On the Way! is about Lethbridge, Alberta and the role its citizens had in two world wars. In its chapters and appendices you will find a wealth of information about the remarkable military history of what was then, and still is today, a small Canadian city. It is a remarkable military history simply because of the width and breadth of military-related activities that occurred in Lethbridge and its surrounding communities from 1914 to 1945. Indeed, this book will tell the story of how the citizens of Lethbridge were introduced to the world because of war and how, in-turn, the war brought the world to Lethbridge's doorstep. In addition, and for the first time, this book will reveal and discuss the Canadian government's attempts to de-Nazify and democratise German prisoners of war held in Lethbridge and Canada during the Second World War.

Books, like this one, are in fact quite rare, as very few Canadian cities have had their complete military histories, or major portions, documented in a single book. In addition, there are only a small number of books about German prisoners of war held in Canada during the Second World War and none that discuss how the Canadian government attempted to re-educate these prisoners before sending them back home at the end of the war. This book deals fully with this issue and the many efforts undertaken by the Canadian government to de-Nazify and democratise German prisoners of war held in Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and elsewhere in Canada. This was no simple undertaking, as some 60 years ago, Canada became the temporary home to almost 34,000 German prisoners of war, and the two largest prisoner of war camps in Canada were located in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat, Alberta. Finally, it is hoped this book will do justice to those from Lethbridge who served their country, so many years ago, and that it will provide inspiration for those who live in Lethbridge, and throughout Canada, today.

This journey is an accumulation of a diary I began in high school 1942. A prediction of my destiny by my artist sister; my enlistment in the United States Marine Corps, my training as a Marine Air Gunner on a torpedo bomber, and my tours of combat in the Solomon and Palau Islands of the South Pacific.

In the Solomon Islands we flew against the five aerodromes of "Fortress Rabaul." We operated from the island of Bougainville in the northern Solomons.

Rabaul was Japan's Pearl Harbor of their South Pacific empire; with enough anchorage for their entire imperial fleet and five aerodromes located around the city. From this base, the Japanese had complete domination, both air and sea of the Solomon Islands.

In our strikes against Rabaul we encountered heavy enemy oposition, both by enemy Zero fighters and very heavy and concentrated anti-air-craft fire. The Zero's usually out numbered our fighter plane escort.

My second tour was the Palau Island campaign. With the code name of Operation "Stalemate", we joined the First Marine Division for the invasion of the island of "Peleliu" in the Palau chain.

Admiral Chester Nimitz made the decision "Not" to bypass the Palau Islands, in spite of the recommendations of his senior staff. This decision was fatal, as it would lead to the "Forgotten Battle" of the Pacific War with 8, 500 casualties from the First Marine Division and 13, 000 Japanese Imperial Marines.

We were aboard a troop transport with units of the First Marine Division for 31 days on our way to the invasion of the island of "Pelelui"!

Most of this book is fiction. The beginning of the story and buying the cabin at Star Point Village is true. While looking at the many lots at this land project, I found a large rock that resembled an anvil and from this I based by story. My grandfather was married twice and he fought in the Civil War. He also had an encounter with Jesse James. My World War II record was true, including the purchase of the cabin at Star Point Village.

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The history of 14 different oilers is presented in this book. These ships are displayed in construction plan, photos of compartments in operation, crews doing their duty.

History of each ship covers birth to where they are moored today. The 6 newer Neosho Class Fleet Oilers were streamlined where the stack resembled a cruise ship. Catwalks did not exist, the cargo deck extended from port to starboard as one big open area for replenishment to be carried out on. The 8 older T3 type tankers were Jumboized (cut apart and lengthened) to accommodate the Navy's needs without building new ships.

Oilers usually go out to sea annually for a few months and visit several world ports. This is displayed in maps of the world's oceans, maps of 93 ports, photos taken of those ports by the crew or from the port's local web sites.

Real stories and histories about how things that have happened, either good or bad, one to four pages in length, are included.

