The Fog of War: Censorship of Canada's Media in World War II
Mark Bourrie
Language: English
Pages: 344
ISBN: 155365949X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Now, with freshly unsealed World War II press-censor files, many of the undocumented events that occurred in wartime Canada are finally revealed. In Mark Bourrie's illuminating and well-researched account, we learn about the capture of a Nazi spy-turned-double agent, the Japanese-Canadian editor who would one day help develop Canada's medicare system, the curious chiropractor from Saskatchewan who spilled atomic bomb secrets to a roomful of people and the use of censorship to stop balloon bomb attacks from Japan. The Fog of War investigates the realities of media censorship through the experiences of those deputized to act on behalf of the public and reveals why press censorship in wartime Canada was, at best, a hit-and-miss game.
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5960, File: Japanese; p. 227 Tim Tyler’s Luck controversy: Memorandum, John Graham, April 23, 1945, LAC RDC, Vol. 5960, File: Japanese; p. 228 Winchell broadcasts balloon bomb story: Memorandum, R.W. Baldwin, April 23, 1945, LAC RDC, Vol. 5960, File: Japanese; p. 229 Confusion about lifting of embargo: Memorandum, John Graham, May 5, 1945, LAC RDC, Vol. 5960, File: Japanese, and Memorandum, John Graham, May 7, 1945, LAC RDC, Vol. 5960, File: Japanese; p. 229 Canadians follow U.S. lead in
technology with the governor general, Lord Tweedsmuir. Despite Eggleston’s advice to ignore the Citizen editorial, naval intelligence pressed for a prosecution. It was, the censors believed, one of the low points of their wartime work. In April 1941, the Ottawa Citizen was prosecuted for publication of an editorial attacking the King government over war profiteering. The government was pressured into laying charges by M.J. Coldwell, a vocal MP in the leftist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
like “Beer is Best, Drink Guinness” were showing up in coops along the southern English coast weeks later. Radio reporters at the front line had their own technological challenges. A CBC reporting unit went overseas in December 1939 with the First Canadian Division. To get around some of the recording problems, the CBC commandeered an army truck for a mobile studio. Some CBC reporters went into the fighting in Western Europe using a hand-cranked, five-kilogram machine that could cut a recording
conscription, and just days after the plebiscite, U-boats began sinking ships in the St. Lawrence River. The British Columbia news media stoked local citizens’ fears of a Japanese attack against Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland, something that seemed like a real possibility in 1942. They also fed fears of sabotage. Art Layse, a Vancouver Sun reporter-photographer, rounded up some Japanese-Canadian men and convinced them to pose at power dams outside the city. Layse had also drawn a map
something awful! To see yellow Japs Loitering after taps! Aw, nuts! “What’s that? Rata-a-tat . . . Rat-a-tat SUNDOWN TO SUNRISE: CURFEW ON ALL JAPS! “What the . . . ! Ah, hell! Seven p.m. now! Go home like good lil Canucks! Aw, nuts! . . . I am Canadian born! Hell, we’ve a right! A damn good right! Germans, Italians and Japs . . . Kick ’em out and we’ll go! Sure! Sure! Sure! When the Italians and Germans, they go! On December 28, 1942, Shoyama went
