1941

National Snapshot

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1941-

The 1941 Pontiac DeLuxe Torpedo Four-door Sedan rides on a trim 3 022-millimetre (119-inch) wheelbase.

More than half a million Canadian men and women are in uniform, serving King and Country. Doing without meat, coffee or even cars is nothing compared to the heartbreaking sacrifice of saying “good-bye” and sending a loved one off to war. GM Canada builds 7,747 Pontiacs this year. All are sold without spare tires, so that the armed forces can have the rubber.

CBC reporters go to war, reporting from the front lines.

January 1: As of today the CBC has its own full-fledged news department with correspondents in the field. No longer will our public broadcaster depend solely on the Canadian Press wire service for reporting world events. News now accounts for 20 percent of all of the CBC’s broadcast programming.

First Ministers object to the federal government's attempt to grab more power from the provinces.

January 15: The Rowell-Sirois Report is roundly rejected by the premiers at a Dominion-Provincial Conference. Despite the fact that Alberta and Quebec refused to participate and the report was three years in the making, the commission recommends that Ottawa be given more jurisdiction over provincial matters, including the creation and administration of a national unemployment scheme.

February 3: Men who are conscripted for military duty will now train for 120 days, not 30 as they did previously.

The 1941 Studebaker Champion

February 18: Automobile rationing begins. Anyone requiring a new car must fill out paperwork and have it approved by the Federal Motor Vehicle Controller. The applicant must prove that owning a new car is “essential to home front” needs. Fewer than 700 cars will be released to civilians during the year.

February 21: Sir Frederick Grant Banting is dead at the age of 49. The co-inventor of insulin is killed in a plane crash near Musgrave Harbour, Newfoundland.  The pilot reported one engine had gone out some 80 kilometres from shore and the second engine failed as the pilot tried to land on a frozen lake. Banting was a doctor on active military duty when he died. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his insulin discovery and was knighted by King George V in 1934.

February 25: All Japanese residents and citizens alike must be thumbprinted and show their new identity cards wherever they go.

New Fords come down the assembly line.

March: Ottawa decrees that automobile production must be slashed to 50 percent of 1940 levels. Production in automobile plants is now primarily dedicated to building weapons of war.

March 12: Federal Agriculture Minister James Gardiner slashes wheat quotas to 65 percent of last year’s acreage. Furthermore there will be no price increase on the harvested crop. There will, however, be a subsidy of $9.60 for each hectare diverted to summer fallow and a $4.80 payment for each hectare diverted to hay.

The St. Lawrence Seaway is 3 774 kilometres long.

March 19: There has been talk since 1909 but today Canada and the United States sign an agreement to construct the St. Lawrence Seaway. Highway H-2-0 will open in 1959.

U-boat 552 will be scuttled by its crew on May 2, 1945 to keep it from falling into Allied hands.

April 30: Carrying soldiers to Europe, the SS Nerissa is torpedoed by U-552, nicknamed 'The Red Devil' as it nears the Irish coast. The ship sinks in four minutes. Only 84 of the 290 of those on board the steamer will be rescued.

Conscientious objectors build a road through Banff National Park in Jasper, Alberta. COs are looked down by many on as men who don't love their country.

May 29: Men who refuse to carry arms because they are conscientious objectors will now report to labour camps for Alternative Service. This affects some 10,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mennonites, Doukhobors, and Seventh-day Adventists.

June -- the National Film Board is just two months old but it is first class when it comes to production. The NFB wins its first Oscar for the documentary Churchill’s Island. It is part of the Canada Carries On series.

The Boblo Island Amusement Park opened in 1898. It will draw millions of tourists until it closes in 1993.

June 9: More than 10,000 Americans have crowded into the Boblo Island Amusement Park in the Detroit River near Amherstburg, Ontario. Many of the visitors are kids and ferries run until three o’clock in the morning, making  panicked parents furious at the long delays.

June 11: Alexander C. Rutherford is dead at the age of 84. He was appointed as the first Premier of Alberta when it joined Confederation in 1905. Rutherford’s government encouraged the railways, promoted immigration and--fed up with poor service from the Alberta Bell Telephone System--put government money into the development of a publicly owned provincial telephone system.

