Wartime Lessons, Peacetime Actions: How Veterans Like Major-General Dan Spry Influenced Canadian Society After 1945

Abstract

This study examines some of the ways in which Second World War veterans helped shape Canadian society in the years after 1945 by using the life experience of one of their number, Major-General Daniel Charles Spry, as an interpretive model. Just over one million Canadian men and women re-entered civil life after their wartime military service. Representing approximately 35 per cent of Canada’s adult male population aged 25 to 49 in 1951, and found in nearly every facet of Canadian life, Second World War veterans possessed social importance that extended far beyond their experience of the Veterans Charter. Using Dan Spry’s documented thoughts and actions in war and peace, this study argues that a number of these individuals learned lessons regarding leadership, character, citizenship, and internationalism during their wartime military service and – finding them useful – applied such lessons to various aspects of their lives after the war’s end. In so doing, Second World War veterans helped to influence the character of postwar Canada’s institutions, workplaces, and the lives of many Canadians by providing societal leadership, moulding children’s character, developing future citizens, and trying to build a better world. Appreciating their varied contributions provides new insight into both veterans’ attitudes and the sort of place that Canada was after the guns fell silent in 1945.