Edited by Patricia Burns
After visiting her cousin's grave in the Canadian military cemetery at Bretteville-sur-Laize in Normandy, Patricia Burns returned to Montreal with a determination to record the stories of veterans of World War II. These stories of young men and women who served in the army, navy and air force illustrate the raw courage, youthful bravado, and sacrifice needed to defeat a powerful enemy. Some served on the home front; others, who returned from the theatre of war, were never the same again.Moving accounts from family members of veteranssons, daughters, wives and siblingsreveal the price they also paid in this most horrible war. We meet a young bride who spent her first three wedding anniversaries alone while her husband languished in the POW camp, Stalag Luft III, and took part in the doomed escape which was made into the movie, The Great Escape; a ship's stoker who feared not being able to escape a torpedo attack which would mean either instant death or a horrible death by scalding; the daring pilot who became a priest after the war; a young woman who joined the air force and realized that its motto, "We Serve That Men May Fly" really meant "We Serve That Men May Die"; a nurse who unknowingly skied in a minefield in Italy, and a soldier's account of the Dieppe raid of August 19, 1942"the costliest day in Canada's military history.
History 2002Other books by Patricia Burns:
The Shamrock and the Shield: An Oral History of the Irish in Montreal
Life on the Home Front: Montreal 1939-1945
186 pp 9" x 6"
ISBN13: 9781550651676
CDN $18.00 US & International
US $18.00
Yellow-Wolf & Other Tales of the Saint Lawrence
Renewing Our Days: Montreal Jews in the 20th Century
Putting Down Roots: Montreal's Immigrant Writers
Of Jesuits and Bohemians
A Jewel in a Park: The Westmount Public Library 1897-1918
A City with a Difference: The Rise and Fall of the Montreal Citizens Movement
Canada's Forgotten Slaves: Two Hundred Years of Bondage