June 11: The Dominion Bureau of Statistics tells us that Canada's population is growing strong. There are 11,506,655 of us stretched out from Cape Breton Island to Vancouver Island and thousands of homes in between.

June 25: Denys Arcand is born in Deschambault, Quebec. He will grow up to be a Genie and Oscar-winning movie maker, known for such films as On est au cotton, The Crime of Ovide Plouffe, Le Declin de l’empire American and Jesus of Montreal.

June 27: Ottawa announces that in September it will begin recruitment of 21,000 women to serve in non-combatant roles in the military.

July 1: Premier MacMillan of Nova Scotia dedicates the nation’s newest national park. Located in Cape Breton, the 949-square kilometre Highlands National Park is also home to a world-class golf course.

July 1: As of today, all unemployed persons are enroled in a new federal scheme called the Unemployment Insurance Act.

July 2: The Royal Canadian Air Force begins recruiting women to serve in uniform.

Ron Turcotte astride Triple Crown winner, Secretariat.

July 22: Ronald Joseph Morel Turcotte is born in Drummond, New Brunswick. He will grow up to become an internationally famed racehorse jockey, riding to the Triple Crown with Secretariat in 1973. A 1978 accident will leave him disabled. He will be inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame and be inducted into the Order of Canada.

July 30: It is the birthdate of Paul Anka, born in Ottawa. He will grow up to croon Top Forty hits that will make girls swoon. City Council will one day name a street in his honour.

The HMCS Arrowhead was built in Sorel, Quebec and commissioned last year.

August: Canadian Corvettes are doing such a good job at hunting down U-Boats in the Battle of the Atlantic that the German press reports submarine captains are “boiling mad.’

August 9: British Prime Minister Churchill and US President Roosevelt meet for the first time on board the USS Augusta in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland for a first summit. Out of these strategic meetings will come the Atlantic Charter, a vision for a post-World War Two world.

September: National Farm Radio Forum adds a new segment to its show. Listeners can now call in to give their opinions on topics. This novel idea makes the CBC programme highly controversial. Two newcomers, Johhny Wayne & Frank Shuster, are first heard on the CBC. The comic duo delivers some very funny sketches as part of the Buckingham Blend Rhythm Show.

September 31: Soldiers riot at an amusement park in Truro, Nova Scotia. Thousands of onlookers watch in fear as the army men utterly trash the place.  Military police are called to subdue the 500 angry men in uniform. The dispute began yesterday when the irate park owner shot and wounded a soldier.

October 18: National price and wage controls take effect today. Everything from salaries to rent is frozen for the duration of the war, in order to prevent inflationary spirals. Inflation is already running at 6 percent.  The Wartime Prices and Trade Board will regulate production of and rationing of all consumer goods.

October 31: An explosion at the Brazeau Collieries in Nordegg, Alberta kills twenty miners. The bodies of the deceased are brought to the surface laid out in the theatre, which has been transformed into a makeshift morgue. The mine will close in 1955 and by the 1980s Nordegg is a ghost town.

November 16: Nearly 2,000 Canadian soldiers arrive in the British Colony of Hong Kong to assist in defense from Japanese attack. Their vehicles never arrive. Some of the men have been whisked off to war so quickly they do not even have basic rifle training.

The USS West Virginia battleship burns and sinks after the Japanese attack the Hawaiian port of Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941. More than 2,400 Americans die in the surprise raid.

December 7: Parliament declares war on Imperial Japan after its navy attacks American military installations in the US Territory of Hawaii.

St. Pierre & Miquelon is the first part of France to be liberated from the pro-Nazi Vichy government.

December 9: The French overseas department of St. Pierre and Miquelon are declared to be part of Free France when three shiploads of French marines under General Charles DeGaulle’s orders step ashore and depose the Governor, who has pledged the colony's allegiance to Marshall Petain. This puts to an end the concerns among  Canada, Newfoundland and the USA as to who should look after the islands located in Cabot Strait between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

December 12:  By order of Parliament rubber tire manufacturing ceases.

This photo shows a few of the more than 1,400 Canadian soldiers who were captured by the Japanese in the Battle of Hong Kong. They will spend four years in miserable conditions before they are liberated.

