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Book of the Day: Breakout from Juno by Mark Zuehlke

Friday, Nov 11, 2011 at 3:43pm

$36.95

Canadian military historian, Mark Zuehlke, is back with the ninth book in his Canadian Battle Series. Breakout from Juno: First Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign, July 4-August 21, 1944 is the first dramatic chronicling of Canada's pivotal role throughout the entire Normandy Campaign following the D-Day landings.

Zuehlke, throughout this series, has delivered some of best books of Canadian military history, tackling Canadian battles of the Second World War one at a time and telling us what happened in detail. Each of these books has been welcomed warmly by his readers and this one shows every sign of being up to his usual high standards.

The other eight volumes in the Canadian Battle Series are
Ortona: Canada's Epic World War II Battle
The Liri Valley: Canada's World War II Breakthrough to Rome
The Gothic Line Canada's Month of Hell in World War II Italy
Juno Beach: Canada's D-Day Victory: June 6, 1944
Holding Juno: Canada's Heroic Defence of the D-Day Beaches: June 7-12, 1944
Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign: September 13 - November 6, 1944
Operation Husky: The Canadian Invasion of Sicily, July 10-August 7, 1943
On to Victory: The Canadian Liberation of the Netherlands, March 23-May 5, 1945

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Breakout from Juno

- Mark Zuehlke

Hardcover $36.95
Reader Reward Price: $33.26

The ninth book in the Canadian Battle Series, Breakout from Juno, is the first dramatic chronicling of Canada's pivotal role throughout the entire Normandy Campaign following the D-Day landings.

On July 4, 1944, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division won the village of Carpiquet but not the adjacent airfield. Instead of a speedy victory, the men faced a bloody fight. The Canadians advanced relentlessly against Hitler's finest armoured divisions, at a great cost in bloodshed. Initially, only the 3rd Division was involved, but in a couple of weeks two other Canadian divisions -- 2nd Infantry and 4th Armoured -- along with a Polish division and several British divisions came together as First Canadian Army.

While their generals wrangled and planned, the soldiers fought within a narrow landscape extending a mere 21 miles from Caen to Falaise. The Canadians won a two-day battle for Verri�res Ridge starting on July 21, costing them 1,500 casualties. More bloody battles followed, until finally, on August 21, the narrowing gap that had been developing at Falaise closed when American and Canadian troops shook hands. The German army in Normandy had been destroyed, only 18,000 of about 400,000 men escaping. The Allies suffered 206,000 casualties, of which 18,444 were Canadians.

Breakout from Juno is a story of uncommon heroism, endurance and sacrifice by Canada's World War II volunteer army and pays tribute to Canada's veterans at a time when many Canadians, young and old, are actively engaged in acts of remembrance.

Ortona

- Mark Zuehlke

Trade paperback $36.95
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In one blood-soaked, furious week of fighting, from December 20 to December 27, 1943, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division took the town of Ortona, Italy, from elite German paratroopers ordered to hold the medieval port town at all costs. When the vicious battle was over, 2339 Canadians were dead or wounded. But the town that had become known as "Little Stalingrad" was now in Allied hands. Mark Zuehlke weaves reminiscences of the Canadians, Germans and Italians who were there together with a blow-by-blow account of the fighting.

The Liri Valley

- Mark Zuehlke

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BOOK TWO in the Canadian Battle Series

For the Allied Armies fighting their way up the Italian boot in early 1944. Rome was the prize that could only be won through one of the greatest offensives of the war. Mark Zuehlke, following his book, Ortona, returns to the Mediterranean theatre of World War II with this gripping story of courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

The Liri Valley was a long, flat corridor through miles of rugged mountains. At one end stood the formidable Monte Cassino, at the other, Rome. In May 1944, I Canadian Corps drops up this valley toward the Italian captial, facing the infamous Hitler Line -- a bastion of concrete bunkers fronted by wide swaths of tangled barbed wire, minefields, and "Tobruk" weapon pits. The ensuing battle resulted in Canada's single bloodiest day of the Italian campaign. But the sacrifice of young Canadians during the twenty-four days of relentless combat it took to clear the valley paved the way for the Allies to take Rome.

The Liri Valley is testament to the bravery of such Canadians as Victoria Cross-winning Jack Mahony, Panzer killer Private J.A. Thrasher, and the badly wounded Captain Pierre Potvin who survived more than thirty hours alone in the hell of no man's land. This book, like the battle it records, will live long in reader's memories.

