This key title in the acclaimed Battle Zone Normandy series explores Operations Totalize and Tractable.

Originally published: Stroud: Sutton, 2004.

The Battle of the Falaise Pocket was a disaster for the Germans in August 1944. This books sets the battle in the context of Allied Strategy in Northern Europe. Having set the scene, the readers is led through each phase of the action. The particular strength is that it draws heavily on German sources giving the reader a penetrating insight into an army trapped in a killing ground.

For seven weeks after D-Day, hundreds of thousands of Allied troops were bottled up along the landing beaches. Finally, 3,000 American and British planes bombarded a narrow path into enemy territory, and the Allies surrounded 100,000 die-hard Germans at Falaise. Breuer's stirring reconstruction of the battle as seen from both sides makes this one of the best WWII books of recent years.--JOHN BARKHAM REVIEWS. 34 photos.

Battalion- and company-level account of the vital contributions of Canadian soldiers to victory in Europe in World War II. Based on war diaries, casualty reports, and after-action interviews. The author is one of Canada's preeminent military historians.