Mark Zuehlke - The Juno Beach Trilogy

Juno Beach

CANADAS D-DAY VICTORY: JUNE 6, 1944

MARK ZUEHLKE

Copyright 2004 by Mark Zuehlke
U.S. edition 2005

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Douglas & McIntyre
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Cataloguing data is available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-1-55365-091-1 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-926685-70-0 (ebook)

Editing by Elizabeth McLean
Cover design by Peter Cocking
Jacket photograph Gilbert Alexander Milne, NAC PA137013

We gratefully acknowledge the
financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council,
and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry
Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

What is War? A barbaric profession,
of which the only art is to be stronger
at a given place.
NAPOLEON, SEPTEMBER 6, 1812
ON THE EVE OF BORODINO

We came in at the beach, but twas hard to reach,
And many lost their lives.
We won our goal, but the terrible toll
Caused grief to far off wives.
BOMBARDIER R.A. EGO,
3RD CANADIAN INFANTRY DIVISION

Dip gently your scythe good reaper now
Oer the fields of the hallowed dead
For young men fought and young men died
Near the sea, where the earth is red.
CAPTAIN STANLEY E. HIGGS,
3RD CANADIAN INFANTRY DIVISION

IN 2003, with the publication of The Gothic Line, I completed a three-volume history of the major battles fought by Canadians during World War IIs Italian campaign and was left to ponder the question, What next? My interest in Canadas experiences in World War II was undiminished and I suspected many a story still remained to be told. With the Italian campaign books, I had forayed onto a field of combat that had been little regarded by Canadian writersacademic or popular. So there had been a satisfaction in pulling back the mist that had begun to cloak that major historical period and shining a light upon it. Consequently, my first instinct was to look for other forgotten campaigns that had slipped for whatever reason from the national consciousness. Casting about through Canadian official accounts, the popular histories, and the academic treatises regarding various battles, I was surprised to find that areas once thought well mined appeared less so. My searches brought me to the Normandy invasion and more specifically June 6, 1944D-Day.

In my imagining, the Canadian experience of this seminal historic day had to have been well trodden by past writers, but on closer inspection I discovered the truth to be entirely different. In fact, Canadas D-Day was something treated only in passing by most writers looking at the Normandy invasion and subsequent campaign of almost three-month duration. Those books that were primarily dedicated to June 6 were slight, little more than leaflets. On the opposite side of the balance were a number of monolithic renderings relying on virtually untouched veteran accounts that were generally published by the associations of the regiments present on June 6. Although these latter works contained vast amounts of rich reminiscences, they were organized rather randomly so that readers were left with no context in which to align the described experiences.

A gap in the telling of Canadas D-Day story became evident. So into this gap I ventured and this book is the outcome.

In the Italian trilogy, I drew heavily on veteran accounts and approached many old soldiers who had never before been asked what happened to them on those fields of battle. By sifting their personal stories in with the historical records generated by the army at the time, it was possible to develop a dramatic narrative that depicted the course of the battle in detail but also enabled the reader to experience combat at a soldiers eye level. I have followed the same method here.

There are those, particularly academic historians, who consider veteran accounts suspect and so rely almost entirely on the official record. In my own experience, I have found that the veteran memory is trustworthy and, where the record is contradicted, tend to accept the account as rendered by the soldiers who lived it. Normally, it is possible to compare the versions of an event as recalled by several veterans and find sufficient common ground to develop a clear sense of what happened at a particular place and time. It is in this manner that events hinted at in the historical record but not explained are also revealed. Take, for example, a singular mention in the Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment war diary of its tanks carrying North Nova Scotia Highlanders off the beach aboard porpoises. What was this? Interviews with Fusiliers unearth the fact that ammunition bins were slung under their tanks for the landing. These were alternatively nicknamed porpoises or alligators. Then a North Nova veteran recounts how he and the other men in his section jumped onto an ammunition catamaran that was hooked to the back of the tank and were dragged like kids on a horse-drawn sleigh over snow off to their war in Normandys interior. A little mystery solved.

Veteran memory, of course, is dimming with the passage of time. These days, the researcher is generally left with fragments of events rather than a complete narrative retelling. But the fragment from one veteran, stitched onto the sliver of memory offered by another and informed by the official records and accounts makes it possible to develop a credible narrative. More so, I think, than if only veteran memory or official account is trusted. Inevitably, there are points where the collective veteran memory and that of the official record stand in stark disagreement, with no reconciliation possible. At those times, I have tended to trust my gut instinct and must confess that most of the time it is the veteran version that is accepted.

Ultimately, it is the veterans of D-Day who lived through one of the most intensely horrific long days in history, buried friends who did not, and carried the memory of June 6 for the rest of their lives. This is their story.

A SPECIAL DEBT OF THANKS is owed to the many veterans whose stories appear in this book. Without them, Juno Beach would not exist. It is impossible to mention all of the veterans here, but they are all listed in the bibliography. I would like to single out, though, Stan Richardson, who trusted his time-worn diary tracing his service as a telegraphist on the minesweeper HMCSBayfield to Canada Post so I might study it. My trepidation remained high as I undertook copying the diary and accompanying photos and then waited anxiously until it returned safely to Stans home in Powell River.

This time out, I was assisted immensely in gathering veteran interviews by John Gregory Thompson of Ingersoll, Ontario. John tirelessly and enthusiastically visited veterans scattered throughout southern Ontario, spending many hours conducting taped interviews on my behalf. It is to his credit that so many veterans are included here. Ken MacLeod of Langley, B.C., shared the interviews he has gathered over the years in both video and audio form of veterans in the Vancouver area. Major Michael Boire, associate professor at Royal Military College, generously interviewed lieutenant colonels Don Mingay and Ernest Ctkey officers in 3rd Canadian Infantry Divisions headquarterson my behalf.