A pictorial history of the decisive role played by Canada in the final year of World War II. After Dunkirk, as the tattered remnants of Britain's best troops returned home without their heavy weapons, Canadian troops moved in to defend northwest Europe, sending in virtually all of its disposable weapon resources and 368,000 soldiers. The majority of these were to be part of the First Canadian Army, which would play a key role leading to the unconditional surrender by Nazi Germany on May 9, 1945. This book is a pictorial history of the First Canadian Army in northwest Europe during the final year of the war. It concentrates not just on the events of 75 years ago but also what can be seen on the ground today. The illustrations, over 350 of them, include battle, landing and assault maps; photographs of soldiers in action and resting, aerial photographs of key sites of action then and now; battlefield survivors such as Sherman tanks; memorials to individuals and units; and, of course, the cemeteries of Canadian, Polish and British soldiers. In ten parts and 60 chapters featuring 350 illustrations and maps, the book covers: <ul> <li>The Bridgehead</li> <li>The Battles Around Caen</li> <li>Clearing the Coast</li> <li>Clearing The Scheldt</li> <li>Winter on the Maas</li> <li>The Rhineland</li> <li>Advance to the Sea</li> <li>I Corps in The West Netherlands</li> <li>The German Surrender.</li> </ul> Military history buffs will enjoy this book for its focus on a specific battalion and its actions at a decisive moment in the war. The archival photographs are important records and reminders of this watershed moment in World War II's European theater.

First Canadian Army: Victory in Europe 1944-45

History

Forty, Simon

Marriott, Leo

Military

Firefly Books

"It's rare for a book to capture your attention from the very first sentence, but kudos to the authors of First Canadian Army for doing just that... I, too, feel that Canada's contributions to victory in both world wars have unfortunately been downplayed or ignored over the decades by the country's allies." 
-- Canada's History Magazine 
A pictorial history of the decisive role played by Canada in the final year of World War II. 
After Dunkirk, as the tattered remnants of Britain's best troops returned home without their heavy weapons, Canadian troops moved in to defend northwest Europe, sending in virtually all of its disposable weapon resources and 368,000 soldiers. The majority of these were to be part of the First Canadian Army, which would play a key role leading to the unconditional surrender by Nazi Germany on May 9, 1945. 
This book is a pictorial history of the First Canadian Army in northwest Europe during the final year of the war. It concentrates not just on the events of 75 years ago but also what can be seen on the ground today. The illustrations, over 350 of them, include battle, landing and assault maps; photographs of soldiers in action and resting, aerial photographs of key sites of action then and now; battlefield survivors such as Sherman tanks; memorials to individuals and units; and, of course, the cemeteries of Canadian, Polish and British soldiers. 
In 10 parts and 60 chapters featuring 350 illustrations and maps, the book covers: The Bridgehead The Battles Around Caen Clearing the Coast Clearing the Scheldt Winter on the Maas The Rhineland Advance to the Sea I Corps in the West Netherlands The German Surrender. 
Military history buffs will enjoy this book for its focus on a specific battalion and its actions at a decisive moment in the war. The archival photographs are important records and reminders of this watershed moment in World War II's European theater.

Delivering the heaviest possible ammunition onto the enemy and his strong points serves a number of military functions. It destroys protective positions and is ideal for siege or trench warfare. It maintains distance from the opposition without endangering one's own troops. Also significant, heavy artillery saps the enemy's morale when they see them rolling out on the front lines. Most importantly, the heavyweights shared in these pages were game changers. Before the end of the 14th century, strong city walls and castle ramparts were almost impregnable but as technology progressed and the weapons got bigger, the way of battle changed. As defense on the battlefield adapted, innovation spurred more destructive and damage dealing weapons. Before long, every army had its artillery train, and a significant point of pride was the largest and most potent of the weapons. Weather it was against giant warships or castle walls, heavyweights got the job done. Covering military history chronologically, each period has a number of case studies. From the stone-shot Turkish supercannon to the atomic artillery of the 1950s. Whether it was by land or sea, the biggest, baddest, heavy artillery are paid homage within these pages. As the guns and munitions grew, so did the massive shells, ammunition carriers, and reloaders. The largest weapons are itemized and their uses in wartime are documented. Additionally, there are appendices that identify the largest of other guns, hand held or personal weapons, and aircraft. This book asks the question, "Is bigger always better?" In these cases, the answer is yes.

