Monty the Field Marshal, 1944-1976
Hamilton’s third volume — Monty the Field Marshal 1944-1976 — is long (almost 1000 pages) and often filled with detail that could easily have been omitted. From the mass of data it is nonetheless possible to paint a fairly clear picture of…
Tug of War
Tug of War is the story of the campaign fought by the Canadian Army in September- October, 1944 in northern Belgium and the south-west corner of Holland. The virtue of the book is the reminder that the war in Europe after the…
The Sporting Life
In recent years Washington has become the scene of considerable diplomatic intramural sport; around thirty embassies and international organizations headquartered there compete regularly at soccer, and a smaller number joust in that most American of games — baseball. I wonder how many…
Camp X: Canada’s School for Secret Agents, 1941-45
David Stafford has produced an interesting, scholarly and seemingly authoritative history of Camp X, a British training camp for saboteurs, spies and guerilla fighters, set up and operated by the British near Whitby, Ontario, between 1941 and 1946.
English Through the Wringer
Sidney Freifield’s alert commentary on The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Publishing prompts me to write about another side of the literary coin, by which I mean rewriting drafts for the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs.
A Chat with the Ignatieffs
I was half an hour late. With reasonable instructions, but no map, I had decided I could find my way by foot to Palmerston Court. Toronto was not that big. Happily the pizza shop on Bathurst had a telephone and so I…
A Hero of Our Time
Neither those who revere Lord Louis Mountbatten as a founder of the modern Commonwealth nor those who think of him as a dilettante and a lightweight will find their views fully vindicated in this well balanced biography of a man who helped…
Travelling with the SSEA (1942-1946)
My official travels during the first four years of departmental service never extended beyond note-taking expeditions in advance of 1939, The Royal Visit, and occasional (later regularly) Saturday working sessions at Kingsmere. But in April, 1942, when the SSEA said “Can you…
