Battle Exhaustion and Manpower Conservation: Canadian Army “Human Salvage Operations” in Northwest Europe, 1944–45

Canada raised an army for the Second World War that proved almost too large to sustain. Yet the army overcame the challenge and kept all its formations in Europe fighting until the German surrender. Scholars have assessed how the army managed to sustain its combat power, for instance, by deploying conscripts, remustering soldiers from overborne trades into the understrength infantry, and employing women to free men for operations. This article explains that another way the army sustained its fighting capacity was by finding meaningful employment for battle-exhausted soldiers who could no longer fight but could work in support roles behind the forward area.