For more information about the book please visit: http://navy.memorieshop.com/Story/Contents.html

To read reviews about the book please visit: navy.memorieshop.com/Story/Reviews.html

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This is a life story, from 1922 to present. I am the only pilot to ever tow a banner around the White House (Vietnam protest banner).

Certified Brave presents the story of 10 disparate personalities. The bonding of these seemingly ill assorted men into a dedicated, effective combat crew, is our subject.

In reportorial, conversational style we get to know each crew member and his duties. We see how the B-24 ''Liberator'' operates. We follow the crew from over confident early missions to the suspicion that none of them can live through the required 25 to 35 missions.

You'll see the triumph of the human spirit. The crew keeps on flying - they could quit at any time. Yet each man has a personal break point. If necessary each man hopes to die well protecting the plane and the crew. He hopes to hang onto his mind in the process. The biological animal says run away, protect life. The intelligent animal says get out here now, forget duty. I'll help you.

There is time seized for love in the infrequent 40 hour passes to wicked London and ancient England. For a short time you would allow yourself to believe you might live.

Ones airplane became to each of the crew a magic and near living thing. As they boarded she was just a pile of metal devoid of life. With cough of one starting engine the fuselage would plane shudder awake and the plane would become a powerful machine making the crew feel vital and brave. Hurt the plane with flak and cannon shell and the crew felt a sense of outrage. Their child was abused.

The book is all action: You'll be there for D-Day. You'll see the 5000 ship invasion fleet and the 8000 plus assorted allied aircraft.

You'll hear H.M.S. Rodney's nine 16 inch guns from 4 miles up an dover plane's engines firing on shore targets.

Later, you'll be attacked by Me 163's. The rocket powered fighter with only enough fuel for 7 minutes of powered flight.

Another time you'd be attacked by aerial rockets fired from first line fighters.

Surface to air missiles such as ''Wasserfall'' will try to end your life.

You will suffer from the dangerous cold, as low as minus 70 deg. F. You'll feel the effects of the oxygen thin air.

4 miles up the sun is twice as bright as it is on the earth. Your corneas will fry if unprotected. You have to continually search for the little black specks that are enemy fighters.

You'll have a grandstand seat for the bombing of massed German troops at the time of the breaking of the 6 weeks stalemate in the St. Lo area. For the first time perhaps you'll know now a distinguished General was killed by our bombs.

The book has lots of little known technical facts. For instance see how the dreaded Me 262 was robbed of it's power by the use of short barrel ''Rhinemetal'' canon.

There is humor and joy and love between the battles. It should be there. That's the way it was.

As to technical material not covered in other books:

-Explosive more powerful than T.N.T.
-The crew use of sulfanilamide on a daily basis
-The contents of escape kits including the ''L'' pill.
-All airmen were armed with a .45 pistol. They were only given 5 rounds. This was intended to deliver the crew member from a pitchfork wielding angry mob if captured.
-V1 and V2 and V3 weapons. Their design and employment.
-Operation of the Me 163 rocket airplane. The fuel, the landing and take off routine, and the high mortality of the pilots.
-Our use of booby trap bomb fuses.
-The use of nitroglycerine and metro balloons.
-The joke of Swiss neutrality.
-Operation of the Nordon bombsight

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Seventy minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbour, the Japanese forces launched the invasion that in five months rolled unstoppably across the whole of Burma. In March 1944 the Japanese commander stood on the border to India, his eyes bright with the vision of marching in triumph into Delhi. What followed was the ten-week long siege of the border town of Imphal and the biggest defeat the Japanese Army ever suffered. Then the Allied forces turned on their ruthless enemy and drove him southward to the sea even more rapidly than he had advanced in 1942. By mid-June 1945 the Japanese Army in Burma was completely disorganized and destroyed. Of the 300,000 Japanese soldiers who swaggered into Burma, only 118,000 ever returned home.