Heavyweights: The Military Use of Massive Weapons

Chartwell Books

Survivors: Battlefield Relics of World War II tells the stories of some of the massive military weapons left scattered across the European countryside after the Second World War, accompanied by maps and a gazetteer of their locations. Large, difficult to move, and now without a use, they've settled in as monuments and tributes to the battles that passed. By the end of World War II, the battlefields were littered with debris, the most obvious being knocked out tanks and other armored vehicles. Tanks were usually sold as scrap metal, but some were acquired by museums and others were used as battlefield memorials. These survivors of the battles of World War II reflect in many ways the numbers built on both sides: there are many M4 Shermans,T-34s, Tigers, Panthers, Cromwells, Churchills, Somuas and Char-Bs. Each survivor, either on a memorial plinth or in a museum, has a story to tell—from the T-34 pulled out of an Estonian bog to the Tiger I at Vimoutiers to the badly damaged Panther at Houffalize. Some of these battlefield relics, like the multitude of M4s in France, show the path of the Allied armies as they took back Europe from the Axis powers. Each one of these armored titans is a testament to heroism. They commemorate American heroism during the Battle of the Bulge or French 2e DB’s Bourg La Reine outside Phalsbourg and Champagne, part of the force that destroyed the German 112th Panzer Brigade at Dompaire. There are equally as many T-34s in the east: from Berlin’s Tiergarten to Gdansk or Studzianki Pancerne in Poland; there are examples in Finland and Bosnia, and many in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine—from Moscow to Sevastopol, Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) to Leningrad. Other Russian tanks to be seen include KV-1s, KV-85s, IS-2s, BT-7s, Su-76s, and any others. Survivors: Battlefield Relics of World War II looks in detail at a number of these vehicles, telling their stories, why they have survived, and why they were placed where they sit today. The book also identifies the locations of many other World War II armored vehicles. While most of these locations are in continental Europe—east and west—one or two are in Britain and the United States. Appendices provide maps and a gazetteershowing the locations of the tanks, along with suggested itineraries, so that the reader can organize trips to visit the vehicles of the Normandy landings, the race across France and the Low Countries, the Battle of the Bulge, the sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad, the Battle of Kharkov, Battle of Berlin, and other major campaigns.

Survivors: Battlefield Relics of WWII

World War I: A Visual Encyclopedia

Reference

Encyclopedias & Subject Guides

PRC Publishing

Review "...the photos may help [wargamers] and modelers tinker with the look of figures and models."Historical Miniatures Gaming Society"​Highly recommended."AMPS Indianapolis"...great as reference for any modeler or historian."IPMS/USA Product Description On 10 May 1940, German Fallschirmjäger stormed the Dutch fort of Eben-Emael, south of Maastricht. The brilliantly executed operation was the first signal success by airborne troops in the Second World War and it made the military world sit up and take notice. Improved parachutes and the creation of gliders that could carry troops meant that assault forces could be dropped or landed behind enemy lines. This was a significant new tactic which had a dramatic impact on several of the key campaigns, and it is the subject of Simon and Jonathan Forty’s in-depth, highly illustrated history.They tell the story of the development of airborne forces, how they were trained and equipped, and how they were landed and put into action in every theater of the global conflict. The results were mixed. German airborne forces were victorious on Crete, but the cost was so great that Hitler vowed never to use them in the same way again. The Allies saw things differently. After Crete they built up elite units who would play important roles in later battles – in Normandy, for example, where the British 6th Airborne Division took vital bridges prior to the D-Day landings.These are just two examples of the many similar operations on the Western and Eastern Fronts and in the Pacific which are covered in this wide-ranging book. It offers the reader a fascinating insight into airborne warfare over seventy years ago. About the Author Simon Forty was educated in Dorset and the north of England before reading history at London University’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies. He has been involved in publishing since the mid-1970s, first as editor and latterly as author. Son of author and RAC Tank Museum curator George Forty, he has continued in the family tradition writing mainly on historical and military subjects including books on the Napoleonic Wars and the two world wars. Recently he has produced a range of highly illustrated books on the Normandy battlefields, the Atlantic Wall and the liberation of the Low Countries with co-author Leo Marriott.

