From 1933 to 1940, Stacey was a member of the history department at
Princeton University. With the advent of the
Second World War, he was given the rank of major and appointed as historical officer to the
Canadian Army. He served in the
United Kingdom for most of the war, headed a team dedicated to collecting and collating information for future historians, and wrote contemporary reports. His reports provided factual details about many military operations, including the
Dieppe Raid and
Operation Spring. (seated) to the Royal Society of Canada. Officers of the Society (standing left to right): Dr.
Charles Camsell, Dr. Loris Shano (L.S.) Russell, Dr. T.W.N. Cameron, president Leon Marion and Colonel C.P. Stacey in 1957. After the war, Stacey worked with a team to create an official history of the Canadian military operations during the conflict. He benefited from his access to the major Canadian military and political figures involved in the war, both during the conflict and afterwards, when the official histories were being finalized. The three volume set was published in 1955. A comment he made after the war regarding
war brides, whom he called "Most excellent citizens," became the title of a book on the subject by
Eswyn Lyster. Stacey eventually attained the rank of colonel. In total, he served in the militia and the army for 35 years (1924–1959). From 1959 to 1975, Stacey was a professor of history at the University of Toronto. He continued to research and write analysis of Canadian military operations. He published an
autobiography,
A Date With History, which presented much background information regarding the writing of the
Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War. He extended those themes in volumes
The Half Million (dealing with the Canadian forces stationed in Britain) and
Arms, Men, and Government (concerning the government in Canada) during the war. Stacey also wrote a critical analysis of the writing process of the
Official History of World War I (only one of the projected eight volumes by the original author ever appeared in print). His book,
Arms, Men, and Governments: The War Policies of Canada, 1939-1945 also won the
Albert B. Corey Prize, awarded jointly by the
Canadian Historical Association and
American Historical Association, in 1972. He died in Toronto in 1989. His personal and research papers are in the
University of Toronto Archives. Since 1988, an award called the
C.P. Stacey Prize has been given by the Canadian Committee for the History of the Second World War "for distinguished publications on the twentieth-century military experience." == Personal life ==