I Am Canada: Behind Enemy Lines


Book Description

A young WWII gunner from the Prairies sees the horrors of war firsthand when he is captured by the Gestapo. Eighteen-year-old Sam Frederiksen has come a long way from the Prairies. Trained to be a gunner in a Lancaster bomber during WWII, he is shot down over France. Battered and bruised, he does survive, and joins forces with the French Resistance... only to be betrayed by one of its members. He and other flyers from various Allied countries are rounded up by the Gestapo and held in Fresnes prison just outside of Paris. Treated as spies, rather than POWs, these men are beaten, some tortured — then sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp in eastern Germany. It is here, in these wretched conditions, that Sam witnesses the darkest side of humanity — gas chambers, torture and starvation. Yet it is also here that he comes to understand the true resilience and unfathomable courage of the victims. Author Carol Matas has won numerous awards for her previous novels about the Holocaust. Behind Enemy Lines is partially based on a true incident from WWII, in which 168 Allied airmen were captured and sent to Buchenwald. Twenty-six of these men were Canadian.




Secret Commandos


Book Description

Major John L. Plaster recalls his remarkable covert activities as a member of a special operations team during the Vietnam War in a “comprehensive, informative, and often exciting…account of an important part of the overall Vietnam tragedy” (The New York Times). Before there were Navy SEALs, there was SOG. Short for “Studies and Operations Group,” it was a secret operations force in Vietnam, the most highly decorated unit in the war. Although their chief mission was disrupting the main North Vietnamese supply route into South Vietnam, SOG commandos also rescued downed helicopter pilots and fellow soldiers, and infiltrated deep into Laos and Cambodia to identify bombing targets, conduct ambushes, mine roads, and capture North Vietnamese soldiers for intelligence purposes. Always outnumbered, they matched wits in the most dangerous environments with an unrelenting foe that hunted them with trackers and dogs. Ten entire teams disappeared and another fourteen were annihilated. This is the dramatic, page-turning true story of that team’s dedication, sacrifice, and constant fight for survival. In the “gripping” (Publishers Weekly) Secret Commandos, John Plaster vividly describes these unique warriors who gave everything fighting for their country—and for each other.




Canadians Behind Enemy Lines, 1939-1945


Book Description

During the Second World War, almost one hundred Canadians served the Allied forces by passing as locals in occupied countries. At the behest of two British secret services, these men made language and custom their costumes. They risked their lives assisting resistance groups in sabotage and ambush missions or in smuggling Allied airmen out of occupied territories. Quiet heroes of the war, these bold Canadians helped to make the brutal and unrelenting warfare of the underground a potent weapon in the Allied arsenal. This is a study of unstinting personal courage in the face of overwhelming odds.




Brotherhood of Warriors


Book Description

In this memoir, a Canadian-American Jewish man recounts his training and service with Sayeret Duvdevan, an elite Israel Defense Forces special ops unit. At the age of 18, Aaron Cohen left Beverly Hills to prove himself in the crucible of the armed forces. He was determined to be a part of Israel’s most elite security cadre, akin to the American Green Berets and Navy SEALs. After fifteen months of grueling training designed to break down each individual man and to rebuild him as a warrior, Cohen was offered the only post a non-Israeli can hold in the special forces. In 1996 he joined a top-secret, highly controversial unit that dispatches operatives disguised as Arabs into the Palestinian-controlled West Bank to abduct terrorist leaders and bring them to Israel for interrogation and trial. Between 1996 and 1998, Aaron Cohen would learn Hebrew and Arabic; become an expert in urban counterterror warfare, the martial art of Krav Maga, and undercover operations; and participate in dozens of life-or-death missions. He would infiltrate a Hamas wedding to seize a wanted terrorist and pose as an American journalist to set a trap for one of the financiers behind the Dizengoff Massacre, taking him down in a brutal, hand-to-hand struggle. A propulsive, gripping read, Cohen’s story is a rare, fly-on-the-wall view into the shadowy world of “black ops” that redefines invincible strength, true danger, and inviolable security.




