aft and crippled a dozen others. Four days later they bagged 20 more, plus 11 damaged. Ground strafing on armed reconnaissance, which steadily nibbled at the Wehrmacht's armored fighting vehicles and motor transport, reached a climax in the four days in mid- August when the Nazi Seventh Army, caught in a pocket between Falaise and Argentan, sought to escape eastward. From dawn to dark, Spitfires and Typhoons raked the long columns of vehicles with cannon and machine-gun fire and left the roads strewn with blazing, smoking, shattered wrecks. The RCAF Wings alone estimated that they had destroyed or damaged over 2,600 enemy vehicles. Then began the long pursuit across northern France and Belgium into the Netherlands and finally through the West Wall, across the Rhine River and into the plains of north- western Germany. The fighter wings covered the advance of the Armies, drove the enemy air force out of the sky, blasted bridges and strong points, and paralyzed movement by road or rail. Within a few short weeks the war would be at an end.The impact on the airmen of the Royal Canadian Air Force cannot be denied but the largest contribution was the selfless way that the airmen gave their lives to help protect people living half way around the world from them. At the conclusion of the war a single squadron [126] had participated in 22,372 sorties, killed 361 enemy aircraft, destroyed sixteen bridges, two lock gates, 1,210 rail lines, and 3600 vehicles. The RCAF, in addition to being the training ground for Allied aircrew, was the first air force to accept women among their ranks. By the end of World War II over 45,000 women had volunteered into the RCAF and Canada finished the war the fourth strongest air power in the world.The quiet strength of the British army lay in the support from its largest commonwealth country, Canada. Without the contribution of the Canadian air corps England would have easily been invaded and seized by the Germ...