A Photographic History of Airborne Warfare, 1939–1945

Forty, Jonathan

Pen and Sword Military

"...contains a plethora of after-action reports, diagrams and text which makes the work a thorough and engaging study of amphibious landings during the war." ―WWII History Magazine\nAmphibious operations have always been an important element of warfare, but they reached their climax during the Second World War when they were carried out on a large scale in every theater of the conflict. That is why this wide-ranging, highly illustrated history of amphibious warfare 1939–1945 by Simon and Jonathan Forty is of such value.\nTheir book gives graphic accounts of the main amphibious assaults launched by the major combatants, in particular the British, American, German and Japanese – not just large-scale landings like those in North Africa, Normandy, the Philippines and Okinawa, but also raids such as Dieppe and St Nazaire and evacuations like Dunkirk and Kerch.\nThe rapid development of amphibious tactics and equipment is an essential element of the story, as are the vital roles played by the navies, air forces, armies and special forces in each complex combined operation. There is also a section on amphibious operations that were planned but didn’t happen, such as the German invasion of Britain and the Italian and German operation against Malta.

A Photographic History of Amphibious Warfare 1939-1945

Pen and Sword Maritime

Just as the Anglo-Canadian forces in the east found it difficult to advance beyond Caen after D-Day, so the US First Army labored to advance through the Norman bocage country in the west. The lethal struggle that developed there was a defining episode in the Normandy campaign, and this photographic history is a vivid introduction to it. Through a selection of over 150 carefully chosen and meticulously captioned wartime photographs Simon Forty traces the course of the battle and gives the reader a graphic impression of the conditions, the terrain and the experience of the troops. The Germans mounted a tenacious defense. They fought from prepared positions in the high hedgerows. Each cramped field and narrow lane became a killing ground. But the Americans adapted their tactics and brought in special equipment including bulldozers and tanks with hedgerow cutters to force their way through. The losses were appalling as the Germans used snipers, mines, machine guns and artillery to great effect. Inexorably, however, and with enormous bravery, First Army solved their tactical problems, inflicted heavy casualties on the defenders and ground their way to Saint-Lô.

Normandy 1944: The Battle of the Hedgerows (Images of War)

Europe

Caen, a D-Day objective on 6 June 1944, did not fall to the British and Canadian troops of Second Army until 6 August, by which time much of the city had been reduced to rubble. The two-month struggle was a crucial stage in the Normandy campaign and, as Simon Forty demonstrates in this photographic history, one of the most controversial. His detailed, graphic account gives the reader a fascinating insight into the opposing forces, the conditions, the terrain, the equipment and weaponry deployed – and it illustrates just how intense and protracted the fighting was on the ground. The reasons for the slow Allied advance have been hotly disputed. Deficiencies in British and Canadian equipment and tactics have been blamed, as has the tenacity of the German resistance. Ultimately a sequence of Allied operations sapped the defenders’ strength, and it is these operations – Perch, Martlet, Epsom, Windsor, Charnwood, Jupiter, Atlantic, Goodwood – that feature strongly in the striking photographs that have been selected for this book. They record in the most dramatic fashion the character of the fighting and show how even the SS divisions and heavy tank battalions were eventually defeated.

Normandy 1944: The Battle for Caen (Images of War)

The British Eighth Army, which played a decisive role in defeating the Axis in North Africa, was one of the most celebrated Allied armies of the Second World War, and this photographic history is the ideal introduction to it. The carefully chosen photographs show the men, weapons and equipment of the army during campaigns in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The battles the army fought in the Western Desert in 1941 and 1942 are the stuff of legend, as is the second Battle of El Alamein when, under Montgomery, it defeated the German and Italian forces commanded by Rommel.The book gives a vivid insight into the fighting and the desert conditions, and it shows what a varied, multinational force the army was, for it brought together men from Britain, the British Empire and Commonwealth as well as Free French, Greeks and Poles.

The Eighth Army in North Africa (Images of War)

Africa

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Books by Forty, Simon

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Forty, Simon. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

First Canadian Army: Victory in Europe 1944-45

First Canadian Army: Victory in Europe 1944-45

Heavyweights: The Military Use of Massive Weapons

Survivors: Battlefield Relics of WWII

World War I: A Visual Encyclopedia

A Photographic History of Airborne Warfare, 1939–1945

A Photographic History of Amphibious Warfare 1939-1945

Normandy 1944: The Battle of the Hedgerows (Images of War)

Normandy 1944: The Battle for Caen (Images of War)

The Eighth Army in North Africa (Images of War)