Rare Courage : Veterans of the Second World War Remember

An astonishing collection of compelling and vivid wartime memories.

As Canada’s tens of thousands of veterans of the Second World War increasingly fall victim to the ravages of time, their personal stories become more and more vital to our understanding of what happened in those pivotal years. In Rare Courage, twenty Canadian veterans candidly describe their experiences in their own words, combined with more than eighty photographs and artifacts from the Dominion Institute and the veterans’ personal collections.

Rare Courage takes readers to the sinking of the Bismarck and to the bloody beaches of Normandy. It describes the poignant search of a Jewish nurse for survivors of the Holocaust and chilling tales of shot-down airmen on the run in occupied Europe. Many of the stories shed light on little-known aspects of the war: Did you know that almost all the pioneering radar officers on British warships were Canadians? Or that a Canadian major-league baseball star ended up a prisoner in Stalag Luft 13? This is not dry, academic history, but a book that breathes with vivid details. Rare Courage celebrates the heroism and remembers the horror of the Second World War.

Rod Mickleburgh is a veteran journalist who has worked in television and radio and for numerous newspapers, including The Globe and Mail, where he has been for fifteen years. He is a co-winner of the prestigious Michener Award for his coverage of Canada’s tainted blood scandal. He lives in Vancouver. Rudyard Griffiths is the Executive Director of the Dominion Institute.