The Weapon That Won the War in Europe

My father, age 18

The next time you find yourself caught in a foxhole, out of ammo and pinned down by Nazi machine gun fire you'd do well to remember the lesson of Canada's most secret weapon of WWII.

My father's infantry unit landed on Juno Beach on D Day + 1.

One day in 1944 he found himself trapped in a foxhole somewhere in France. He was with his best buddy, another kid from Maple Street in Merritton.

They'd been in the hole for days and the only things they could move were their bowels.

When they looked around for something to fight with, all they had were two shovels and a pile of the stuff that usually hits the fan.

Remember when you were in grade five, how the boys used to flick gross things at each other from the ends of their pencils?

It didn't take long for the intrepid young Canucks to substitute a shovel for a pencil and invent the 'The Great Canadian Stink Bomb'.

Eventually, thanks in part to the new weapon, they managed to scramble safely out of the foxhole.

Months later Hitler killed himself.

Rumour has it that he said it was because he just couldn't take any more shit from the Canadians.