Beginnings of the Royal Canadian Air Force

The Royal Canadian Air Force was founded in 1924. The life of the RCAF is short and brief but was quite an accomplishment. In 1924 the RCAF is created and disbanded in 1968 to become the Canadian Armed Forces. The Air Force, Navy and Army are all combined as one unit. I am very proud of our armed forces and what they have accomplished as Peacekeepers and of what they are doing today in Afghanistan and around the world to promote world peace and stability! The RCAF as a unit was only 44 years old! Quite young indeed!

England being drawn into conflict with Nazi Germany Canada and other Countries of the British Commonwealth had no choice but to help another country that is under the British Crown. Canada declares war to Germany on September 3rd, 1939. With mostly planes left over from the late 1920's and 1930's Canada was very modest in it's air capabilities and had to reorganize to be able to combat the Axis in Europe. Canada being what it is organised itself quickly and was able to produce airplanes on a large scale that would have not been seen thus far in it's industrial era becoming the Fourth largest air force of the Allied Air Power.

Due to the great depression of the 1930's many people were simply out of work with no food to feed their families and many men had simply no place to go. How terrible when you are proud and young and would like to have a job to earn an honest living. I remember very well my mother telling me as a young girl in the 1930's living on a farm in St Jean Port Joli, Quebec many men would be riding on trains and even on their roof tops looking for food and work. These men would come from Montreal, Quebec City even from Ontario looking for a better life but there was not much to go on! Times were tough! In Germany Adolf Hitler was creating a War machine against the free world that their domination would fix the problems that had encounter in the 1920's and 1930's and that was a lack of work and prosperity. Hitler was a very dangerous man with many dangerous followers. Basically the world was in economical depression and so was the United States of America. This until Pearl Harbour dragged the USA into the second world war against Japan and Germany.