It is surprising how little the Burma Campaign is known in Canada, and even more surprising how little is known of Canadians involvement in it. In the air Canadians flew fighter planes that conquered Japan's Oscars, Zekes and Zeroes and manned the bombers that broke the back of the River Kwae Railway. Two RCAF pilots salvaged the wreckage of a light plane and used it to rescue British soldiers wounded two hundred miles behind enemy lines. A Canadian was in charge of the mules for one of the Wingate's Chindit columns. It was a Canadian pilot who discovered the Japanese fleet steaming toward Ceylon. A Canadian doctor laboured day and night to save the wounded in the flight from Burma and in the siege of Imphal and ended up as personal surgeon to the last Viceroy of India. The Burma Campaign was almost completely supplied by air and Canadian crews flew more than one third of those supply missions.

Canadians were awarded more than 150 decorations for merit and bravery in Burma, including one Victoria Cross. Approximately 8000 Canadians served there and 500 of these gave their lives in the Burma Campaign. For Your Tomorrow tells the story of the Campaign and of the Canadians who fought in it.

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Against All Odds chronicles Wayne A. Kuschel's life from his early childhood through his career in the Air Force. His adventures have taken him through out the U.S., from Washington to Texas.

All was accomplished with an 8th-grade education. After pilot training, he received a high school GED and a Bachelor's degree in 1956.

This exciting and unusual World War Two book contains the biographies of young men from the United States and Commonwealth Countries who flew through enemy infested skies in a civilian passenger plane known as the Hudson Bomber. The author portrays not only flyers but their families as they face the unfolding fates of their youngsters flying in Royal Air Force Coastal Command Squadrons. Much of the book is written from primary research material: personal diaries, log books, a large number of photographs and anxious letters home to parents and wives and friends. "Searching For The Hudson Bombers" rings loudly with authenticity of how World War Two impacted people at an intimate and personal level. Flying duties of these patriotic youth from America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are portrayed in a range of activities from over the North Sea to the Mediterranean. The Hudson air crews bomb shipping and search in all kinds of nasty weather for submarines, cover convoys and look for downed air craft. Sub themed in the text are the disappointing activities of politicians, corporations, financial institutions and religious bureaucracy. One will not find much grand strategy as planned by Presidents, Prime Ministers and Generals in, "Searching For The Hudson Bombers." This is a book about unheralded flyers who risked their lives each time they went aloft in a less than reliable aircraft, the Hudson Bomber.

This intriguing and intensely researched work exposes the truly human side of one of history's most cataclysmic events. An excellent read!"
Major General (Ret'd) Lewis W. MacKenzie OStJ,OOnt,MSC,CD.

"Poignant stories of young men in the prime of life who risked their lives fighting for their countries."
Ms.Lynn McLeod, B.A. M.L.S. Mississauga Public Library System

"I spent many hours as navigator of a Hudson and I find the research done to compile this wonderfully researched volume to be absolutely mind-boggling.
F/Lt. (O) Earle Briggs RAF 24/512 SQ's

For further information on photographs of the Hudson flyers and the index to "Searching For The Hudson Bombers" go to www.hudsonbomber.com

The redundancy of 8th Air Force in WWII documentaries, books, and the exclusion of all other Air Forces in the above Historical Archives, prompted me to write of my 12th Air Force operations in our two and a half years overseas. Never is the role of Ground support personnel mentioned. The 321st Bomb Group had many, many firsts!

Throughout his 36-year career in the Canadian Army, the author saw some wonderful sights and met hundreds of interesting people, some of whom appear in this collection of anecdotes. From the first sergeant major at cadet camp to the witty and erudite professor at the staff college, they all enlightened and amused the impressive youngster who grew into an ancient and, at times, cynical old colonel. Along the way there were adventures galore at places with unusual names: Canoe River, the Imjin, Shilo, Kophinou and at others better known: England, Labrador, Ottawa and Washington. Those adventures are the stuff of stories that old soldiers tell when they gather in the mess and the emphasis is on the good times.

These are the stories.