December 25:  After eighteen days of fierce fighting, the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong falls to the Japanese. Among the Allied losses are 290 Canadian soldiers dead, 493 wounded. They will spend the rest of the war as slave labourers in Japan. Sadly, another 255 will die in Japanese prison camps.

December 30: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is in Ottawa to address a joint session of Parliament. The House of Commons is filled to overflowing with dignitaries and foreign diplomats. His speech is broadcast nationwide on the CBC.  Churchill tells loyal Canadians how much Britons appreciate their sacrifices on behalf of the mother country. “ We have suffered together and we shall conquer together.” 

1941 Ford C11ADF  started life as a station wagon. It was shipped to Cairo where it was modified for Field Marshall Sir Harold Alexander. It features right-hand drive.

December 31: Ford of Canada closes out the calendar year with production of 13,890 Ford automobiles, 3,676 Mercury passenger cars and 8,826 Ford trucks for civilian uses both here and throughout the Empire. Workers in Windsor have also built 1,311 Ford cars and six Mercurys for the military. The War Department has also purchased 9,593 Ford trucks.

1941 McLaughlin-Buick styling is called 'Mass-Stream' this year.

December 31: GM Canada reports year-end production of 22,502 Chevrolets, 7,747 Pontiacs, 3,098, 3,126 Oldsmobiles and McLaughlin-Buicks. In addition, 67,167 Chevrolet and Maple Leaf trucks were built along with 4,823 GMCs and 101 Pontiac trucks. 

1942

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1942-

  The 1942 DeSoto boasts hidden Airfoil headlights. Chrysler Canada employees will build 325 DeSotos for civilians during the abbreviated 1942 model year. 

January 12: Hilary Weston is born in Ireland. She will grow up to marry Galen Weston of bakery fame and serve as Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from 1997 to 2002. Reported to be one of the richest women in the world, The Honourable Ms. Weston will have an estimated worth of $6.2 billion.

January 16: Rene Angelil is born in Montreal. He will grow up to be a pop star then move on to manage singers’ careers before marrying sweet songstress Celine Dion in 1994.

January 24: Food rationing begins by order of Parliament.

War Time gives an extra hour of daylight in the mornings.

January 26: Fast Time or Daylight Savings Time takes effect right across the Dominion by Order-in-Council. Quebec and Ontario have been required to use DST since September 28, 1940. The order will be dropped on September 30, 1945.

January 26: Prime Minister Mackenzie King rises in the House of Commons. He asks Members of Parliament to vote in favour of giving Britain $1 billion worth of weapons and foodstuffs to help the beleaguered mother country fight the Nazis. The PM’s proposal is met with wild cheers.

 

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in happier times--in Toronto on the 1939 Royal Tour.

February 3: Queen Elizabeth takes time from her hectic schedule to be the leading lady in a movie made for the Canadian Red Cross Society. The film will be seen in theatres across the country and folks on the home front will learn how important their blood and other donations are to our soldiers on the front.

February 11: All the “T”s are crossed and all the “I”s are dotted in Ottawa and Washington—approval is given for the construction of the Alcan Highway. When complete the 2,237-kilometre long road will stretch from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Delta Junction, Alaska. 

February 24: Lucy Maud Montgomery is dead at the age of 68. The author penned Anne of Green Gables, making the fictitious red head and her Prince Edward Island home famous the world over.

February 26: Ottawa decrees that all Japanese-Canadians living west of the Cascade Mountains in British Columbia will be moved because they live in a “protected area.” 

March 11: A new Crown corporation, the Polymer Corporation, is signed into existence. It will be located in Sarnia, Ontario and be given the responsibility to make synthetic rubber. Imperial Japan owns most of the world's rubber crop.

The 1942 Fargo is built by workers at Chrysler Canada and sold through Chrysler-Plymouth dealers. Dodge trucks are sold by Dodge-DeSoto dealers.

March14: There will be no more manufacture of trucks for the civilian market. The Motor Vehicle Controller in Ottawa decrees that new trucks will be sold only to citizens who can prove they need one and qualify for the Empire and Home Front certificate.

March 18: Housewives in Kentville, Nova Scotia must place grocery orders before noon if they wish same-day delivery.  The ruling is in line with the Wartime Prices and Trade Board's new edict that allows only one delivery each day, in order to save gasoline. Kentville grocers have unanimously decided to make all deliveries in the afternoon with the exception of Wednesdays, when all retail stores are closed for Merchants' Sabbath, anyway.

