine, so no reason not to join us.

Meeting begins at 7 pm.

Just bring whatever you’re reading.

Cheers, Warren