CANADA'S WAR EFFORT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 29, 4 February 1941, Page 8

CANADA'S WAR EFFORT

MORE MEN TO BE SENT

AIR TRAINING PLAN NEARS ITS PEAK

OTTAWA, February. 2.

The Prime Minister, Mr. Mackenzie King, in a broadcast, predicted that Germany would make a tremendous effort to destroy the British Empire "within a very short while."

He revealed that Canada is planning to send overseas a third Canadian division and also a fourth armoured division, and expects to increase its naval strength from 175 ships to 413 and also double the naval personnel.

The Empire air training plan, he said, will be in full operation in September, or eight months ahead of schedule. The present Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of 36,000 will be doubled by next December, and the present 1700 planes will be well over 4000 by the end of the year. The Premier added that 25 new Canadian air squadrons will go overseas.

Informed circles estimate that more than 125,000 men will be added to the fighting forces in 1941 on the basis of Mr. King's speech.

The Minister of Supply, Mr. Howe, stated that the total production of explosives in Canada this year should approach in quantity the entire output realised during the Great War. One plant was already in full production on a 100,000,000-dollar programme and would have a greater capacity to produce one type of explosive than all the Canadian plants between 1914-18.