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With the frankness and clarity of someone whose life has been lived to the full, Sam Hughes tells the story of that life, from his early years in Victoria, BC – his father was a chief engineer at Canadian Northern Railway – to his many years on the bench in Ontario as a Supreme Court judge. Hughes gives moving details about his life, from his time in England as a child while his father was in action in France during World War I, to time abroad in the army during World War II, to events during his twenty-six-year tenure on the bench. His passion for family and for law shine through his account. Even after retirement, he was still very much involved in the law and was appointed to lead the Royal Commission investigating child abuse at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. Steering the Course not only documents a life but provides a poignant first-hand account of this century. His recollections of the events and changes that this country has undergone during the last eighty years are a stirring reminder of an important part of our recent past. From the book: "My earliest recollection was of the first daylight air raid on London when my mother and I were living in St John's Wood. I remember the explosions that accompanied the bombing of Selfridge's in Oxford Street and I remember clearly that the taxi from which we were hastily removed had yellow facings on its doors." "On New Year's Day 1944 misery and frustration prevailed. Slit trenches, the natural refuge and even sleeping place for soldiers in combat, were full of water ... George Renison and I took a bottle of Scotch whisky to the command vehicle of the First Brigade ... The bottle, which went only once around the company, was a reminder of the celebrations of other days and its like had not been seen for weeks."
On July 10, 1943, two great Allied armadas of over 2,000 ships readied to invade Sicily. This was Operation Husky, the first step toward winning a toehold in fascist-occupied Europe. Among the invaders were 20,000 Canadian troops serving in the First Canadian Infantry Division and First Canadian Tank Brigade — in their first combat experience. Over the next 28 days, the Allied troops carved a path through the rugged land, despite fierce German opposition. Drawing on firsthand accounts of veterans and official military records, Operation Husky offers a gripping, meticulous account of this seminal operation and the young men who fought, died, and survived it.
Contains 5 maps and 41 Illustrations. “The decisive battle in North-West France in the summer of 1944 was fought and won by gallant men from many nations. Britain, the United States, and Canada contributed the largest components; but Poland provided a fine division, the French Forces of the Interior and subsequently French regular forces played essential roles, and Belgium, the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia all did their part. The victory won by the selfless cooperation of the men who made up these international forces is the property of no one nation; it is the monument of brave soldiers who died in different uniforms for one cause. “If this was a joint triumph of many nations, it was also a victory shared by the three fighting services. Sea, land, and air, they worked together for the defeat of the enemy so unselfishly and unceasingly that it would be difficult to say where the credit due to one element ended and that due to another began. All were courageous, all were skilful, all were bold; and together they achieved one of the greatest victories in the history of warfare and left all civilization their debtors. “In this campaign to which so many races and services contributed, the Canadian Army played a part of some significance. It is of that particular part that these pages tell.
In the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy.
On the night of 9-10 July 1943, an Allied armada launched the invasion of Sicily, a larger operation than the Normandy landings the following year. Over the next thirty-eight days, half a million Allied servicemen fought the Germans and Italians for control of this rocky island, which was to become the first part of Axis homeland to fall during World War II.Despite their success in capturing the island, inter-Allied and inter-service divisions and rivalries robbed them of the opportunity to inflict a crushing defeat on the Germans and Italians, who were able to conduct a fighting withdrawal to the Italian mainland and save sizable forces to continue the war. Regarded by some as a "blind alley" and by others as the way into Europe via the "soft underbelly", the decision to invade Sicily was and remains controversial. Notwithstanding the campaigns failure to achieve its potential, invaluable lessons were learned which contributed to success in France later. Many of the leading generals who were to take prominent roles in northwest Europe amongst them Eisenhower, Montgomery, Bradley and Patton brought with them the experience of Sicily.
A masterful retelling one of the major victories of Canadian troops over the German army’s elite division during WWII. In one blood-soaked, furious week of fighting, from December 20 to December 27, 1943, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division took the town of Ortona, Italy, from elite German paratroopers ordered to hold the medieval port town at all costs. Infantrymen serving in the Loyal Edmonton Regiment and the Seaforth Highlanders, supported by tankers of the Three Rivers Regiment, moved from house to house in hand-to-hand combat amid heavy shelling and wrested the town from the grip of the fierce German defenders. Getting into Ortona had been a battle of its own. Ortona, the pearl of the Adriatic, stands on a promontory impregnable from three sides, with seacliffs on the north and east, and a deep ravine on the west. The Canadian infantrymen, drawn from virtually every corner of Canada, attacked from the south under the command of Major-General Chris Vokes, fighting across narrow gullies, mud-choked vineyards and olive groves, into the narrow streets of Ortona itself. When the vicious battle was over, 2605 Canadians were dead or wounded. But the town that had become known as "Little Stalingrad" was now in Allied hands.