An Awesome Silence: A Gunner Padre's Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow

J.L. Granatstein is a history professor at York University and author of
War and Peacekeeping and For Better or For Worse.

The flood of World War II books and memoirs shows no sign of abating,
and likely will not do so until the fiftieth-anniversary commemorations
run out in late 1995. This small volume offers the recollections of a
padre with the 3rd Field Regiment of the 1st Canadian Division. Davis
served with his gunners in England, Sicily, Italy, and northwest Europe;
his account focuses, appropriately enough, on the men’s myriad
personal problems. There were difficulties with women and problems at
home, there were unthinking (and some caring) senior officers, and there
was the shock and horror of combat. This is not great literature, and is
most likely to be of real interest only to old sweats from the 3rd
Field, but it is nonetheless a modest contribution to Canadian war
literature.