Service Histories
A strong tradition of official history in Canada has greatly influenced the writing of histories of individual armed services. Although the Canadian Militia had an historian, in the person of Brigadier-General E.A. Cruikshank, it was not until the appointment of Major (later Colonel) C.P. Stacey in 1940 that modern, critical military history in Canada really took form. Stacey's work has profoundly influenced every writer on Canada's military history since that time. For this reason, the chief official histories of each of the services are listed here, even though individual volumes record only one period or part of a single period in the history of each service.
To understand the organizational makeup of a service -- the relationship of the ships of the navy, the regiments of the land forces and the squadrons of the air forces -- a number of useful general guides exist and are listed at the end of the section on the specific service.
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