Pathfinder


Book Description

Nine men. 2,000 enemies. No back-up. No air support. No rescue. No chance... First in - the official motto of one of the British Army's smallest and most secretive units, 16 Air Assault Brigade's Pathfinder Platoon. Unofficially, they are the bastard son of the SAS. And like their counterparts in Hereford, the job of the Pathfinders is to operate unseen and undetected deep behind enemy lines. When British forces deployed to Iraq in 2003, Captain David Blakeley was given command of a reconnaissance mission of such critical importance that it could change the course of the war. It's the story of nine men, operating alone and unsupported, fifty miles ahead of a US Recon Marine advance and head straight into a hornets nest, teeming with thousands of heavily-armed enemy forces. This is the first account of that extraordinary mission - abandoned by coalition command, left with no option but to fight their way out of the enemy's backyard. And it provides a gripping insight into the Pathfinders themselves, a shadowy unit, just forty-five men strong, that plies its trade from the skies. Trained to parachute in to enemy territory far beyond the forward edge of battle - freefalling from high altitude breathing bottled oxygen and employing the latest skydiving technology - the PF are unique. Because of new rules introduced since the publication of Bravo Two Zero, there have been no first-hand accounts of British Special Forces waging modern-day warfare for nearly a decade. And no member of the Pathfinders has ever told their story before. Until now. Pathfinder is the only first-hand account of a UKSF mission to emerge for nearly a generation. And it could be the last.




Behind Rebel Lines


Book Description

Seymour Reit, the creator of Casper the friendly ghost, blends fact with fiction in this captivating tale about one woman who dared to go behind enemy lines as a spy for the Union Army. Canadian-born Emma Edmonds loved the thrill of adventure and chasing freedom, so in 1861 when the Civil War began, she enlisted in the Union Army. With cropped hair and men’s clothing, Emma transformed herself into a peddler, slave, bookkeeper and more, seamlessly gathering information and safely escaping each time. This fictionalized biography about the daring exploits of a cunning master of disguise, risking discovery and death for the sake of freedom, will inspire readers for generations to come.




Recce


Book Description

A gripping firsthand account of life and combat operations in the elite South African Special Forces, known as Recces, by a veteran Recce officer. The South African Special Forces are one of the most effective—and mysterious—military units in the world. Working in secret on covert operations, the legendary Recces have long fascinated, but little is known about how they operate. Now Koos Stadler, a career officer in the South African Special Forces, shares a revealing chronicle of his life and his experiences in the Border War. Shortly after passing the grueling Special Forces selection course in the early 1980s, Koos Stadler joined the so-called Small Teams group at 5 Reconnaissance Regiment. This sub-unit was made up of two-man teams and was responsible for many secret missions behind enemy lines. Sent to blow up railway lines and enemy fighter jets in south Angola, Stadler and his partner stared death in the face many times.




Under a War-Torn Sky


Book Description

Shot down on a mission, 19-year-old bomber pilot Henry is alone in a treacherous land. Desperate to get back to his family and the girl he loves, he is forced to rely on the kindness of strangers and the cunning of the French Resistance. But in his battle to survive the deadly journey across Nazi-occupied Europe, he must face a terrible choice: can he take someone's life to save his own?




The Huntress


Book Description

"...compulsively readable historical fiction…[a] powerful novel about unusual women facing sometimes insurmountable odds with grace, grit, love and tenacity.” - Kristin Hannah, The Washington Post Named one of best books of the year by Marie Claire and Bookbub “If you enjoyed “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” read “The Huntress,” by Kate Quinn." The Washington Post From the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling novel, THE ALICE NETWORK, comes another fascinating historical novel about a battle-haunted English journalist and a Russian female bomber pilot who join forces to track the Huntress, a Nazi war criminal gone to ground in America. In the aftermath of war, the hunter becomes the hunted… Bold and fearless, Nina Markova always dreamed of flying. When the Nazis attack the Soviet Union, she risks everything to join the legendary Night Witches, an all-female night bomber regiment wreaking havoc on the invading Germans. When she is stranded behind enemy lines, Nina becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress, and only Nina’s bravery and cunning will keep her alive. Transformed by the horrors he witnessed from Omaha Beach to the Nuremberg Trials, British war correspondent Ian Graham has become a Nazi hunter. Yet one target eludes him: a vicious predator known as the Huntress. To find her, the fierce, disciplined investigator joins forces with the only witness to escape the Huntress alive: the brazen, cocksure Nina. But a shared secret could derail their mission unless Ian and Nina force themselves to confront it. Growing up in post-war Boston, seventeen-year-old Jordan McBride is determined to become a photographer. When her long-widowed father unexpectedly comes homes with a new fiancée, Jordan is thrilled. But there is something disconcerting about the soft-spoken German widow. Certain that danger is lurking, Jordan begins to delve into her new stepmother’s past—only to discover that there are mysteries buried deep in her family . . . secrets that may threaten all Jordan holds dear. In this immersive, heart-wrenching story, Kate Quinn illuminates the consequences of war on individual lives, and the price we pay to seek justice and truth.




After the War


Book Description

After being released from Buchenwald at the end of World War II, fifteen-year-old Ruth risks her life to lead a group of children across Europe to Palestine.