Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #759310 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

Customer Reviews

Incredible title on Canadian troops in Europe, 1944-1945
I don't know where to begin to share my enthousiasm about this book. It is simply superb, and five stars doesn't do it justice. In one compact book you'll find everyting you can possibly want to know about the Canadian soldier in the ETO from the D-Day landings to VE-Day. The only thing not getting much attention is the combat actions, but this book doesn't claim to do that. Instead you do get a few pages on Operation Jubilee (Dieppe, 1942).

In this single book you'll find the organisation of the Canadian ground forces in Europe (meaning France and Italy), a full description of the uniforms and equipment used (including all sorts of badges and insignia) and a list of vehicles and heavy weapons used. Everything is shown in photographs, so nothing is left to the imagination.

The first chapter deals with the organisation of the Canadian forces in Europe. This chapter shows the complete organisation, meaning from squads right up to Army level. And for every unit its symbols (as used on uniforms and vehicles) are shown. There's also a diagram showing the organisation of the 22nd Armoured Regiment, with every vehicle in use depicted. This includes all support vehicles, and it covers two pages. Great stuff! The composition of every brigade is dealt with, again showing all symbols used.
The different arms of service each get special attention, showing some of the equipment in use. Here for instance you get the Army Service Corps with a number of illustrations showing all sorts of rations, and the Army Medical Corps with pictures of medical gear.

Next are chapters dealing with certain aspects in more detail. Chapter two shows all sorts of headgear. Chapter three all sorts of badges and insignia and chapter four all sorts of medals and decorations. All chapters are profoundly illustrated, and a sample of everything thinkable is given.
Chapter five is about clothing. Here photographs of the real stuff are used to give a detailed description of every piece of clothing used. This includes the battledress, but also underwear, shoes and specialised clothing.
Chapter six deals with equipment. The first part is about the infantry combat equipment (webbing sets) and things like entrenching tools and unit tools (e.g. larger digging equipment). But things like anti-gas protection and personal effects are treated in detail as well.
Chapter 7 details maps and signalling equipment and gives an impression of how radionetworks were set up.
Chapter 8 is about infantry weapons, ranging from rifles to mortars. Chapter 9 deals with vehicles. This ranges from bicycles to tanks, but also includes artillery pieces. All are shown in one or more wartime photographs and their stats are shown in tables.
Chapter 10 is an interesting addition to the previous one, showing vehicle markings and camouflage. Here the markings of armoured regiments and their squadrons are shown, but also unit markings are dealt with. There's an explanation of war department numbers, and there are examples of markings and insignia on a number of vehicles, showing the positions and sizes of the different markings.
Chapter 11 gives special attention to two units. The first is the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion (3 pages) and the second the 1st Canadian Armoured Personnel Carrier Regiment (2 pages). The final pages of the book are about Operation Jubilee, as I already mentioned. Here a brief description of the operation is combined with information about the organisation of the landing force and its unit's markings. Also included are a couple of photo's showing a model wearing the infantry uniform worn by troops during the landing and a list of embarkation strength, casualties and rescued troops.

I hope this extensive review gets my message accross that this book is very complete. I've found everything I wanted to know about the Canadian forces and more. I'm sure you will too. Very highly recommended.