The Battle of the St. Lawrence; The Second World War in Canada

History

Greenfield, Nathan M.

Military

HarperCollins, Publishers

Nathan M. Greenfield’s talent for combining rich (and often overlooked) historical data with first-person accounts made his book The Battle of the St. Lawrence both a critical and popular success. Now he turns his formidable storytelling skill to one of the defining battles of the First World War and a seminal event in the building of our country.
The Second Battle of Ypres pitted the highly trained German soldiers—armed with the first weapon of mass destruction, chlorine gas—against the 1st Canadian Division, which had been in the trenches for just over a week. Yet it was the Canadians who ultimately triumphed, stopping the German advance that followed history’s first poison-gas attacks.
In Baptism of Fire, Greenfield revisits the battlefields and war rooms of history, deconstructing military motives and unearthing scores of unpublished interviews, giving voice to the men who faced what one officer called a “filthy, loathsome pestilence” that turned copper buttons green and seared the Canadians’ lungs. He describes how surprise turned to terror as the infantry saw the first clouds of chlorine gas rolling towards them; how, at first, the German soldiers had joked that their mysterious silver cylinders, spied across the enemy line, were a new kind of German beer keg. Recreating how the Canadians immediately filled the 12-kilometre- long hole in the Allied lines after the initial gas attack, Greenfield takes readers into the unimaginable horror of shell fire that turned men into “pink mist” and obliterated trenches, leaving the survivors to defend a position of death. And he explains how the untried Canadians, with their defective Ross rifles, breathing through urine-soaked handkerchiefs, successfully made one of the most important stands of the war—perhaps even staving off an ultimate German victory.
With alacrity and a great respect for the men in the trenches, Greenfield adds a new dimension to, and explodes a few myths behind, the Battle of Ypres. Within his pages are the words of the Canadian—and German—soldiers themselves, many of whom have never been heard before. Their accounts make this a gripping read for anyone seeking to understand our historical or military past.

Baptism Of Fire

Americas

On May 11, 1942, a German U-boat torpedoed SS Nicoya,violently ending a peace in Canada’s waters that stretched back to 1812. Bythe end of 1944, another 18 merchant ships and four Canadian warships would bedestroyed. More than 300 men, women and children—including at least 260Canadians—died by explosion, fire or icy drowning.
Drawing on numerous first-hand accounts from both Canadians andGermans, respected writer and historian Nathan Greenfield has penned a lively,revealing narrative, the first popular account of World War II in Canadianwaters. This is a must-read for military history enthusiasts, veterans and theirfamilies.

Battle Of The St Lawrence

Harper-perennial

The Second Battle of Ypres was, by any definition, a brutal event in a brutal war. The already terrible conditions of trench warfare, punctuated by the unimaginable horror of shell fire that turned men into “pink mist,” became even worse when the Germans introduced chlorine gas. But despite the terror, the battle marked a key moment in the formation of Canadian identity and pride. After the Germans’ initial gas attack opened a 12-kilometre-long hole in Allied lines, it was the heroic 1st Canadian Division―men who had been in the trenches for just over a week―who rushed to fill the gap and block the enemy advance. Drawing on never-before-published material, Nathan M. Greenfield, author of The Battle of the St. Lawrence, presents a gripping new account of the Second Battle of Ypres. Here are the voices of the soldiers themselves―both Canadian and German―reaching across more than 90 years with a stunning immediacy.

CANADIAN BUSINESS WRITING: A STRUCTURAL APPROACH. (Hardcover)

Nelson College Indigenous

Unforgettable tales of heroism, bravery and escape—the remarkable true stories of Canadian soldiers and civilians lost behind enemy lines in the Second World War
The Forgotten tells the story of the more than 10,000 Canadian servicemen, merchant mariners and civilians whose war ended in surrender, capture and imprisonment, through the eyes of a group of men in Hitler’s grasp: Private Stan Darch, who had already survived the cauldron of Dieppe; seventeen civilian priests and brothers captured at sea, one of whom risked his life to hide an escape tunnel after the Great Escape; Edward Carter-Edwards, who endured the hell of Buchenwald concentration camp; and RCAF Sergeant Ian MacDonald, who, having been on the run for six weeks after being shot down, was betrayed to the Gestapo and survived six weeks in the notorious Fresnes Prison in Paris. To survive the often horrid conditions of Stalags across Europe and the hunger marches through the freezing snows of the winter of 1944–45, these otherwise ordinary Canadians demonstrated extraordinary valour and commitment to each other and to the Allied cause.
Nathan M. Greenfield, author of the Governor General’s Award finalist The Damned, shares never-before-heard stories of these forgotten Canadians in thrilling and often heartbreaking detail in a book thateveryone will remember.

