Randy Boyagoda reviews War Plan Red by Kevin Lippert
The Canada-United States border is the longest international border in the world, but Canadians may be surprised to learn it hasn't been a very peaceful one over the last century. Kevin Lippert's book War Plan Red unveils that both countries harboured secret plans to invade each other as recently as the 1920s and 1930s. The Next Chapter columnist Randy Boyagoda gives War Plan Red a glowing review, saying regardless of whether or not you are a history buff, readers will love the beautiful maps, war schematics and humourously written stories.
ON HIS FAVOURITE WAR ANECDOTES
"One was on the east coast, known as the 'Pork and Beans War,' and was a fight between lumberjacks in Maine and New Brunswick. The other one was 'the most perfect war ever fought' because no one died in it, except a pig. What happened basically was on the San Juan Islands, which is south of Vancouver, a British settler's pig was shot by 'marauding Americans' and this led to a mutual massing of troops on both sides. Nothing more came of it than that. What it speaks to was a mutual suspicion and hypersensitivity at border junctions along the country. Both countries were looking for excuses to presume that the other had designs on their territory."
ON ONE CANADIAN'S PLANS TO INVADE AMERICA
"Shortly after the First World War, a gentleman by the name of Buster Brown returns to Canada after a distinguished war record in France with the Canadian army. He's an entrepreneurial fellow who decides to position himself as the new director of Canadian intelligence. He becomes very focused suddenly on the question of the U.S. having an interest in Canada. Along with fellow agents, he dresses up as a tourist and takes a road trip through New England states to identify soft parts of the border where a Canadian invasion of the U.S. could take place. This happened in the 1920s, and a ten years later the Americans came up with the same idea."
ON AMERICA'S PLAN TO INVADE CANADA
"Canada had what was called 'Defence Scheme No. 1' and the United States had 'War Plan Red.' It was a U.S. military plan to come north and basically take over Canada by invading a series of strategically placed important cities. As a Torontonian, I have to point out that Toronto was clearly not a strategic city as far as the Americans were concerned. Windsor mattered, Montreal mattered, Vancouver mattered, but Toronto didn't really seem to be that important. I imagine how enjoyable that must be to many of our listeners.
The American concern was this: following World War One, they had a feeling that the British Empire was a little creaky, a little self-conscious and also a little suspicious of the rising American superpower. So the United States decided in turn that Britain was going to try somehow to compensate for their diminished presence on the global stage and clearly the most logical way to do this would be to invade the United States. There was a presumption that the British were going to march into the United States by way of Canada. Among the people involved in War Plan Red was the infamous and ambitious aviator Charles Lindbergh. He flew secret reconnaissance missions to Hudson's Bay on his own."
Randy Boyagoda's comments have been edited and condensed. This interview was originally broadcast on November 9, 2015.