Rum Ration

At Waterloo, Napoleon’s Old Guard crested the ridge and met a silent wall of British red. In this episode of The Rum Ration Podcast, Colin and Rejoy unpack the real story behind that iconic colour: not vanity or intimidation, but logistics. Red had long signalled English authority, but in 1645 the New Model Army made it policy—cheap wool, durable dye, and easy mass production, with facing colours...

Canada’s 1950s defence sprint looked like science fiction: Arctic radar lines, a research reactor at Chalk River, and the Mach-2 Avro Arrow. In this episode of The Rum Ration, hosts Rejoy Chatterjee and Colin Robinson talk with Dr. Joanne Archibald to ask what that “blueprint era” can teach today’s Canada about NORAD modernization, Arctic posture, and industrial capacity right now. Dr. Archibald t...

On this special Valentine’s Day episode of Rum Ration, retired infantry officers Colin Robinson and Rejoy Chatterjee celebrate a different kind of “Valentine”: the Infantry Tank Mk. III. They start with the martial origins of February 14th, from Saint Valentine’s defiance on behalf of soldiers to wartime traditions that kept troops connected to home. Then the story shifts to steel and diesel as Du...

In this special Winter Olympics episode, Rum Ration heads to St. Moritz 1948, when Canada needed to fix the national bruise of 1936. But the enemy wasn’t another team, it was the IOC’s amateur oath. With senior clubs unable to pass the paperwork test, RCAF medical officer Squadron Leader Dr. Sandy Watson pulls a military loophole: airmen are paid for service, not hockey. In 48 hours he assembles t...

Episode 37, is the third of a three-part series where the Rum Ration Podcast works to correct the myth of French-Canadian reluctance in the world wars. Social scientist and Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Garon joins the hosts for this episode to explain how the record-keeping in the First World War itself made francophone service “invisible”: CEF attestation papers never captured first language, so re...

Episode 36 continues our three-part series on French-Canadian participation in Canada’s world wars, with historian Julien Lehoux joining us to examine Hong Kong as Québec’s forgotten battle. We revisit how “C Force” was assembled as a symbol of a united, bilingual Canada, including the Royal Rifles of Canada: an officially English-language regiment drawn largely from Eastern Québec, with a signifi...

Episode 32 kicks off a three-part Rum Ration series that shatters the myth that French-Canadians were unwilling to serve in Canada’s wars. Hosts Rejoy Chatterjee and Colin Robinson sit down with historians Richard Garon (First World War) and Julien Lehoux (Second World War/Hong Kong) to explain why the story is less about “reluctance” and more about barriers. They unpack the pre-1914 climate: an E...

Rum Ration turns one! In Episode 33, former infantry officers Rejoy Chatterjee and Colin Robinson celebrate together a full year of rum, banter, and battlefield history, plus their ongoing hunt for a sponsor. Listen in as they revisit Canada’s early conflicts, from Queenston Heights to the 1775 march on Quebec, then fast-forward to Paardeberg’s “Bloody Sunday.” The First World War dominates a lot...

In this special Christmas episode of  The Rum Ration , Colin and Rejoy head to Ortona, December 1943, the “Italian Stalingrad,” where Canadians fought for every doorway. A minor port guarding Highway 16 became a fortress held “at all costs” by the German Fallschirmjäger “Green Devils,” as record rain and the Moro River’s mud turned approach routes into misery. Inside Ortona, the Loyal Edmonton Reg...

In this episode of The Rum Ration , Colin and Rejoy head to the Ardennes in December 1944 for Hitler’s last desperate Western gamble: Wacht am Rhein . With Allied supply lines stretched and American units recovering in a “quiet sector,” the assault on 16 December erupts under fog, snow, and frozen rifles. The green US 106th Division is mauled and surrounded, while stubborn holds at St. Vith and El...

In this episode of the Rum Ration Podcast, we tackle one of the most decisive half-hours in North American (and global) history: the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, 13 September 1759.Colin and Rejoy are joined by Professor Hal Klepak, Professor Emeritus of History and Strategy at the Royal Military College of Canada, to unpack how a global struggle between empires—fought in Europe, India, on the...

Every war leaves names etched in stone, but what about the ones who never came home at all? In this episode of Rum Ration, we trace the story of the Unknown Soldier, the man without a name who came to stand for hundreds of thousands lost in the mud and chaos of the First World War. We follow his journey from shattered French battlefields, to a midnight selection in a quiet chapel, to a gun carriag...

Remembrance Day is more than a moment of silence—it’s a story, and the poppy is its narrator. In this episode of The Rum Ration, Colin and Rejoy trace the red flower from the churned mud of the Western Front to today’s lapels. We begin with Lt.-Col. John McCrae at Ypres and the poem that launched a symbol, move to American educator Moina Michael who vowed to “keep the faith,” and meet Anna Guérin—...

