The Gothic Line: Canada's Month of Hell in World War II Italy, and: Paras Versus the Reich: Canada's Paratroopers at War, 1942-1945 (review)

These two books are among the latest contributions to the ever-growing literature on Canadian military history, particularly the history of the two German wars of the twentieth century. Both are worthy additions to the canon and not only add to our understanding of Canada's participation in the European campaign in the Second World War but offer excellent reading as well. They also complement one another in interesting ways as both deal with relatively unfamiliar aspects of that participation - the Italian campaign and the role of the 'Forgotten Battalion' in the conquest of Germany - and both discuss the career of General E.L.M. Burns.

Paras Versus the Reich tells the story of the 1st Parachute Battalion, which was formed in July 1942 and played a significant role in the D-Day invasion and the subsequent conquest of Germany. It does more than that, however, because it offers a valuable brief history of the evolution of airborne warfare in the 1930s, showing how the Soviet army led the way in developing the concept of deep penetration, which the Germans refined and brought to a whole new level of sophistication.

Not surprisingly, the governments and military leaders of the West showed little interest, even when Germany used paratroopers during its blitzkrieg campaign in the spring of 1940. It took the airborne assault on Crete in May 1941 to awaken them to the new reality that combining highly mobile mechanized land forces with control of the air, including the use of airborne troops, was how war was going to be fought in the middle of the twentieth century. The British and American governments responded with alacrity, creating airborne units of their own, and the Canadian government, which had seen no purpose for paratroopers at all, inevitably hastened to keep up.

But while it is true that there had been virtually no interest among Canadian political and military leaders in developing airborne capability - hardly surprising when one remembers that the entire Canadian professional army in 1939 comprised 4,000 men who possessed only rudimentary equipment - there was one notable exception. Colonel E.L.M. Burns, who was once described as 'the brain that marches like a soldier,' had spent the interwar years arguing the case for mechanization and mobility. He was in England in 1939-40 and, unlike most others, understood what he witnessed. Accordingly, when he returned to Canada in July 1940 to become assistant deputy chief of the general staff, it was only a matter of weeks before he submitted his first proposal to create a parachute battalion. Burns was an intellectual soldier, a rare breed perhaps, but he also lacked 'personality,' with the result that he was unable to persuade either Crerar or anyone else at National Defence Headquarters, let alone in the government. It took the fall of Crete and the leadership of the British and American governments to do that, but Burns had prepared the way.

In any event, the 1st Parachute Battalion was created, but because it was attached to the British 6th Airborne Division, its members tended to call it the 'Forgotten Battalion.' Its contribution to the conquest of Germany, which Horn and Wyczynski describe in considerable detail, was significant. It was the first Canadian unit to land in Occupied Europe in the early hours of 6 June 1944, and it was the only Canadian unit to participate in the Battle of the Bulge, going in with the 6th Airborne to help plug the gap caused when the Germans broke through the American line. And when the Allied armies crossed the Rhine in March 1945, it penetrated Germany more deeply than any other Canadian unit, ending the war at Wismar on the shores...