Nathan Greenfield, a Canadian military historian, will launch his new book The Forgotten at HMCS Bytown at 78 Lisgar Street in Ottawa at 7 p.m. tonight (Tuesday, October 22).
The Forgotten tells the story of Canadian servicemen, merchant mariners and civilians: Private Stan Darch, who survived the cauldron of Dieppe; 17 civilian priests captured at sea, one of whom risked his life to hide an escape tunnel after the Great Escape; Edward Carter-Edwards, who endured the hell of Buchenwald concentration camp; and RCAF Sergeant Ian MacDonald, who, having been on the run for six weeks after being shot down, was betrayed to the Gestapo and survived six weeks in the notorious Fresnes Prison in Paris. To survive the often horrid conditions of Stalags across Europe and the hunger marches through the freezing snows of the winter of 1944–45, these otherwise ordinary Canadians demonstrated extraordinary valour and commitment to each other and to the Allied cause.
Included in the accounts of heroism is Robert Brooks who was shot down over Denmark, captured by the Germans after managing to escape detection for a month, interrogated by the Gestapo and then imprisoned at a prisoner of war camp near Dresden where thousands died from starvation and disease from October 1943 to May 1945.
