This is a collection of essays outlining a life that has had its share of laughter, love, and disappointments. The book follows the author from early childhood through college in part 1. Part 2 covers the author’s years at sea with the US Navy with an emphasis on his year in Vietnam. Part 3 covers the remainder of his life, his children, friends, and homes he’s lived in, as well as the author’s thoughts about being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Part 4 is an imaginative, original one-act play about three generations of Coffeys in the naval service.
It has often been observed that the First World War jolted Canada into nationhood, and as Mark Forsythe and Greg Dickson show in this compelling book, no province participated more eagerly in that transformation or felt the aftershock more harshly than British Columbia. In From the West Coast to the Western Front, Forsythe, host of CBC Radio’s mid-day show BC Almanac, marks the 100th anniversary of World War I by teaming with historian Greg Dickson and the ever resourceful BC Almanac audience to compile a sweeping portrayal of that crucial chapter of BC history. Of the 611,000 Canadians who fought for King and Country, 55,570 were from British Columbia—the highest per capita rate of enlistment in the country. Of that contingent, 6,225 died in battle, a critical loss to a fledgling province of barely 400,000. Compiling stories, artifacts and photos sent in by BC Almanac listeners from across the province, this volume tells of submarine smuggling, bagpipes lost on the battlefield and of the ongoing struggles by soldiers who made it home. It tells of battles that set records for mass death amid conditions of unequalled squalor, but also of the heroism of front-line nurses and soldiers like George Maclean, a First Nations man from the Okanagan, who won the Distinguished Conduct Medal. By turns devastating, harrowing, insightful and miraculous, these stories reveal much about the spirit and resilience of a people who survived one of history’s greatest disasters to build the province we have today.
The Mediterranean Sea in World War II was the scene of prolonged and violent naval warfare between the British and the Axis powers, Italy and Germany. The stories of the major squadrons and their admirals have been told, as their actions led directly to the outcomes. Here is the tale of the smallest surface ships, their officers and men who, at the very tip of British sea power in that disputed sea, played vital roles in making possible the successes of the more famous forces. It is told by one of them -- a Canadian on loan to the Royal Navy who took a leading part from the lowest ebb in British fortunes through the struggle against almost overwhelming odds to the climax of the first landings on the continent of Europe.
Chosen by WWII History magazine as one of the Best Books of the Year. In the dark days after Pearl Harbor, the small, illequipped arm of the Navy known as Submarine Force would stand between the shattered U.S. Pacific Fleet and the might of the Japanese Navy. Unfortunately, the spirit and courage of the Submarine Force is being forgotten as the veterans of that force pass into history. To preserve their heroic tales of war beneath the sea, critically acclaimed author and military historian Flint Whitlock, in collaboration with decorated World War II submarine veteran Ron Smith, set out on a journey of more than two years to interview submariners and to record their accounts before the memories of their endeavors are lost forever. These are their stories.
When Australian troops stormed ashore in the pre-dawn darkness of April 25th 1915, it was the culmination of one of the most complex and daunting operations in the history of warfare – the seaborne assault of a heavily fortified shore, defended by a well-prepared and forewarned enemy.The risks were enormous, and the death toll on the beach at Anzac Cove could have been murderous – as it was with the British landings further south. Yet the Anzacs had been allowed to organise their own assault, and their ingenuity, intelligence gathering and willingness to do the unorthodox allowed them to seize a foothold and fulfil the task they had been set by their commanders. All too often the scale of that task and the successful way the Anzacs approached it have been overshadowed by events later in the campaign.Hugh Dolan, an intelligence officer in the Australian Defence Force, has minutely re-examined the assault itself, giving us a day-by-day account of the build up to the landing that shows a very different side to the Gallipoli story. Using a host of previously unpublished material and research, he has produced a riveting work of narrative history that sheds a fresh light on the original Anzacs.
