On the Ottawa side of the Ottawa River, the Canadian War Museum is run by the Canadian Museum of History, located on the Gatineau side of the Ottawa River. The striking architecture was designed by Raymond Moriyama to bring peace and hope into a museum dedicated to the history of death and carnage.
Entrance hall 
Vimy Ridge display
A lot of Canadian military history is about creating and maintaining the colonies of the British Empire. Canada has fought wars big and small from the invasion of North America leading to the largest contiguous landmass in the Empire to maintaining NATO’s global superiority through participation in conflicts in the Middle East.
Among the dozens of pieces of military hardware in the LeBreton Gallery, two stand out. The Kurt weather station next to a V1 rocket was laid by the Germans on Canadian soil to gather weather information. It was one of the only times when Axis troops landed on Canada for military action.
Kurt weather station 
V1 Rocket (centre)
A WWII-era 20mm Oerlikon cannon makes by Swiss arms manufacturer Oerlikon, located in a suburb of the same name near Zürich, is on display near other naval anti-aircraft guns. It’s worth noting that the company still exists and now produces a much modern version of the Oerlikon cannon which is being used on the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier in the Royal Navy.
Oerlikon cannon 
Walter Allward designed the Vimy Memorial in France. In the course of designing the memorial, he created 20 plaster sculptures at 50% scale of the actual monument, 17 of which are displayed in the museum.
The museum displays a lot of history, but doesn’t engage in a lot of reflection. Its exhibits are showy but the curation lacks depth. A great Canadian military museum is the National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton.
In Switzerland, museums in Zug and Schwyz explored how Swiss foreign policy and cultural mythology helped shape its military doctrine of armed neutrality and supported conscription. Those weren’t even military museums.