The Gothic Line

- Mark Zuehlke

Trade paperback $36.95
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BOOK TWO in the Canadian Battle Series

Stretching like an armour-toothed belt across Italy's upper thigh, the Gothic Line was the most fortified and fiercely defended position the German army had yet thrown in the path of the advancing Allied forces. On August 25, 1944, it fell to I Canadian Corps to spearhead the famed Eighth Army's major offensive, intended to rip through the Gothic Line.

Never had the Germans in Italy brought so much artillery to bear or deployed such a great number of tanks. For twenty-eight days, the battle raged as the Canadians, with British and Polish troops advancing on their flanks, slugged into the German defences. On September 22 the Canadians finally won, opening the way for the next phase of the Allied advance. The price was high--the greatest toll in casualties suffered during the long years of the Italian campaign.

The Gothic Line: Canada's Month of Hell in World War II Italy brings the story of what renowned military historian Jack Granatstein hails as Canada's most momentous World War II battle to vivid life by telling the story through the eyes of the soldiers. It is a suspenseful, dramatic book that gives back to Canadians a forgotten and neglected part of their historical heritage.

Juno Beach

- Mark Zuehlke

Trade paperback $36.95
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On June 6, 1944, the greatest armada in history stood off Normandy and the largest amphibious invasion ever began as 107,000 men aboard 6,000 ships pressed toward the coast. Among them were 14,500 Canadians, who were to land on a five-mile-long stretch of rocky ledges fronted by a dangerously exposed beach. Drawing on personal diaries as well as military records, Juno Beach: Canada's D-Day Victory — June 6, 1944 dramatically depicts Canada's pivotal contribution to the critical Allied battle of World War II.

On to Victory

- Mark Zuehlke

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BOOK EIGHT in the Canadian Battle Series.

On to Victory is the little-told story of the tense final days of World War II, remembered in the Netherlands as "the sweetest of springs," which saw the country's liberation from German occupation. The Liberation Campaign, a series of fierce, desperate battles during the last three months of the war, was bittersweet. A nation's freedom was won and the war concluded, but these final hostilities cost Canada 6,298 casualties, including 1,482 dead. With his trademark "you are there" style that draws upon official records, veteran memories, and a keen understanding of the combat experience, Mark Zuehlke brings to life this concluding chapter in the story of Canada in World War II.

Published to coincide with the 65th anniversary of Canada's dramatic liberation of Holland. May 4, 2010, will mark the 65th anniversary of the end of the fighting for Canada's army and the conclusion of the Netherlands' liberation. Major events of remembrance, both here and in the Netherlands, will celebrate this milestone.

Holding Juno

- Mark Zuehlke

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Following his national best-seller, Juno Beach, and with his usual verve and narrative skill, historian Mark Zuehlke chronicles the crucial six days when Canadians saved the vulnerable beachheads they had won during the D-Day landings.

D-Day ended with the Canadians six miles inland�the deepest penetration achieved by Allied forces during this longest day in history. But for all the horror endured on June 6 every soldier knew the worst was yet to come.

The Germans began probing the Canadian lines early in the morning of June 7 and shortly after dawn counter attacked in force. The ensuing six days of battle between a Canadian division determined to widen its hold on the beachhead and an equally determined foe intent on eliminating Juno Beach was to prove bloodier than D-Day itself. Although battered and bloody, the Canadians had held their ground and made it possible for the slow advance toward Germany and eventual Allied victory to begin.

Holding Juno recreates this pivotal battle and the ultimate triumph of Canadian arms through the eyes of the soldiers who fought it, with the same dramatic intensity and factual detail that made Juno Beach, in the words of Quill & Quire reviewer Michael Clark, "the defining popular history of Canada's D-Day battle."

Operation Husky

- Mark Zuehlke

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Now available in paperback, book seven of the Canadian Battle Series.

On July 10, 1943, twenty thousand Canadian soldiers joined two great Allied armies on the beaches of southern Sicily for Operation Husky -- the first western Allied thrust to win a toehold inside HItler's Fortress Europe.

Guarding the renowned Eighth Army's left flank, 1st Canadian Infantry division and 1st Canadian Army Tank Brigade struck out from the sand into the island's rugged interior. In searing heat, these untried troops clashed in ever-intensifying battle to wrest towering mountains and ancient hill towns away from the elite veterans of Germany's Hermann Goring and 1st Parachute divisions.

When Eighth Army's main drive up Sicily's eastern coast stalled, General Montgomery ordered the Canadians to save the day by turning the German left flank. The fighting reached a fever pitch as the Canadians struggled to break through a series of German defensive lines. Celebrated military historian Mark Zuehlke vividly recreates this little-known campaign, which became the Canadian Army's first triumph of World War II.