I hadn’t read about “If Day” until recently. There’s nothing like a dose of reality to get people’s attention. The Channel Islands were invaded by Nazis on 30 June 1940 until their peaceful liberation on 9 May 1945. What took place there was mirrored in the Canadian exercise. The Blitz against England was taking a terrible toll.
The article mentions the bombing of Darwin Australia and plans for a Japanese invasion. The British Empire was in deep trouble.
I bet this exercise did scare the living crap out of some people. But, it did shake them out of a dangerous complacency and raised 47 million in war bonds.
It’s interesting that Canada had Nazi supporters just like the US just prior to WWII.
The “Nazi’s” were fortunate no one met them using their own local version of a 2nd amendment solution. The mentioned simulated casualty would not have been simulated.
While the Nazi’s never managed to make it to Winnipeg, they did manage to install an automatic weather station in Newfoundland in 1943. As far as is know, this is the only Nazi military operation on North American soil during the war.
Huh, looks like they did everything short of mass executions of civilians. Because the Nazis really did carry out mass executions of civilians in occupied territories.
I would usually put a joke here, but this is too serious. Always remember how monstrous the Nazi rule really was. Imagine being put up against a wall and shot because someone you never met didn’t show “sufficient” deference to a foreign soldier.