March 21: James S. Woodsworth is dead in Vancouver at the age of 67. The one-time Methodist minister was the founder of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party (today’s New Democrats) and was known among parliamentarians as “the conscience of Canada.” Woodworth was the only Member of Parliament to vote against going to war in 1939.

March 22: Barbara Perkins is born in Vancouver.  She will grow up to be a movie star, appearing in movies like Peyton Place, Valley of the Dolls and Asylum.

March 22: The National Selective Service Mobilization Regulations are implemented. This programme is designed to alleviate manpower shortages by directing people to jobs.

March 23: Munitions Minister C.D. Howe takes to the CBC to announce a national speed limit of 65 kilometres (40 miles) per hour. He tells listeners, "When the tires you have now are worn out, your motoring is over until some considerable time after the war ends."

March 24: The age of military service is raised from 26 to 30. Farm labour is critically short and sons of farmers are prohibited from signing up for the forces.

March 24: The skies grow more crowded. Trans-Canada Air has some competition as the birth of Canadian Pacific Airlines, Limited is formally announced. Initially, CP will serve Quebec, Ontario, the Prairie Provinces, BC and the western Arctic.

March 27: Parliament forgives $700 million worth of debt that the United Kingdom has racked up in waging war against the Axis powers.

March 31: All domestic automobile production grinds to a halt. Cars will be built only on an as-need basis. Workers at Ford of Canada put the finishing touches on the last civilian automobile, at “minutes to midnight.” Ready for shipment, the 1942 Mercury 8 will be stored until needed.

April: Fred Moffat invents the electric teakettle. The unique-to-Canada kitchen appliance--with its classic dome design--will be manufactured by Canadian General Electric in Barrie, Ontario until 1962.

April 1: National gasoline rationing comes into effect. Federal Munitions Minister, C.D. Howe warns, "If I tell you frankly that we are likely to lose the war unless we can get enough oil and enough rubber, you will understand how very serious our position is and why the conservation of these two essential materials is causing us so much anxiety." Drivers receive coupons worth 18 litres of gas. There may be no gas but humour abounds as folks joke that they have just enough gasoline to drive to church so they can pray for more. Records show that the rationing has freed up 680,000,000 litres of precious fuel.

April 1: The speed limit is reduced to 65 kilometres per hour throughout the Dominion in a bid to conserve even more gasoline.

April 7: J.H. Berry, motor vehicle controller in the Munitions and Supply Department, in Ottawa, tells reporters that the last new civilian car in Canada left the assembly line about April 1st, and now there are about 4,000 automobiles being held in reserve from which essential users will be supplied. He says grimly,  "These four thousand cars, carefully stowed away by dealers centrally located all across Canada, will be the only new cars available until the end of the war."

April 18: Taking it right to the wire, the Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings in game seven before a record-breaking crowd of 16,200 fans in Maple Leaf Gardens.

April 24: Sharon Carstairs is born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She will grow up to become the gravelly voiced leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party and noted for her opposition to the Charlottetown Accord. She will be appointed to the Senate in 1994.

Prime Minister Mackenzie King votes on the conscription question.

April 27: Voters respond to a nationwide plebiscite giving Parliament the power to conscript men into military service. The national percentage in favour of mandatory conscription is 63 percent but only 30 percent in Quebec.

April 30: The Nazis now control nearly all of Europe. News from the front is bad for the Allied Forces and that makes investors skittish. The Toronto Stock Exchange plunges to a wartime low of 84.8 points.

May 1: Trans-Canada Air begins regular service to St. John’s, Newfoundland. Few seats are available to civilians however, as the route is considered to be a vital part of the ‘eastern hemispheric defence.’

Survivors of the Nicoya are rescued by folks near the Fame Point Lighthouse, Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec.

May 11: The war comes home as German U-boat U-S53 torpedoes two freighters in the St. Lawrence River, off Anticosti Island. The death toll is 14 crewmembers on board the British steamer Nicoya and the Dutch ship Leno.

May 22: Found guilty of murdering his fiancée, Josephine O’Brian, at eight o’clock in the morning, 22-year old Herbert Spratt is hanged by the neck until dead in St. John’s. His is the last execution in  the colony of  Newfoundland and Labrador. The shocking murder will become a book in 1981.