    A Trumpet for Freedomis the story of one man's adventures in three wars.
Looking at three sequential periods in history - World War II, Korea and Vietnam, Carmichael explores the causes and effects of these wars in the perspective of history, the qualified views of others and his own personal experiences.
    Written in three parts, Part I deals with the mysterious legacy of Don Carmichael and John Close, whose ancestry tends to overlap, confuse and cause consternation to the author when revealed at the death of his mother. The search goes on from 1968 to present, though dormant because of a dead-end in information.
    Part II takes the reader back to the end of the Korean War where the second book ends and places the Vietnam War in perspective with Don Carmichael and John Close playing a quasi-fictional and non-fictional part.
    Part III is an analysis of the Vietnam War from its inception to the end (1945-1975) by two old soldiers: Don Carmichael and Joe Fix with a perspective of those who have analizyed this war before. We look at Harry Summers, Bruce Palmer, Phil Davidson, et al and add our thought to the pot for historical consumption.
    Some final words about the time and circumstance of the search for roots through the guise of soldiering - for posterity.

In July of 1915, just two months after Italy joined the Allied Forces during World War I, Lieutenant Camillo Viglino, age 23, volunteered for flight training in the Italian Air Force. His account of the training provides the freshness and intimacy of an on-the-scene, firsthand report. It reveals an idealistic young man with an unbridled passion for flying and a patriotic zeal to fight for his country -- a young man daring to go up in the fragile flying machines of those early years of aviation, routinely placing himself at the mercy of the weather, cantankerous engines, and unreliable instruments. The discomforts of flying an open-cockpit 1914 Maurice Farman, the frequent crashes at the flight school, and the constant occurrences of pilots getting lost are all related with a nonchalant bravado befitting a 20-year-old. Viglino follows his diary-like accounts with a copy of a letter from a cousin at the front describing an air raid on Adelsberg, Austria.

This book was written in Italian and originally published in Italy in 1934. It was translated into English by his two children, Camilla Viglino Hurwitz and Victor Viglino.

This 250-page book is packed with details about the missions of the Eighth Air Force's 452nd Bomb Group. It lists every crew that was lost. Itemized accounts for each mission include:

All crew members:

- rank

- position

- the fate of each member

The plane's number

The plane's name

The MACR number

The mission date

The target name

The reason for being Missing In Action

Plus details on each mission, including anecdotes from the members who flew them!

This is the story of a US military officer, as seen by his son, serving in Europe before and during World War II, with particular emphasis on the officer's heroic actions in stopping the bombing of Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

During the onset of World War II, Fortier's father, a U.S. Army officer, was stationed first in Paris and then in the Balkans. As he gathered intelligence he was at first rebuffed at his efforts to get the War Department to recognize the validity of the intelligence he was sending back. However, after having predicted the opening day of the war (Invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939), the swift penetration of the Maginot Line by German mobile forces (1940), and finally determining the composition and fighting organization of a German Panzer Division from first hand observation (1941), he became a significant part of America's intelligence for the war.

In the course of these intelligence activities he was credited with persuading the Germans to stop the bombing of Belgrade by the Bulgarian air force, thus saving many Serbian lives. For these actions he was highly decorated by both the Yugoslavs and the U.S.

The book is authored by the officer's son, Louis Renshaw Fortier, who was with his father during much of these activities. Louis Renshaw Fortier gives his impressions of traveling to Europe and the reactions of himself and his sister to living in France and Yugoslavia during the build up years of World War II. The author also describes some of his mother's exploits in returning to Belgrade through war-ravaged Serbia after her train was bombed, and his own experience of being charged with the taking out of eight children of the Legation when dependents were ordered home.

The story begins with the background of the life of a junior military officer during the peacetime years, and family life during the inevitable travels from station to station. The son concludes with his descriptions of both his father's and his own experiences upon return from Yugoslavia (1941) throughout the remainder of the war (1945).

