Ortona and the Liri Valley

Ortona and the Liri Valley PDF Author: Eric McGeer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Italy
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
"The purpose of this book is to provide Canadians travelling to Italy with a guide to two of the battlefields where their countrymen fought and died in Canada's longest land campaign of the Second World War. It is intended for readers of all backgrounds and levels of interest who wish to retrace the battles of Ortona and the Liri Valley from the most important perspective -- the ground -- and to broaden their understanding of the considerable Canadian role in the Italian Campaign. To these ends, the guide blends a narrative of events with a series of tours taking the visitor to the sites of crucial actions. Battle maps outline each phase of the campaign, and tour maps set out itineraries for the visitor to follow. Both sets of maps have been designed to display the features of the landscape that affected the conduct of each campaign"--Preface.

Ortona and the Liri Valley

Ortona and the Liri Valley PDF Author: Eric McGeer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Italy
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
"The purpose of this book is to provide Canadians travelling to Italy with a guide to two of the battlefields where their countrymen fought and died in Canada's longest land campaign of the Second World War. It is intended for readers of all backgrounds and levels of interest who wish to retrace the battles of Ortona and the Liri Valley from the most important perspective -- the ground -- and to broaden their understanding of the considerable Canadian role in the Italian Campaign. To these ends, the guide blends a narrative of events with a series of tours taking the visitor to the sites of crucial actions. Battle maps outline each phase of the campaign, and tour maps set out itineraries for the visitor to follow. Both sets of maps have been designed to display the features of the landscape that affected the conduct of each campaign"--Preface.

The Liri Valley

The Liri Valley PDF Author: Mark Zuehlke
Publisher: D & M Publishers
ISBN: 1926706080
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
The second instalment in military historian Mark Zuehlke’s compelling World War II tales of Canadians overcoming insurmountable odds in Italy. 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. Following upon his book about the battle of Ortona, Mark Zuehlke returns to the Mediterranean theatre of World War II with this gripping tribute to the valiant Canadians who opened the way for the Allies to take Rome. The Liri Valley is testament to the bravery of these Canadians, like 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 readers’ memories.

Ortona

Ortona PDF Author: Mark Zuehlke
Publisher: D & M Publishers
ISBN: 1926706021
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
A masterful retelling one of the major victories of Canadian troops over the German army’s elite division during WWII. 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. Infantrymen serving in the Loyal Edmonton Regiment and the Seaforth Highlanders, supported by tankers of the Three Rivers Regiment, moved from house to house in hand-to-hand combat amid heavy shelling and wrested the town from the grip of the fierce German defenders. Getting into Ortona had been a battle of its own. Ortona, the pearl of the Adriatic, stands on a promontory impregnable from three sides, with seacliffs on the north and east, and a deep ravine on the west. The Canadian infantrymen, drawn from virtually every corner of Canada, attacked from the south under the command of Major-General Chris Vokes, fighting across narrow gullies, mud-choked vineyards and olive groves, into the narrow streets of Ortona itself. When the vicious battle was over, 2605 Canadians were dead or wounded. But the town that had become known as "Little Stalingrad" was now in Allied hands.

The Canadian Battlefields in Italy

The Canadian Battlefields in Italy PDF Author: Eric McGeer
Publisher: Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies
ISBN: 9780978344108
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Canadian battlefields in Italy are portrayed in revolutionary, new, three-dimensional satellite maps that show the terrain and towns as they have never been seen before. The detailed narrative takes the reader through some of the toughest fighting of the Second World War. Published by the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies and distributed by Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

The Gothic Line

The Gothic Line PDF Author: Mark Zuehlke
Publisher: D & M Publishers
ISBN: 1926685814
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
Like an armor-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 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 it. The 1st Infantry and 5th Armored Divisions advanced into a killing ground covered by thousands of machine-gun, antitank gun positions, and pillboxes expertly sited behind minefields and dense thickets of barbed wire. Never had the Germans in Italy brought so much artillery to bear or deployed such a great number of tanks. For 28 days, the battle raged as the Allied troops slugged an ever deeper hole into the German defences. The Metauro River, the Foglia River, Point 204, Tomba Di Pesaro, Coriano Ridge, San Martino, and San Fortunato became place names seared into the memories of those who fought there. They fought in a dust-choked land under a searing sun which by battle's end was reduced to a guagmire by rain. But they prevailed and on September 22 won the ground overlooking the Po River Valley, opening the way for the next phase of the Allied advance.

Ortona Street Fight

Ortona Street Fight PDF Author: Mark Zuehlke
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
ISBN: 1554693985
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
A dramatic account of Canada's first major triumph of World War II, the December 1943 battle for Ortona, Italy.

Operation Husky

Operation Husky PDF Author: Mark Zuehlke
Publisher: D & M Publishers
ISBN: 1926685776
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 506

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Book Description
On July 10, 1943, two great Allied armadas of over 2,000 ships readied to invade Sicily. This was Operation Husky, the first step toward winning a toehold in fascist-occupied Europe. Among the invaders were 20,000 Canadian troops serving in the First Canadian Infantry Division and First Canadian Tank Brigade — in their first combat experience. Over the next 28 days, the Allied troops carved a path through the rugged land, despite fierce German opposition. Drawing on firsthand accounts of veterans and official military records, Operation Husky offers a gripping, meticulous account of this seminal operation and the young men who fought, died, and survived it.

Terrible Victory

Terrible Victory PDF Author: Mark Zuehlke
Publisher: D & M Publishers
ISBN: 1926685806
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 562

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Book Description
Mark Zuehlke is an expert at narrating the history of life on the battlefield for the Canadian army during World War II. In Terrible Victory, he provides a soldiers-eye-view account of Canada's bloody liberation of western Holland. Readers are there as soldiers fight in the muddy quagmire, enduring a battle that lasted three weeks and in which 6,000 soldiers perished. Terrible Victory is a powerful story of courage, survival, and skill.

The Soldiers' General

The Soldiers' General PDF Author: Douglas E. Delaney
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774845414
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Self-doubt so plagued him that he suffered a nervous breakdown even before fighting his first combat action. But, by the end of the Second World War, Bert Hoffmeister had exorcised his anxieties, risen from Captain to Major-General, and won more awards than any Canadian officer in the war. Fighting from the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 to the final victory in Europe in May 1945, this native Vancouverite earned a reputation as a fearless commander on the battlefield – one who led from the front, one well loved by those he led. How did he do it? The Soldiers’ General explains, in eloquent and accessible prose, how Hoffmeister conducted his business as a military commander. With an astute analytical eye, Delaney carefully dissects Hoffmeister’s numerous battles to reveal how he managed and how he led, how he directed and how he inspired. An exemplary leader, Hoffmeister stood out among his contemporaries, not so much for his technical ability to move the chess pieces well; there were plenty who could do that. Rather, Bert Hoffmeister was exceptional for his ability to get the chess pieces to move themselves.

Cassino to the Alps

Cassino to the Alps PDF Author: Ernest F. Fisher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description