May 27: Ottawa orders the manufacture of 150,000 bicycles. They will fold up, be black in colour and carry no frills. Many will be shipped overseas.

– May: Harrison Randall leaves his home in Fredericton on his CCM bicycle. He will travel 28,170 kilometres on his CCM bicycle. The 'Cycling Serenader' will entertain soldiers, putting on some 900 performances all over North America with his  harmonica, drawing from a repertoire of more than 1,800 songs.

June 1: Sugar is needed to build bombs and shell casings. Rationing of nature’s sweetener begins today by order of the federal government—folks may turn in their coupons and purchase 250 grams of sugar a week.

June 6: The Imperial Japanese Army successfully invades Alaska. Troops take the Aleutian island of Kiska and will shortly secure the neighbouring island of Attu. Completing the Alcan Highway becomes more important than ever.

June 10: Ernest Preston Manning is born in Edmonton, Alberta. Son of politician Ernest Manning, Preston will grow up to create the fiscally and morally conservative Reform Party. He will be Leader of the Queen’s Loyal Opposition in Ottawa from 1997 to 2000.

June 18: Sir Charles Ross is dead. Inventor of the Ross rifle, the standard issue weapon for Canadian soldiers in World War One, soldiers hated it because the gun jammed when it was hot.

June 20:  Japanese submarine I-26 surfaces 3.2 kilometres off the coast and shells the lighthouse at Estevan Point, British Columbia. There are no injuries or deaths.

June 25: Michel Tremblay is born in Montreal. He will grow up to become one of the nation’s most acclaimed playwrights, famous for his hilarious characterizations of French-Canadian women. Among his highest regarded plays are The Good Sisters and It’s Your Turn, Laura Cadieux.

Interrnational-Harvester builds trucks in Chatham, Ontario.

July:  Trucks may not be driven more than 55 kilometres from home and operators must now show a travel permit.

July: The Ministry of Health issues a booklet entitled Canada's Official Food Rules. Designed to ensure adequate nutrition for all during war, the booklet will be renamed Canada Food Guide in 1962 and become the second most popularly requested government publication after the Income Tax Form.

Genevieve Bujold will portray Anne Boleyn in Anne of the Thousand Days in 1969 and earn a Golden Globe.

July 1: Genevieve Bujold is born in Montreal. After twelve years of convent school she will grow up to be an actor with some fifty films to her credit by 2010.

July 20: Members of Parliament pass the Veterans Land Act. The law will award government loans to veterans who wish to buy farmland. There will be additional grant money available for livestock and farm equipment.

July 2: Workers on the line at Ford of Canada in Windsor, Ontario.

Red Rose Tea has been manufactured in Saint John, New Brunswick since 1894.

August 3: Food rationing is tightened. Tea is limited to 30 millilitres a week and the maximum amount of coffee one can buy is now 125 millilitres weekly.

August 19: Allied forces raid the port city of Dieppe. The foray is a disaster. Of the 4,963 Canadian soldiers in the battle Germans kill 900 and capture 3,900 of them.

August 31: The first food ration books are in the mail to millions of households. They contain coupons for tea, coffee and sugar.

British steamer Saganaga sinks in three minutes. 30 hands are lost.

September 5: A German U-boat sneaks into the harbour at Bell Island, Newfoundland and sinks three Canadian iron ore freighters. This will be the only direct attack by the Nazis on North American soil.

September 24: Crews have worked feverishly from both ends of the Alcan Highway. Today they meet at Contact Creek.

September 30: The age limit for conscription is lowered to 19 from 21. That adds some 135,000 men to the pool available for military service.

October 3: A US Navy flying boat crashes upon takeoff from Botwood, Newfoundland where it stopped to refuel before heading to Ireland. Eleven on board the Excalibur are dead.

October 9: The federal government threatens to place all German Prisoners of War in chains if Berlin insists upon fettering captured Canadian soldiers.

October 15: A U-boat torpedoes the SS Caribou as the ferry makes its regular overnight run from Port-aux-Basque, Newfoundland to North Sydney, Nova Scotia. A Royal Canadian Navy vessel rescues 101 people from the icy waters but 137 are dead.

