Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1: The Historical Legacy

1 Conscription and Canadian History, 1627–1939

Part 2: The National Resources Mobilization Act and the Rise of the Big Army

2 Mobilizing Canada: The Creation of the Thirty-Day Training System, 1939–40

3 Enshrining the NRMA: Compulsory Military Service, 1940–41

4 Creating the “Big Army”: Conscription and Army Expansion, 1941–43

Part 3: Canadian Conscripts and Their Experiences During the War

5 Canada’s Zombies, Part 1: A Statistical Portrait

6 Canada’s Zombies, Part 2: Life in Uniform

Part 4: The Fall of the Big Army

7 “No stone … unturned”: The Failure of Conscription and the Big Army, 1943–44

8 Revolt or Realization? The NRMA and the Conscription Crisis of 1944

Part 5: The Aftermath

Epilogue: Conscription and Canadians in the Second World War

Appendix I: The National Resources Mobilization Act, 1940

Archival Sources Consulted; Notes; Index

Endnotes

Promotional Information

Zombie Army is a thorough, fast-paced book on compulsory military service in Canada during the Second World War.

About the Author

Daniel Byers is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Laurentian University. He has published in the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, Canadian Military History, the Canadian Army Journal, the Bulletin d’histoire politique, and Ontario History.

Reviews

…by far the most complete account to date of conscription in Canada during the Second World War.
*Canadian Military History, Vol 27, Issue 2*

Somewhat ironically given the book’s title, Zombie Army is a very human story about the Canadian World War II experience. It deserves a prominent place in both libraries and university classrooms.
*Canadian Journal of History, Volume 52, Number 2*

Since it illustrates a topic that could not have been written in earlier decades, there is much for the Second World War historian to learn from Zombie Army.
*The Canadian Historical Review, Volume 98, Number 4*

Zombie Army adds yet another important study to the large codex of Canadian Second World War literature, adding new life to a topic that has not been investigated in detail for many years.
*Canadian Army Journal, 17.2*

Byers provides us with an impeccably researched look at the daily grind of these soldiers, the way they were perceived by the local populations, their ethnic composition, or where and how they served.
*The British Journal of Canadian Studies, Volume 31, Number 1*

Zombie Army tells the whole arresting story with an even hand and smart commentary. The work is as compelling as the subject.
*Blacklock's Reporter, February 2017*