Thursday, June 6, 2024, will mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings along the Normandy coast during the Second World War. This event by Allied forces, which ultimately led to the liberation of Europe, will be commemorated at various places, including Juno Beach Centre in France.
In 2013, my late husband Al and I visited Juno Beach and carried a copy of Alan J. Buick's award-winning book The Little Coat: The Bob and Sue Elliott Story with us onto the beach. It was eerie and emotional to walk on those grounds where so much occurred.
The late Bob Elliott was a Canadian tank commander who arrived in France at Juno Beach - an overwhelming experience he was able to survive while many others perished in battle. The little coat he and his troop commissioned to be sewn out of a Canadian army blanket as a gift for a sympathetic Dutch girl is now an artifact in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa because of Alan Buick's fantastic book.
The Little Coat is one of several books published by DriverWorks Ink that share stories of those who served in the Second World War and other conflicts in the name of world peace.
We recommend that you read:
- Crash Harrison: Tales of a Bomber Pilot Who Defied Death, written by Deana J. Driver (that's me), about a Saskatchewan farmboy who grew up during the Great Depression and survived four airplane crashes in England during World War II;
- See You in Le Touquet, written by Romie Christie about her lawyer father's work as an Army officer during World War II and how he liberated his future wife (Romie's mother) and her town of Le Touquet, France as the war was ending;
- all three of the books in the series Flight: Stories of Canadian Aviation, which share vignettes and memories of brave military personnel serving around the world; and
- The Sailor and the Christmas Trees, written by Deana Driver, about a Manitoba man's kindness to shipmates and others in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Christmas Day 1944.
All these books are available from https://driverworks.ca/
We share the sentiment of Sussie Cretier, the Dutch girl in The Little Coat story, who said as an adult, "My gratitude for the young men who gave up their youth and their lives for the freedom of our country. I never, ever will forget."
In a recent interview, I recalled a personal contact with the Canadian doctor who formed the Guinea Pig Club along with Dr. McIndoe, Dr. Ross Tilly. It was the year of the 25th Anniversary of that remarkable group of airmen that constituted this very special WWll Group. Dr. Robert Galway
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