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  • Zombie Army: The Canadian Army and Conscription in the Second World War by Daniel Byers
  • Geoffrey Hayes
Daniel Byers. Zombie Army: The Canadian Army and Conscription in the Second World War. UBC Press. xviii, 326. $95.00

Dan Byers's account of the conscription crises in 1942 and 1944 is a rich, complex view of the crisis from the army's perspective. What this study lacks in political drama is more than balanced by a detailed account of the generals' struggles to field a "big army" of volunteers and the conscripts' struggles to avoid fighting beyond the shores of Canada.

The opening chapter traces the deep roots of conscription in Canada. But it was the divisive and sometimes violent legacy of conscription after 1917 that Prime Minister Mackenzie King tried to avoid in 1939. Mackenzie King would later complain that his generals' plans for a large army were a deliberate ploy to impose conscription, but Byers argues convincingly that there was no conspiracy. Indeed, this book makes the important point that it was a political decision to impose conscription in the spring of 1940 but only for the defence of Canada. Historians tend to dismiss this massive undertaking, but Byers's research details a wide camp network often led by patient World War I veterans who put thousands of men through thirty days of training.

Army planners initially dismissed this scheme as inefficient until they realized that a "big army" of volunteers overseas might work if conscripts and volunteers trained together. After much discussion, Mackenzie King's Cabinet approved a plan in early 1941 that would put all soldiers through four months of training. From then on, the fate of Canada's armed forces overseas was tied to the decisions of young conscripts to "go active" and volunteer for overseas service. Of course, these plans could not anticipate events. Byers reminds his readers of the stark strategic realities of the times. In early 1942, the Japanese imperial threat prompted the decision to create home defence divisions made up of conscripts; in April, Mackenzie King asked the people of Canada to relieve him of a promise made to Quebeckers that there would be no conscription for overseas service, but only if necessary. [End Page 399]

The two chapters devoted to the men derided as zombies show that they were anything but. Some English-speaking generals thought they were all French-speaking, or disloyal, foreigners. The numbers compiled here show that most were Canadian born and generally represented the country at large. Many were young farmers or unskilled labourers who left few records of their experience. Sports and supportive communities cushioned their entry into the military, especially for lonely francophones training on the west coast. Desertion was a problem, but for volunteers and conscripts alike. In some camps, conscripts faced real intimidation. Many who refused to volunteer were frustrated by cancelled leaves, and a few faced beatings. Too bad that Byers does not tease more out of the ironic songs the conscripts embraced, for they speak to a defiant pride in their decision not to volunteer to fight overseas.

The final chapter explores the manpower crisis that Mackenzie King and his generals had hoped to avoid. It lacks the drama of Donald Brittain's wonderful films on the subject. Byers argues simply that the generals spent the fall of 1944 trying to educate Mackenzie King's Cabinet about the need to dispatch conscripts to fight overseas. After sacking his defence minister, J.L. Ralston, Mackenzie King finally relented. In late November 1944, his government ordered 16,000 conscripts overseas. Sixty-nine of them died before the fighting ended in May 1945. Again, it is too bad that we cannot learn more of their battlefield experience.

Byers's conclusion that both politicians and generals were to blame for the conscription crisis of 1944 is fair, if a bit unsatisfying. Still, his extensive research reveals much about Canada's nearly 16,000 conscripts. They were regular Canadians, whose compulsory enlistment marked a real, but little acknowledged, contribution to the war effort. Thanks to Byers's work, they are zombies no longer.

Geoffrey Hayes
Department of History, University of Waterloo

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