Episode 28 of The Rum Ration, “War Poetry – Once More Unto the Verse,” raises a glass to the verses that outlasted every battle. In this special Remembrance Day episode, Rejoy and Colin explore how poetry has captured the courage, chaos, and cost of war—from Homer’s Iliad and Shakespeare’s rousing Henry V to Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade and McCrae’s immortal In Flanders Fields. Joined by...

In this 27th episode of The Rum Ration , hosts Rejoy and Colin raise a glass to the century-old home of The Royal Montreal Regiment (RMR) — and the extraordinary fight it took to build it. Joined by Assistant Curator of the RMR Museum, Amynte Eygun, they uncover how the RMR nearly vanished after the First World War, saved only by the determination of its veterans and the people of Westmount. Throu...

On the eve of the First World War, British Columbia’s Premier pulled off one of the boldest—and strangest—arms deals in Canadian history. Two submarines vanished from Seattle under cover of darkness and reappeared flying the White Ensign. Rear-Admiral Christopher Robinson, Canada's senior submariner, joins The Rum Ration to reveal how those leaky little boats quietly launched Canada’s submarin...

To mark The Rum Ration’s 25th episode, Colin and Rejoy swap trenches for theatre seats in  “Popcorn and Powder Smoke: Our Favourite War Movies.”  They explore how films—from  A Bridge Too Far  and  All Quiet on the Western Front  to  Three Kings —shape how generations remember courage, chaos, and sacrifice.  Colin’s picks focus on the cost of bravery and the absurdity of war, while Rejoy’s choices...

In this episode of ⁨the Rum Ration Podcast,⁩ Colin and Rejoy uncork the story of one of the Second World War’s most infamous weapons—the Sten submachine gun. Designed in desperation after Dunkirk, the Sten was Britain’s $10 answer to the $200 Thompson: ugly, unreliable, and dangerously simple. Yet for millions of Allied soldiers, including Canadians at Dieppe and beyond, it was the only tool they...

In this episode of The Rum Ration, Rejoy and Colin tackle one of Canada’s most complex military figures—General Sir Arthur Currie. Hailed as the finest general of the First World War, Currie rose from a humble Ontario schoolteacher to command the Canadian Corps, mastering the brutal learning curve of modern warfare. Yet behind his strategic brilliance lay controversy: a hidden financial scandal, b...

August 1917. The Western Front is bogged down in blood and mud. The French Army is reeling from mutiny, Passchendaele is already a quagmire, and German U-boats are choking Britain’s lifelines. Into this chaos steps a newly knighted Canadian commander, Sir Arthur Currie—already earning a reputation as one of the war’s finest tacticians—with the confidence to push back on his orders and suggest a sm...

In this episode of Rum Ration , Rejoy and Colin unpack one of the boldest—and most disastrous—campaigns of the American Revolutionary War: the 1775 invasion of Quebec. It was a Hail Mary to make Quebec the 14th colony, complete with promises of liberty, a two-pronged winter assault, and a tragic march through the Maine wilderness led by none other than Benedict Arnold. What followed was a brutal c...

On August 2nd, 216 BCE, one of the bloodiest and most brilliant battles in history unfolded on the plains of Cannae—and in this episode of The Rum Ration, Colin and Rejoy break it down. With masterful storytelling and a hint of dark humour, they recount how Hannibal’s Carthaginian army—outnumbered nearly two to one—utterly destroyed a massive Roman force using a tactical maneuver still studied tod...

What if everything you thought you knew about the Avro Arrow’s cancellation was only half the story? In Episode 20 of The Rum Ration, we revisit Canada’s most controversial Cold War decision—but this time, through a different lens. Dr. Sean Maloney, military historian and Cold War expert, joins us to dig into the lesser-known truths behind the so-called “Arrow good, BOMARC bad” narrative. From cla...

In this episode of Rum Ration , Rejoy and Colin unpack the rise and fall of one of Canada’s most ambitious aerospace projects: the Avro Arrow. More than just a supersonic jet interceptor, the Arrow was a bold symbol of Canadian innovation during the Cold War—designed to fly at Mach 2 and counter Soviet bombers. But on February 20, 1959—“Black Friday”—the program was abruptly cancelled. Why would a...

In this gripping episode of The Rum Ration , Colin and Rejoy revisit the Battle of Paardeberg—Canada’s bloody debut on a foreign battlefield. Set during the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1900, the episode explores how a young Canada, eager to prove itself, sent a small volunteer force to South Africa. What began as patriotic fervour soon turned into a harsh reality check. The hosts recount the disastro...