Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign: September 13 - November 6, 1944

"This volume, and indeed the entire [Canadian Battle] series, can only cement Zuehlke's position as among our foremost chroniclers of Canada at war." -- Globe and Mail

"Zuehlke's signature achievement has been to offer Canadians that missing story. He writes brilliantly...With On to Victory, Zuehlke continues building a canon all his own." -- Quill & Quire

"This is good history, told well, and makes for powerful reading." -- Canada's History

The ninth book in the Canadian Battle Series, On to Victory is the little-told story of the tense final days of World War II, remembered in the Netherlands as "the sweetest of springs," which saw the country's liberation from German occupation. The Liberation Campaign, a series of fierce, desperate battles during the last three months of the war, was bittersweet. A nation's freedom was won and the war concluded, but these final hostilities cost Canada 6,298 casualties, including 1,482 dead. With his trademark "you are there" style that draws upon official records, veteran memories, and a keen understanding of the combat experience, Mark Zuehlke brings to life this concluding chapter in the story of Canada in World War II.

Published to coincide with the 65th anniversary of Canada's dramatic liberation of Holland. May 4, 2010, will mark the 65th anniversary of the end of the fighting for Canada's army and the conclusion of the Netherlands' liberation. Major events of remembrance, both here and in the Netherlands, will celebrate this milestone.

The second book in the Canadian Battle series, details the Allied Armies fighting their way up the Italian boot in early 1944. Rome was the prize that could only be won through one of the greatest offensives of the war. Mark Zuehlke, following his book, Ortona, returns to the Mediterranean theatre of World War II with this gripping story of courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

The Liri Valley was a long, flat corridor through miles of rugged mountains. At one end stood the formidable Monte Cassino, at the other, Rome. In May 1944, I Canadian Corps drops up this valley toward the Italian captial, facing the infamous Hitler Line -- a bastion of concrete bunkers fronted by wide swaths of tangled barbed wire, minefields, and "Tobruk" weapon pits. The ensuing battle resulted in Canada's single bloodiest day of the Italian campaign. But the sacrifice of young Canadians during the twenty-four days of relentless combat it took to clear the valley paved the way for the Allies to take Rome.

The Liri Valley is testament to the bravery of such Canadians as Victoria Cross-winning Jack Mahony, Panzer killer Private J.A. Thrasher, and the badly wounded Captain Pierre Potvin who survived more than thirty hours alone in the hell of no man's land. This book, like the battle it records, will live long in reader's memories.

By dawn on June 6, 1944, the rough seas facing three small resort towns in Normandy bristled with an immense armada. More than 6,500 ships prepared to disembark Allied troops in a do-or-die effort: D-Day. The 14,500 Canadians among them were to take "Juno Beach," a five-mile-long stretch protected by a seawall, barbed wire, underwater obstacles, hundred of mines -- and heavily armed German forces inside concrete bunkers, fortified houses, and trenches.

In this, book four of the Canadian Battle Series, acclaimed military historian Mark Zuehlke recreates this pivotal day of World War II, from planning through attack. Falling through a black night, praying to land on target were the newly trained Canadian para-troopers, among the first Allies on French soil. Canadian soldiers, most untested in battle, crossed the English Channel during a night storm and ran off landing craft into a deadly sea. Juno Beach is their story, shared at last in the rich detail their achievement deserves.

In one blood-soaked, furious week fo fighting, from December 20 to December 27, 1943, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division took 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. When the vicious battle was over, 2339 Canadians were dead or wounded. But the town that had become known as "Little Stalingrad" was now in Allied hands.

Ortona, the first book in the Canadian Battle Series, brings Canada's first major triumph of the war to life in a dramatic, suspenseful narrative, weaving reminiscences of the Canadians, Germans, and Italians who were there together with a blow-by-blow account of the fighting that raged in December 1943 from the Moro River Valley through the infamous Gully and finallly into the streets of Ortona itself. It is masterful work, a story told from the soldier's-eye view.

Following his national best-seller, Juno Beach, and with his usual verve and narrative skill, historian Mark Zuehlke chronicles the crucial six days when Canadians saved the vulnerable beachheads they had won during the D-Day landings in book five of the Canadian Battle Series.

D-Day ended with the Canadians six miles inland -- the deepest penetration achieved by Allied forces during this longest day in history. But for all the horror endured on June 6 every soldier knew the worst was yet to come.

The Germans began probing the Canadian lines early in the morning of June 7 and shortly after dawn counter attacked in force. The ensuing six days of battle between a Canadian division determined to widen its hold on the beachhead and an equally determined foe intent on eliminating Juno Beach was to prove bloodier than D-Day itself. Although battered and bloody, the Canadians had held their ground and made it possible for the slow advance toward Germany and eventual Allied victory to begin.

Holding Juno recreates this pivotal battle and the ultimate triumph of Canadian arms through the eyes of the soldiers who fought it, with the same dramatic intensity and factual detail that made Juno Beach, in the words of Quill & Quire reviewer Michael Clark, "the defining popular history of Canada's D-Day battle."

"a fast-paced, highly readable account of one of Canada's major Second World War campaigns." -- Chronicle Herald

"Zuehlke eloquently narrates the intensity of each battle from a Canadian perspective..." -- Toronto Quarterly

"...a story of heroism, endurance and sacrifice by Canada's volunteer army." -- Globe and Mail

The ninth book in the Canadian Battle Series, Breakout from Juno, is the first dramatic chronicling of Canada's pivotal role throughout the entire Normandy Campaign following the D-Day landings.

