Brigade

by Terry Copp

Published 17 October 2007
This classic of small-unit warfare focuses on the young Canadian soldiers who helped liberate Northwest Europe in World War II. The 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade landed in Normandy a month after D-Day in 1944 and quickly found itself in hellish fighting near Caen and in the costly and controversial battle for Verrieres Ridge. As the war then moved into Belgium and Holland, the 5th faced a weakened but still potent German Army, and its battles north of Antwerp and in the Scheldt Estuary rank among the most trying engagements of the war.