3.5 stars

Canadian soldiers were a big part of the D-Day invasion in WWII. They were to take Juno Beach while the British took Gold and Sword Beaches and the Americans took Omaha and Utah Beaches.

This is a very detailed account of the Canadian troops as they fought for Juno Beach and made their way inland on June 6, 1944. I did have a little bit of trouble with some of military terminology, but I might have done a bit better with it (and possibly rated it higher) if I'd been reading at home with less distractions. I certainly ended the book feeling proud to be Canadian. The author has a couple more books focusing on the days following D-Day, so I have added one of them to my tbr. Just after Remembrance Day was a good time to read this. ( )

D-Day was a complicated event and trying to describe what happened in a 414 page book takes some doing. I know Zuehlke must have given short shift to many things, but this is still an amazing picture of the that chaotic day. A great deal of his information comes from interviews with the men of the Canadian, British & German forces. French civilians lend their memories to the mix as well. Because of the many short anecdotes he includes, this is an entertaining read that went by very quickly. The death and mayhem he describes made me wonder how I would have behaved in some of the situations these mainly young Canadian soldiers faced in their first ever combat experience. ( )