The stories we must always remember
Pat St. Germain shares some timely stories written by Canadian military historians.
Seven Days in Hell: Canada’s Battle for Normandy and the Rise of the Black Watch Snipers
David O’keefe Harpercollins Canada
Seventy-five years after the Normandy invasion, there are relatively few surviving eyewitnesses to D-day and other pivotal events of the Second World War.
With each passing year, Remembrance Day services honour a dwindling number of veterans who fought the battles that ultimately secured the Allied victory in Europe. But their memory lives on, and storytellers like award-winning historian David O’keefe preserve their words.
After shedding new light on a famous disaster in his 2013 bestseller One Day in August: The Untold Story Behind Canada’s Tragedy at Dieppe, O’keefe turns his attention to a less well-known operation in Seven Days in Hell.
The battle for Verrières Ridge, in July 1944, was crucial for the Allied advance, but it didn’t go according to plan. O’keefe, who served with the modern-day Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, relies on first-person accounts to paint a picture of the tragedy of errors that unfolded. More than 300 soldiers walked into a hellscape from which only a few would return.
Based in Quebec, O’keefe writes and hosts the TV series War Junk and he’s been the creative force behind several documentaries, including Dieppe Uncovered, which first revealed to the world that the 1942 raid’s secret purpose was to steal the newest version of Germany’s Enigma code machine, along with code books.
Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire
Ted Barris Harpercollins Canada
Journalist and historian Ted Barris has covered a lot of military ground over the years, but this time, it’s personal. Rush to Danger was inspired by the wartime experience of his father, Alex Barris.
Better known as a journalist and TV writer, Alex Barris was a medic in the U.S. army before he moved to Ontario soon after the end of the Second World War. And as his son discovered, he played a heroic role at the Battle of the Bulge.
As he tracks his father’s story, Barris also traces the history of battlefield medicine, along with gripping accounts of medics, stretcher bearers, nurses and surgeons who risked their own lives to rescue others in war zones.
His 2018 book, Dam Busters: Canadian Airmen and the Secret Raid against Nazi Germany, was awarded the RCAF Association’s Norad Trophy for “significant and unequalled contribution to Air Force traditions, history and heritage.”
Highlighting the role of Canadian aircrews and Allied airmen trained in Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, it recounts a tragically heroic effort to destroy three hydroelectric dams in the Ruhr Valley during an overnight raid in May 1943.