America’s 33rd President, Harry Truman, expressed his gratitude for Canada’s oversized role in the Second World War on this date in 1945. It was the eve of VE Day and Truman sent a special message to Prime Minister Mackenzie King in Ottawa. “With the capitulation of the German Armies in the Netherlands, Denmark and Northern Germany, the battles of the Canadian Army in Europe have ended in final victory,” the U.S. leader told his Canadian counterpart. “Please accept my warmest congratulations on the stirring achievements of Canadian arms and be assured that the American people share with me the desire to pay tribute to the signal contribution which our Canadian comrades have made to the military defeat of Germany.”
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.