Canadians in the Second World War

---·-- -- --- -- --- --- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 312 THE UNIVERJSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY by the National Gallery. That more such items could not be found shows how much in its infancy industrial design still is in this country. Autobiographical writing is not common among Canadian painters; in fact, few of them ever have indulged in this form of self-expression. Paul-Emile Borduas, the leader of the automatiste group of Quebec artists, has, however, in his Projections liberantes now given us a fresh and originally written, although highly personal, statement about his philosophy of art and education and how this philosophy led him into bitter conflict with officialdom in Quebec. Some of the best passages describe how he acquired a new freedom in painting from observing the more spontaneous world of vision to be found among the children he at one time taught in Montreal schools. His explanation of his own aesthetic aims will interest all contemporary artists. CHECK-LIST OF TITLES ART DIRECTORS CLUB, First annual of advertising and editorial art: reproductions of the first annual Art Directors Exhibition of advertising_ and editorial art, held at Eatons Fine Art Galleries, Toronto, Canada, April 1949 (Toronto, N. A_. MacEachern, .78 pp., $4.00). ART GALLERY OF ToRONTOJ Lawren Harris, paintings, 1910-1948 (Toronto, the Gallery, 1948, 38 pp.). BoRDUAS (PAUL-EMILE}, Projections liberantes (Montreal, Mithra-Mythe, 40 pp., SOc.). CoLLINS (A. R.), Katherine E. Wallis, Canadian sculptor (Fort Erie, Review Co. for the author, c/o Bank of Montreal, 'Walkerton, Ont., 52 pp., $3:50). GAITSKELL (C. D.), Art and crafts in our schools (Toronto, Ryerson, x, 62 pp., $1.00). NATIONAL GALLERY oF CANADAJ Annual report of the Board of Trustees for the fiscal year 1947-48 (Ottawa, the Gallery, 20 pp., plates); Canadian designs for everyday use (Ottawa, the Gallery, 52 pp.); Catalogue of paintings (Ottawa, the Gallery, 1948, 272 pp.). PIERCE (LoRNE},E . Grace Coombs [Mrs. James Sharp Lawson], A.O.C.A., O.S.A. (Toronto, Ryerson, iv, 32 pp., plates, $5.00). RovAL CANADIAN AcADEMY oF ARTS, Illustrated catalogue , seventieth annual exhibition, 1949, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Toronto, the Academy, c/o the Seer., H. S. Palmer, 170 St. Clements Ave., 16 pp.). WE.BSTER (J. C.), Catalogue of the John Clarence Webster Canadiana collection (pictorial section), New Brunswick Museum (Catalogue no. 3; Saint John, New Brunswick Museum, 140 pp.). 5. Canadians in the Second World War HuGH N. MACLEAN Outstanding among books received this year dealing with the Second World War is The R.C.A.F. Overseas: The Sixth Year, the third and final volume of the official history, which carries the account of R.C.A.F. operations from September, 1944 to the end of hostilities in August, 1945. Like preceding volumes, it covers in detail the activities of every branch of the service, for the most part following the operations of each squadron from month to month, paying careful attention to especially important missions and singling out for individual attention many pilots and air- LETTERS IN CANADA: 1949 313 crews. An especially interesting and well-written chapter deals with the activities of the Lynx, Nighthawk, and Cougar Squadrons (otherwise 406, 409, and 410 Squadrons), which were assigned to duty as night fighters and intruders; another concerns R.C.A.F. units in Coastal Command , and their various methods of attack on U-boats and enemy shipping . Although the book deals chiefly with R.C.A.F. activities in the European theatre, there is a section devoted to operations :in Burma and in South-East Asia generally. Statistical tables bear impressive witness to the effectiveness both of bomber and of fighter-bomber attacks on a huge variety of targets; another lists the top-scoring Canadian fighter pilots. The book, and indeed the whole set of three volumes, is ·sure to be of the greatest interest to lay readers and Air Force veterans alike. A Roll of Honour and a list of decorations awarded to R.C.A.F. personnel are appended to this volume. Two regimental histories have come to hand, one from each of the theatres of war of special interest to Canadian Army veterans. The Regimental History of the Governor General's Foot Guards tells the...