Because We Are Canadians: A Battlefield Memoir by Charles D. Kipp

Because We Are Canadians: A Battlefield Memoir by Charles D. Kipp is an often very graphic account of the authors experiences as an infantryman in the Canadian army in northwest Europe in 1944 and 45. The book starts out with his joining and going through training. Most of the book discusses the operations to close the Falaise pocket and the campaign to liberate the Netherlands. The accounts of combat is very vivid and graphic not for the squeamish. The violence of battle is often not described in war memoirs but is here.

Kipp has some strong views on the recruitment process as well as relating stories of officers who couldn't cut it. There is often a thread of bitterness throughout, he was certainly no friend to the REMFs. He passed away in 2000.

Highly recommended, an antidote to the often sterilized view of combat which is unfortunately prevalent in today's society.

For more WWII book reviews take a look at My World War II bookshelf.