Ted Barris

Victory at Vimy, Canada Comes of Age: April 9-12, 1917

Thomas Allen Publishers
January 26, 2007

ISBN-10: 0-88762-253-4

From the author of JUNO: Canadians at D-Day, June 6, 1944, comes a new book about the Famous Canadian Victory at Vimy Ridge.

At the height of the First World War, on Easter Monday April 9, 1917, in early morning sleet, forty-nine battalions of the Canadian Corps rose along a nine-mile line of trenches in northern France against the occupying Germans. All four Canadian divisions advanced in a line behind a well-rehearsed creeping barrage of artillery fire. By nightfall, the Germans had suffered a major setback. The Ridge, which other Allied troops had assaulted previously and failed to take, was firmly in Canadian hands.

It was the first time Canadians had fought as a distinct national army, and in many ways it was a coming of age for the nation. Based on first-hand accounts, like JUNO: Canadians at D-Day, Ted Barris paints a compelling and surprising human picture of what it was like to have stormed and taken Vimy Ridge.

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Behind the Glory, Canada’s Role in the Allied Air War

Thomas Allen Publishers
October 14, 2005

ISBN 0-88762-212-7

In this 60th Anniversary edition is Ted Barris’ telling of the unique story of Canada’s largest World War Two expenditure – $1.75 billion in a Commonwealth-wide training scheme, based in Canada that supplied the Allied air war with nearly a quarter of a million qualified airmen.

Within its five-year life-span, the BCATP supplied a continuous flow of battle-ready pilots, navigators, wireless radio operators, air gunners, flight engineers, riggers and fitters or more commonly known as ground crew, principally for the RCAF and RAF as well as the USAAF.

While the story of so many men graduating from the most impressive air training scheme in history is compelling enough, Ted Barris offers the untold story of the instructors – the men behind the glory – who taught those airmen the vital air force trades that ensure Allied victory over Europe, North Africa and the Pacific. In Winston Churchill swords, the BCATP proved “the decisive factor” in winning the Second World War.

This 60th Anniversary edition arrives as Canada continues to celebrate 2005 as the Year of the Veteran. Ted Barris interviewed more than 200 instructors and using their anecdotes and viewpoints he recounts the story of the flyers who coped with the dangers of training missions and the frustration of fighting the war thousands of miles away from the front without losing their enthusiasm for flying.

Days of Victory, Canadians Remember 1939-1945

Thomas Allen Publishers
March 12, 2005

ISBN 0-88762-175-9

When the German capitulation in Europe came on May 8 – VE Day – celebrations swept the continent. Festivities also spilled into the streets of Halifax, Ottawa, Sudbury, Regina, and Vancouver back home. It was a sweet day and a bitter one for millions of people whose lives had been changed forever by nearly six years of global war.

This volume of wartime remembrance carries the reader from the early days of the Second World War – through the struggles in western Europe, Italy, and Hong Kong to the Canadians’ ultimate march to victory that began on D-Day in 1944 and culminated in VE and VJ Day, more than a year later.

From interviews, research, and images originally gathered by father and son writing team Alex and Ted Barris, best-selling author Ted Barris has broadened this revised edition to include stories of Canadian heroism in the Pacific war, accounts of Canadian war correspondents battling to beat the censors, more first-hand impressions from the Canadians who liberated Europe – and from the civilians they liberated in Italy, France, Belgium, Denmark, and finally Holland. On the eve of the 60th anniversary of VE Day this book gives voice to that generation who won the world a second chance.

The Days of Victory text is enhanced by 32 pages of personal/archival photographs and maps.

Juno, Canadians at D-Day, June 6, 1944

Thomas Allen Publishers
January 24, 2004

ISBN 0-88762-133-3

On June 6, 1944, nearly 15,000 Canadians – at sea, in the air, and on the ground – joined the long-anticipated D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe on the Normandy beaches. The piece of ground on which the Canadians fought so hard against heavily armed and embedded German troops was codenamed Juno. On that day, the Canadian infantry fought their way farther inland than any other Allied troops. For Canada, and all Canadians, this was a coming of age, an extraordinary moment of courage and sacrifice.

On the eve of the 6oth anniversary of D-Day, Barris takes us back to those momentous few hours that forever changed the course of our history in the voices of those who were there. In what might be described as Canada’s longest day, we follow the course of action hour by hour, minute by minute, as we meet and follow the soldiers who leapt off landing craft into the shallow waters off Normandy, who were strafed by machinegun fire before they could even reach shore. We meet the airmen who flew fighters and bombers in the early hours of the summer morning, as well as the sailors who manned the guns of the ships offshore.

Ted Barris has interviewed hundreds of veterans to piece together one of Canada’s proudest days, and one of the most significant battles of our time.