Canadian Remembrance Day Reads
The black battalion : 1916-1920 : Canada's best kept military secret
Ruck, Calvin W. (Calvin Woodrow), 1925-2004, author
2016
Black military heritage in Canada is still generally unknown and unwritten. Most Canadians have no idea that Blacks served, fought, and died on European battlefields, all in the name of freedom. The story of the overt racist treatment of Black volunteers is a shameful chapter in Canadian history. It does, however, represent an important part of the Black legacy and the Black experience. It is a story worth reporting and worth sharing. In this thirtieth-anniversary edition of Ruck's celebrated history of Nova Scotia's No. 2 Construction Battalion, known as the Black Battalion, the original text and over 60 photographs and documents is presented for a whole new generation of readers, along with a new foreword and photographs from journalist Lindsay Ruck, Calvin W. Ruck's proud granddaughter.
By chance alone : a remarkable true story of courage and survival at Auschwitz
Eisen, Max, author
2016
This autobiography of Canadian Max Eisen details the rural Hungarian deportations to Auschwitz-Birkenau, back-breaking slave labour in Auschwitz I, the infamous 'death march' of January 1945, the painful aftermath of liberation, and a journey of physical and psychological healing.
Canadians at war. Vol. 2, A guide to the battlefields and memorials of World War II
Evans Shaw, Susan, 1944- author
2014
From rinks to regiments : Hockey Hall of Famers and the Great War
MacLeod, Alan Livingstone, author
2018
Out standing in the field : a memoir by Canada's first female infantry officer
Perron, Sandra, author
2017
Through their eyes : a graphic history of Hill 70 and Canada's First World War
Barrett, Matthew (Matthew K.), author
2022
By the summer of 1917, Canadian troops had captured Vimy Ridge, but Allied offensives had stalled across many fronts of the Great War. To help break the stalemate of trench warfare, the Canadian Corps commander, Lieutenant-General Arthur Currie, was tasked with capturing Hill 70, a German stronghold near the French town of Lens. After securing the hill on 15 August, Canadian soldiers endured days of shelling, machine-gun fire, and poison gas as they repelled relentless enemy counterattacks. Through Their Eyes depicts this remarkable but costly victory in a unique way. With full-colour graphic artwork and detailed illustration, Matthew Barrett and Robert Engen picture the battle from different perspectives -- Currie's strategic view at high command, a junior officer's experience at the platoon level, and the vantage points of many lesser-known Canadian soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice. This innovative graphic history invites readers to reimagine the First World War through the eyes of those who lived it and to think more deeply about how we visualize and remember the past. Combining outstanding original art and thought-provoking commentary, Through Their Eyes uncovers the fascinating stories behind this battle while creatively expanding the ways that history is shared and represented.
Too young to die : Canada's boy soldiers, sailors and airmen in the Second World War
Boileau, John, author
2016
The volunteers : how Halifax women won the Second World War
Lowe, Lezlie, 1972- author
2022
"Halifax women won the Second World War -- but not in the ways you might have been told. We all know the stories of Canadian women during the war who trained as machinists, welders, and streetcar drivers to fill the shoes of men who answered the call. We know how women kept the home fires lit while their husbands, brothers, and fathers fought. This is not that story. 'The volunteers: how Halifax women won the Second World War' is the story of Halifax women who geared up in a flash to focus on the comfort, community connections, and mental health of Halifax's exploding population of sailors, soldiers, airmen, and merchant mariners. These women did a job no government could have organized or afforded. They did it without being asked. And they did it with no respite from their daily duties. The book examines the untold stories of the hardworking women whose unpaid and unacknowledged labour won the Second Wold War." --Back cover.