T.Copp book 'Cinderella Army'

[klambie]

I heard Copp speak about the book in Calgary last week, though I have not yet picked it up. I can't offer a lot more than you'd see in the blurbs that the publisher is putting out, but I'll be getting a copy.

It is a follow up to Fields of Fire (which addressed Normandy), covering the remainder of the war in NW Europe. I got the impression that the focus was especially on the channel ports and the Scheldt, with somewhat briefer coverage of the Rhineland battles. It is not intended as just a history of those events, but an attempt to demonstrate that the performance of the Canadians was much better than they have typically been given credit for. If you were interested in that argument in Fields of Fire, it sounds like this might be a little more tightly argued look at these battles.

There was some criticism of Fields of Fire for a lack of sufficient evidence to validate some of these claims. My impression is that efforts were made to address some of those criticisms in this book. For example, specific information about higher Canadian casualty rates can be directly linked to more time in combat relative to other units in 21 AG. This was claimed in Fields of Fire, the numbers are apparently included in Cinderella Army.