In Verdun, English and French speakers lived side by side. Durflinger shows that, through their home-front activities as much as through enlistment, French-speaking Verdunites were partners beside their English-speaking neighbours in the prosecution of Canada’s war. Shared experiences and class similarities facilitated the development of common local identities based in pride and belonging. The need for social accommodation shaped responses based in a sense of local, not necessarily national, identity. They were all Verdunites and this is more a story of convergence than divergence.
The war, and Ottawa’s wartime policies, quickly filtered down to the community and individual levels, where Canadian men and women responded to the needs of the war and thereby made possible its successful prosecution. Fighting from Home will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the Canadian home front during the Second World War.
