Marc Milner

This volume by an eminent Canadian historian attempts to show how the supposed bungling and inept performance by Canadians during the early days of Operation Overlord was anything but. He explains how historians including Canadian and especially American and English are especially critical of the Canadian contribution to invasion efforts. He asserts that those historians have never read the actual orders the Canadians were following during the invasion and therefore have completely misunderstood that Canadians were actually achieving what they were assigned to do.

The Canadians assignment was to stop the Panzers from driving the Allied forces back into the sea and that is what they did at great cost in casualties. If it appeared they were sitting on their asses doing nothing as the Americans, asserted, they were keeping the German tanks from making any progress towards the beaches. As the author points out, when the Canadians were finished with the Germans, they never attacked Canadian troops head on again.

Unknown to many is the issue of German atrocities which led to about one in five Canadians being murdered as POW's. One of the units the Canadians faced was the fanatical Hitler Youth, an SS unit made up of Nazi teenagers who had been trained and indoctrinated by Nazi officials who were criminals themselves. Their commander, Kurt Meyer, who became enraged at his failure to beat the Canadians had the Canadians shot when captured.… (altro)