Canada at War: Arsenal

Munitions Minister Clarence Decatur Howe totted up Canada’s 1943 war production: 4,133 aircraft; 15,500 fighting vehicles; 45,000 gun barrels, mountings and carriages; 175,000 units of mechanical transport; 580,000 machine guns, rifles and other small arms; 30,000,000 rounds of artillery ammunition; 1,500,000,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition; 1,000,-000,000 lb. of chemicals and explosives; $180,000,000 worth of precision instruments and communications equipment; 150 merchant ships; 100 naval vessels. Total value: $3,435,000,000, an increase of $535,000,000 over 1942 war production.

A German military document captured in North Africa read: “For the reconnaissance, as indeed for every desert reconnaissance, only captured Canadian trucks are to be employed since German trucks stick in the sand too often.”