On July 4, 1944, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division won the village of Carpiquet but not the adjacent airfield. Instead of a speedy victory, the men faced a bloody fight. The Canadians advanced relentlessly against Hitler's finest armoured divisions, at a great cost in bloodshed. Initially, only the 3rd Division was involved, but in a couple of weeks two other Canadian divisions -- 2nd Infantry and 4th Armoured -- along with a Polish division and several British divisions came together as First Canadian Army.

While their generals wrangled and planned, the soldiers fought within a narrow landscape extending a mere 21 miles from Caen to Falaise. The Canadians won a two-day battle for Verrieres Ridge starting on July 21, costing them 1,500 casualties. More bloody battles followed, until finally, on August 21, the narrowing gap that had been developing at Falaise closed when American and Canadian troops shook hands. The German army in Normandy had been destroyed, only 18,000 of about 400,000 men escaping. The Allies suffered 206,000 casualties, of which 18,444 were Canadians.

Breakout from Juno is a story of uncommon heroism, endurance and sacrifice by Canada's World War II volunteer army and pays tribute to Canada's veterans at a time when many Canadians, young and old, are actively engaged in acts of remembrance.

Book three in the Canadian Battle Series. Stretching like an armour-toothed belt across Italy's upper thigh, the Gothic Line was the most fortified and fiercely defended position the German army had yet thrown in the path of the advancing Allied forces. On August 25, 1944, it fell to I Canadian Corps to spearhead the famed Eighth Army's major offensive, intended to rip through the Gothic Line.

Never had the Germans in Italy brought so much artillery to bear or deployed such a great number of tanks. For twenty-eight days, the battle raged as the Canadians, with British and Polish troops advancing on their flanks, slugged into the German defences. On September 22 the Canadians finally won, opening the way for the next phase of the Allied advance. The price was high-the greatest toll in casualties suffered during the long years of the Italian campaign.

The Gothic Line: Canada's Month of Hell in World War II Italy brings the story of what renowned military historian Jack Granatstein hails as Canada's most momentous World War II battle to vivid life by telling the story through the eyes of the soldiers. It is a suspenseful, dramatic book that gives back to Canadians a forgotten and neglected part of their historical heritage.

In his controversial and award-winning 2003 book Fields of Fire, Terry Copp offered a stunning reversal of accepted military history, challenging the conventional view that the Canadian contribution to the Battle of Normandy was a failure. Cinderella Army continues the story of the operations carried out by the First Canadian Army in the last nine months of the war, and extends the argument developed in Fields of Fire that "the achievement of the Allied and especially the Canadian armies... has been greatly underrated while the effectiveness of the German army has been greatly exaggerated." Copp supports this argument with research conducted on numerous trips to the battlefields of France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. His detailed knowledge of the battlefield terrain, along with contemporary maps and air photos, allows Copp to explore the defensive positions that Canadian soldiers were required to overcome, and to illustrate how impressive their achievements truly were.

Except for a brief period during the Rhineland battle, the First Canadian Army was the smallest to serve under Eisenhower's command. The Canadian component of that Army never totalled more that 185,000 of the four million Allied troops serving in Northwest Europe. It is, however, evident that the divisions of 2nd Canadian Corps played a role disproportionate to their numbers. Their contribution to operations designed to secure the Channel Ports and open the approaches to Antwerp together with the battles in the Rhineland place them among the most heavily committed and sorely tried divisions in the Allied armies. By the end of 1944 3rd Canadian Division had suffered the highest number of casualties in 21 Army Group with 2nd Canadian Division ranking a close second. Among armoured divisions, 4th Canadian was at the top of the list as was 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade among the independent tank brigades. Overall Canadian casualties were twenty percent higher than in comparable British formations. This was a direct result of the much greater number of days that Canadian units were involved in close combat.

As passionately written and compellingly argued as its precursor, Cinderella Army is both an important bookend to Copp's earlier work, and stands on its own as a significant contribution to Canadian military history.

Fields of Fire offers a stunning reversal of accepted military history. Terry Copp challenges and refutes the conventional view that the Canadian contribution to the Battle of Normandy was a 'failure': that the allies won only through the use of 'brute force,' and that the Canadian soldiers and commanding officers were essentially incompetent. His detailed and impeccably researched analysis of what actually happened on the battlefield portrays a flexible, innovative army that made a major, and successful, contribution to the defeat of the German forces in just seventy-six days.

Challenging both existing interpretations of the campaign and current approaches to military history, Copp examines the Battle of Normandy, tracking the soldiers over the battlefield terrain and providing an account of each operation carried out by the Canadian army to illustrate the valour, skill, and commitment of the Allied citizen-soldier in the face of a well-entrenched and well-equipped enemy army. Using signal message logs, war diaries, operational research reports, and interviews, Copp re-examines often overlooked battles such as the advance inland on D-Day and the defence of the bridgehead, as well as the frequently analyzed struggle for Verri�res ridge and the operations to reach Falaise, placing each operation within the context of overall Allied strategy. He demonstrates that previous accounts exaggerated the prowess of the German army and that while Allied air power and numerical strength were important, the Canadian and other Allied citizen armies won the war on the battlefield by employing an effective doctrine. The Canadian contribution to the Battle of Normandy, Copp argues, was an extraordinary achievement, well out of proportion to the number of troops engaged in battle, and the army was far more successful than previous historians have claimed. Passionately written and compellingly argued, Fields of Fire will make an irrefutable and controversial mark on Canadian military history.