READER COMMENTS:
"Fields" - Comments

T. St. John Arnold - Colonel, USA (Ret); author of The Buffalo Soldiers, Austria; and World War II veteran of the Italian campaign. "Few people understand the Balkans and the strife of World War II prior to the American entry into the conflict. Through the use of historical summary, up-to-date key situation reports, and personal observation as a young teenager, the author has advanced greatly a layman's understanding of the events of that time, and with some humor details his father's fascinating career during it all. A different and exciting book."

Norman J. Anderson - Major General, USMC (Ret): "Ren Fortier has created a remarkable tale herewith, remarkable in many ways - in large part a family history, but also a valuable recording of America's pre-WWII intelligence in Europe. Before the Fields of Crosses is quick resounding reading bringing to light the essence of a long ago war; fascinating reading."

William J. Davis - Colonel, USMC (Ret); Executive Director of the General Douglas MacArthur Memorial, Norfolk, VA. "An important work revealing what little we understood of Jugoslavia and the German Army during World War II. The war covered the entire globe and the most famous figures have been studied and chronicled, but it was people like the author's father, a student of history and keen observer of the events around him, who could explain to our leaders what was really going on."

Mrs. Debbie Hague - History Teacher, First Colonial High School, Virginia Beach, VA. "This is the way history should be written and taught. The author of Before the Fields of Crosses has, in his forty page prologue, condensed and illuminated the progress of the war from its background in the thirties, through the successes of the Axis in the early forties, to the Allied victory by 1945. This is followed by a teenager's view of his father's exploits both in the Balkans and the German battlefield which is explicit, humorous, and factual. Concise and clear, it is almost like reading Cliff Notes on history. I am recommending it to every high school history teacher, and require all my students to read it."

Mrs. Price Kloess - Housewife, Mother of three teenage children:
"I found this book to be fascinating. Though I had a thorough education, my generation did not really study World War II with all its horror and future impact. This book gave me a "feel" for what life was like in Europe as the war clouds developed, and then factual information as the war unfolded. I believe it should be a basic text in history for all teenagers."

Ned Langhorne - Retired businessman and artilleryman of World War II:
"Having served as an artillery officer with the XII Corps and Third Army in France, Luxemburg, and Germany, I found Before the Fields of Crosses simply great reading. The book is very informative, historical and accurate.
The author has written a book that is very interesting to any artilleryman and easy reading - a real pleasure."

P. W. Parcells - Rear Admiral USN (Ret):
"Before the Fields of Crosses is an insightful and interesting history of the early stages and conduct of World War II that is told from a personal perspective. It is a "must read" for anyone interested in that era."

William A. Pogue - CEO Chicago Bridge Co.
"I was delighted with Before the Field of Crosses. I couldn't put it down and read it in one long sitting. A great readÉ The events and adventures of the author's father (and Mother) read like a James Bond movie. Incredible !!!"

Bill Reed - Review in The Beacon, August 7, 2003:
"Before the Fields of Crosses is a brief, fact-packed work that provides a glimpse of the elder Fortier's rise from a Tulane University Engineering student to respected U,S. Army intelligence and field artillery officer during Hitler's rise to power and eventual defeat. The author provides clear, concise "situation reports" outlining the military and political status of each major player in the World War II scenario."

Richard D. Roberts - Retired businessman:
"A great book. Really marvelous. Absolutely wonderful. Everyone should read it. Veterans of World War II will devour it."

Susan Strickland - Review in The Birmingham News, September 2003:
"The book is about Ren's true adventure as a teenager in Europe prior to World War II. He was 16 when he led seven children from Belgrade through several countries to Genoa where they arrived just in time to board the SS Washington, the last ship to leave Europe before the war."

Mrs. Clarence Willard - Retired, Wife of World War II veteran, Grandparent and Great-grandparent.

"Your book is terrific. I love the way you put it together and kept what was going on in all the countries simultaneously. This is the way to teach history. Loved your comments at the end . . . And I am just a female; just think how the men must love it. It should make a great present for everyone's grandfather. JOB WELL DONE."