October 28: This Jeep is the first vehicle to make use of the Alcan Highway. To no one’s surprise traffic is exclusively made up of military traffic. Studebaker and Dodge are the military’s vehicles of choice.

October 31: Stripped of property and possessions, more than 21,000 Japanese-Canadians are relocated to work camps or concentration camps for the duration of the war.

November 2: The entire province of Nova Scotia participates in an overnight air raid blackout drill. Only Kentville fails to pass muster in the exercise.

November 6: Cars are rationed for “the duration of the war.” Dealers are selling “Durationalized” vehicles. A 1942 Chevrolet with radio, heater and only 12,000 kilometres on the odometer sells on average for $1,575. Purchasers must be eligible to buy a vehicle according to the regulations of the Dominion and Empire Essential Automobile Act.

SW&A Crosstown bus in Windsor, Ontario.

November 7: The Wartime Industries Transit Plan comes into existence. Its goal is  to get workers to their jobs by car pooling and public transit as a means of saving gasoline and tires.

November 9: Police arrest a German spy in New Carlisle, Quebec. He admits a U-boat dropped him off the coast of the Gaspe Peninsula and his mission was to report on ship movement in the area.

The Cenotaph in Ottawa remembers our fallen heroes who died for King and Empire.

November 11: By order of the federal government, children will not mark Remembrance Day with a school holiday. For the first time since 1918, students will remember those brave soldiers who have fallen during special school-hour assemblies.

1941-1942 Dodge WC-24 1/2-tonne Command Reconnaissance Car on the Alcan Highway.

November 20: After eight months of furious construction, the Alcan Military Highway is officially open. The 2,575-kilometre gravel road runs through bush and wilderness from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska. It is hoped that when peace comes, civilians will be allowed to use it.

November 24: The 13,500 employees at the Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited walk off the job because workers object to women being hired at a lower rate of pay then men. Women are being paid only 50 cents an hour while their male colleagues receive 75 cents for doing the same task. Ford is the single largest war factory in the entire British Empire and negotiators work feverishly around the clock to resolve the labour dispute.

November 27: Nearly frozen UAW-CIO workers walk picket lines in front of the Ford plant in Windsor, Ontario. Canadians are stunned—the nation is at war—and never before has the Ford factory ever been picketed. The vast complex is paralyzed until two o’clock in the afternoon when union leaders allow workers to enter.

December 5: The Toronto RCAF Hurricanes win the Grey Cup after whipping the Winnipeg RCAF Bombers in front of a sold out crowd at Varsity Stadium in Toronto while hundreds of thousands of Canadian soldiers overseas listen on the radio. The final score is 8 to 5.

Makeshift morgue in St. Johns.

December 12: A horrific fire sweeps through the Knights of Columbus Leave Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland, killing 100 and injuring 107 of the 500—mostly service men--in attendance. VOCM is on hand to broadcast the Christmas party on Uncle Tim's Barn Dance. Because of the war, windows are barricaded to comply with blackout regulations. Inward-opening exit doors are locked. Listeners who tune in to the weekly show hear Canadian soldier Eddie Adams begin to sing Moonlight Trail, are horrified when the song is interrupted with people’s dying screams, live and on-air. Many blame Nazi saboteurs for the tragedy but the cause of the fire will never be determined.

Fergie Jenkins will be honoured with a stamp by Canada Post in 2011.

December 13: Ferguson Arthur Jenkins is born in Chatham, Ontario. He will grow up to play baseball, pitching for the Cubs, the Phillies, the Rangers and the Red Sox. He will win the Cy Young Award in 1971 and be the first Canadian to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991.

December 21: The Wartime Prices and Trade Board adds butter to the list of rationed food items. Sugar, tea and coffee are already controlled by the board and can only be purchased with ration book coupons.

December 25: There is little joy in this holiday season. Millions attend special church services and eat their rationed Christmas dinners, with thoughts fixed on loved ones in uniform, overseas.

December 28: General Motors of Canada reports that it has 13,789 employees on payroll. Factories in Regina, Windsor and Oshawa are all turning out weapons of war.

December 31: Total vehicle registrations for the year amount to 1,516,500 sets of wheels on the nation's highways and byways, a drop of 2.24 percent from 1941.