The Forgotten: Canadian Pows, Escapers And Evaders In Europe, 193, The

Unforgettable tales of heroism, bravery and escape-the remarkable true stories of Canadian soldiers and civilians lost behind enemy lines during the Second World War. The Forgotten tells the story of more than 10,000 Canadian servicemen, merchant mariners and civilians for whom the war ended in surrender, capture, imprisonment or escape, as seen through the eyes of a group of men who struggled to survive in Hitler's Europe. Among them were Private Stan Darch, who had already survived the cauldron of Dieppe; Sergeant Edward Carter-Edwards, who endured the hell of Buchenwald; RCAF Sergeant Ian MacDonald, who was on the run before being betrayed to the Gestapo and spent six weeks in the notorious Fresnes Prison in Paris; as well as seventeen civilian priests and brothers who were captured at sea. To survive the horrid conditions in the stalags across Europe and the hunger marches through the freezing winter of 1944-45, these otherwise ordinary Canadians required extraordinary valour and commitment to the Allied cause-and to each other. Nathan M. Greenfield, author of the Governor General's Award finalist The Damned, shares the never-before-told stories of these forgotten Canadians in thrilling and often heartbreaking detail in a book that will haunt readers for a long time to come.

Following on the heels of his book The Forgotten comes a new book about the lives of Canadian prisoners of war in the First World War.
Conditions in German POW camps were generally vile, with soldiers having little to eat but thin soup and putrid meat. Canadian men were used as slave labourers in salt mines and coal mines, and those who refused the work were beaten. Any soldiers thought to have engaged in sabotage were beaten and tortured, and some were murdered.
Some POWs attempted escape, a few more than once, using ingenious and dangerous methods. One soldier attempted to escape by secreting himself in a wicker bask. Others, who were hearty frontiersmen, did escape, making their way out of Germany by hiding in forests and ditches and using magnetized razor blades as a compass.
In The Reckoning bestselling author and Governor General’s Award–nominee Nathan M. Greenfield explores life and death in the camps, as well as the attempts to run for freedom. These are the forgotten stories of our soldiers at war and in the camps, and of how they never gave up hope of making it out alive.

The Reckoning: Canadian Prisoners of War in the Great War

The Damned

2011 Governor General’s Literary Awards Finalist - Non-Fiction
The Damned tells the largely unknown saga of Canada’s first land battle of the Second World War -- fought in the hills and valleys of Hong Kong in December 1941 -- and the terrible years the survivors of the battle spent as slave labourers for the Empire of Japan.
Their story begins in the fall of 1941, when almost 2,000 members of the Royal Rifles and Winnipeg Grenadiers were sent to bolster the British garrison at Hong Kong. In the seventeen day battle for the colony following the attack on December 8, the Canadians suffered grievous losses: 927 men were either killed or wounded and, by the end of the battle, 1,185 soldiers and two nursing sisters had been captured -- a casualty rate of 100 percent, the very definition of a military catastrophe. The second part of their story -- of how the Canadians survived the horrid conditions of Japanese POW camps -- lasts three and a half years. Many prisoners died, some from malnutrition or disease, some as a result of torture, and others from the effects of brutal slave labour in factories, shipyards and coal mines.
But despite the circumstances, the young Canadian soldiers remained unbowed and unbroken. Theirs is a story of determination and valour, of resilience and faith.

2011 Governor General’s Literary Awards Finalist - Non-Fiction
The Damned tells the largely unknown saga of Canada’s first land battle of the Second World War—fought in the hills and valleys of Hong Kong in December 1941—and the terrible years the survivors of the battle spent as slave labourers for the Empire of Japan. Their story begins in the fall of 1941, when almost 2,000 members of the Royal Rifles and the Winnipeg Grenadiers were sent to bolster the British garrison at Hong Kong. In the seventeen-day battle for the colony following the Japanese attack on December 8, the Canadians suffered grievous losses. The second part of their story—how the Canadians survived the horrid conditions of the Japanese POW camps— lasts three and a half years. Despite the circumstances, the surviving Canadians remained unbowed and unbroken. Theirs is a story of determination and valour, of resilience and faith.

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

Books by Greenfield, Nathan M.

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

The Battle of the St. Lawrence; The Second World War in Canada

Baptism Of Fire

Battle Of The St Lawrence

Baptism Of Fire

CANADIAN BUSINESS WRITING: A STRUCTURAL APPROACH. (Hardcover)

The Forgotten: Canadian Pows, Escapers And Evaders In Europe, 193, The

The Forgotten: Canadian Pows, Escapers And Evaders In Europe, 193, The

The Reckoning: Canadian Prisoners of War in the Great War

The Damned

The Damned