Breakout from Juno
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Winnipeg Free Press
This is a monumental series of books, each of which presents the events of a particular battle in amazing detail. The exploits of the Canadian Army during the war have often been lost among the flood of books, movies and television documentaries about the American and British forces. Zuehlke’s efforts right this wrong and ensure that the bravery and sacrifice of the Canadians will be remembered… Zuehlke’s research for all his books is meticulous, making use of regimental histories, interviews with veterans and the masses of paper reports that the army produced during the war. In Breakout from Juno he uses this material to recreate each engagement, his writing style effectively capturing the confusion and chaos of warfare. He presents a seemingly endless parade of Canadian soldiers, naming them, describing their actions that are often extraordinarily heroic, and sometimes telling us how they died. |
FFWD - Calgary Arts
Breakout from Juno’s devotion to naming as many soldiers as possible is one of its strengths. Too often in books and TV documentaries, wars are summarized as the movement of armies, not the actions and fate of individuals. Appropriately, Zuehlke closes the book with his visit to Juno Beach one recent May, where gentle waves roll across the gleaming sand, and tourists mingle in and around the Juno Beach Centre, an architecturally stylish edifice to Canada’s Normandy achievements and sacrifices, distinguished by the statue Remembrance and Renewal by Canadian sculptor Colin Gibson. Many visitors are school kids. The author rightly observes, “It is children who are the hope of remembrance…. It falls on our shoulders to keep the stories and the history alive.” In that, Zuehlke does a superb job. |
Rocky Mountain Outlook
In what is the first major account of Canada’s role during this period of the war, Breakout From Juno is a challenging and difficult book, as it reflects in extensive detail what was a complex two months of the war. But that doesn’t mean this is a poorly written or researched book. Not at all. It is excellent and on par with Zuehlke’s other Canadian Battle Series books which strive to present the war through the eyes of the individuals who were there. |
About the AuthorMark Zuehlke is an award-winning author generally considered to be Canada’s foremost popular military historian. His Canadian Battle Series is the most exhaustive recounting of the battles and campaigns fought by any nation during World War II to have been written by a single author.
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