The Wrong Time and the Wrong Place

On June 6, 1944, more than 150,000 Allied troops, supported by 8,000 or more airplanes and 800 warships, stormed ashore on the beaches of Normandy in northern France. Operation Overlord was the largest amphibious operation in history. It was the Allies' first major breach of Nazi Germany's Fortress Europe and marked the beginning of the end for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's Third Reich (empire)... They were young airmen, Canadians from across the width and breadth of the country, who volunteered to fight for their country against the Nazi beast. Bill Gibson from Halifax and John Harvie from Quebec were still teenagers. Ewart Prudham, from Toronto, was 31. The others, all in their 20s, included Leo Grenon, Stan Hetherington, Ed Carter-Edwards, Al Smith, Cal Willis, Joe Sonshine, Harold Bastable, Ed Compton, Don Clark, Fred Fulsher, Tom Hodgson, Ralph McLenaghan, Dave High, Les Head, Pat Scullion, Don Leslie, Bill Waldram, Erine Shepherd, C.R. Hoffman, E.G. Watson, and Art Kinnis. While they may have had little in common in civilian life, in the fall of 1944, these Canadian airmen were among a group of 168 Allied flyers who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, in a place Ed Carter-Edwards described as "Dante's Inferno in the highest degree." This book is dedicated to them.