Hello from Quebec City, Canada

Hello,

I'm glad to have stumbled on this forum, as I am more familiar with French speaking forums (and hosted one a long time ago about WWII).

Despite my last name, I'm a French speaker and I'v been working as a professionnal historian for the last 20 years. I published a few books, including one in 2012 about the French Resistance in Canada.

I'm also the webmaster of an online ressource about Quebec and the World Wars : www.quebecetlesguerres.org

And a few years ago, I launched a small business where I help families to retrace the steps of a family member who served in the Great War or WWII. Using the military files, I build a story and give it to the family in the form of a professionnal-looking book. More about that here : www.parcoursdeguerre.ca

With my friend, historian Sebastien Vincent, I'm currently working on a history of the Normandy Campaign from a French Canadian viewpoint. I suspect that this forum will be of great help!

Have a nice day,

Frederic Smith
Quebec City, canada

 

Welcome, Frederic! And hello from evil Toronto! What was the name of your book about the French Resistance in Canada, and was it published in English or French?

 

Thanks for the welcome! I've been to Toronto for business last year and really enjoyed it. The ROM is amazing.

Unfortunately my book was only published in French.

More info here : Livre La France appelle votre secours | VLB éditeur

FS

 

Bienvenue de la Bretagne

TD

 

Hello Frederic and welcome to the forum from Calgary! I was originally from "La Belle Province" and grew up in Montreal.

 

Thanks for the welcome.

Did you know that the only officially bilingual province in Canada is New Brunswick? In Quebec French is the official language, anywhere else it's English.

FS

 

welcome

 

Well, maybe the library in Toronto or Ottawa has a copy and I can try to puzzle through it with the remnants of my high school French.

 

Bonjour from Toronto too. Quebec is one of my favourite cities in Canada and I’ve visited it many times. Had a great meal at La Planque last time I was there
Mark

 

Welcome and enjoy.!!!

 

Welcome aboard.

 

Frederic.

If, in your research for families, you discover that the individual served in either 5 Cdn Armd Div or 1 Cdn Inf Div in Italy, do get in touch.

I cover Op CHESTERFIELD - the attack on the Hitler Line in May 44, and Op OLIVE - the attack on the Gothic Line in Sep 44, on my battlefield tours.

The Canadians had a major role in both these operations.

Regards

Frank

 

Duly noted, Frank.

I did complete one research about an individual who served in Italy with the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment. As you surely know, they were part of the 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade.

However, this individual had a peculiar time with the Hasty P's. He was imprisonned many times for desertion while he was in Italy. Still, he was wounded in action, near Ortona, on December 7th 1943. But he was AWOL, again, during the following Monte Cassino battles. He was then transfered to the Canadian Pionneer Company, where he met other soldiers with attitude or health problems and worked on railways and bridges.

For a documentary aired on our French part of CBC Television (a French Canadian version of the Who Do You Think You Are tv show), a friend and I documented the journey of another soldier, Evariste Lagacé, on and off camera. He was the uncle of one of Quebec's most famous actors. I traveled with him to Aldershot and Portsmouth, UK, while my friend met him right after in Rome and retraced the journey through Italy. Lagacé was with the Carleton and York, part of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade.

We told the story on our website, but it's only in French, unfortunately (read the articles on this list from bottom to the top) :

http://www.lequebecetlesguerres.org...ssiers/le-parcours-du-soldat-evariste-lagace/

Regards,

Fred

 

Welcome Fred

Hope you enjoy the experience here. There are some very knowledgeable people who frequent this site.

 

Fred.

No worries. I speak French and will check out the link.

Regards

Frank

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

Welcome to the forum. I have a cousin and family near Toronto since the 1950s, but none of them served in WW2.
Your book about the French Resistance in Canada - do you mean that they were Canadians who while in France joined the French Resistance?

 

The French Resistance was also a political movement, the Free France movement, launched by Charles de Gaulle after his June 18 call to resist the Nazi invaders.

Everywhere in the World, French nationals created committees to help the movement and fight Vichy and Pétain. In Quebec City, a French woman (married to a French Canadian doctor) named Marthe Simard launched the very first Free French committee outside of France and the UK. She was later nominated to represent Canada in Alger, in 1943, where de Gaulle created a kind a provisional parliament. She was the only woman deleguate, and she became the first French woman to sit in a French parliament. She followed the parliament in Paris after the Liberation. She lived in Quebec City, Canada, from her marriage in 1932 up to her death in 1993, at age 92.