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Good in Good jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. BOOK: Corners, Spine Bumped; Moderate Shelf Rub to Boards; Spine Moderately Cocked; Edges Lightly Soiled. DUST JACKET: Repaired; Moderately Scuffed; Lightly Creased; Moderately Chipped; In Archival Quality Jacket Cover. SUB-TITLE: The Canadian Victory that Opened Antwerp. CONTENTS: Dedication; Acknowledgements; Prologue; 1: Dolle Dinsdag 2: The Secret Army 3: The Great Escape 4: The Adversaries 5: Groundwork of Errors 6: Sinking of an Island 7: Streetcar War 8: Black Friday 9: The Guns of Woensdrecht 10: Johnny...Which One Was That? 11: The Villagers 12: Race Along the Polders 13: The Water Rats 14: In the Back Door 15: The Causeway 16: Red Hot-Best of Luck; Epilogue; Appendix: "Pursuit Across the Seine: The Strategical Background" by General Guy Simonds; Chapter Notes; List of Interview/Archives/Translators; Canadian Infantry Battalions Fighting in the Battle of the Scheldt; Photograph Credits; Bibliography; Index. SYNOPSIS: Antwerp, Merxem, Leopold Canal, Beveland Canal, Bergen op Zoom, Woensdrecht, Moerbrugge, Breskens Pocket, Flushing, Walcharen Island, Middelburg. These are the names of places that live on in the memories of World War Two veterans of Canadian Infantry and Armoured Divisions who fought in the relentless mud and wet against a proud and unbending enemy. It fell to the Canadian Army to clear the 80 km approach to the port of Antwerp, and this bitterest of fighting in the Northwest Europe campaign came to be known as the Battle of the Scheldt. Brigadier General W. Denis Whitaker, then Lieutenant Colonel commanding the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry throughout the Battle of the Scheldt, recently interviewed more than 150 men who had fought alongside him on the polders with great courage and determination. Their revelations are frank and disturbing. Eyewitness accounts tell of raw, young infantrymen thrust, untrained, into front-line battle; of experiencing such critical shortages of fuel and ammunition that the Allied advance was stalled; of being hamstrung by the indifference of Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force; of fighting an enemy that was given the opportunity to regroup because Eisenhower was so out of touch with the realities of war, a war which should have been over by Christmas of 1944, saving the lives of countless Canadian soldiers. Meticulously researched in Europe, Great Britain and Canada, and presenting unpublished papers, some of which have come to light for the first time, Tug of War does not read lightly on accepted notions of military historians. For the youths of nineteen and twenty who died miserably on the sodden polders of Zeeland, this is their story, and that of the larger events surrounding them. Denis Whitaker was raised in Toronto and attended the Royal Military College of Canada. He was mobilized as a lieutenant with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry (WR) when war was declared. He was overseas for almost the entire war years. He distinguished himself in the Dieppe raid for which he was awarded the DSO. A second DSO was awarded to him for gallantry in the field in the Battle of the Rhineland in February 1945. He presently serves his regiment as Honorary Colonel. A former quarterback with the Hamilton Tigers, Whitaker now directs his skills and interest in sports toward taking an active role with the Canadian Equestrian Team, the Canadian Olympic Association and the Olympic Trust of Canada. He is currently in the financial business in Toronto. Shelagh Whitaker was born in Winnipeg. Her father served in World War One with the Fort Garry Horse and was awarded the DSO and DCM. He ultimately served as Honorary Colonel of his regiment. A graduate of Queen's University, Shelagh incorporated her own public relations firm which specialized in sports promotion while she was developing a career in sports and feature journalism.
