Fields of Fire: The Canadians in Normandy

David Bennett is the national director of the Department of Workplace Health, Safety and Environment at the Canadian Labour Congress in Ottawa.

Fields of Fire is a highly accomplished work with three themes: the
story of the Canadian part in the Normandy Campaign of June–August
1944; a critique of Allied strategy in the same battle; and a reply to
critics who have charged that Canadian performance, in leadership and
fighting ability, was poor.

Copp’s critique of Allied strategy is convincing, if not highly
original, and will please most historians, except the Montgomery
hagiographers. The narrative of the battle is excellent. The detailed
story of the Canadian effort is based on primary sources and argues
quite persuasively that, on the whole, the Canadians performed at least
as well as any of the other players in the Battle of Normandy.

The problem is with the third theme—the reply to the critics of
Canadian performance. The critics were (i) the Canadian official
historian, Colonel Stacey, who claimed that the leadership lacked drive;
(ii) Colonel John A. English, who, in The Canadian Army in the Battle of
Normandy (199l), argued that military education, command decisions, and
tactical judgment were all wanting; (iii) condescending Brits who based
their views (if they bothered at all to give reasons for those views) on
the fact that several commanders were fired; and (iv) those who claimed
that the Canadians were responsible for the failure to close the Falaise
Gap, thus allowing tens of thousands of Germans to escape.

The first and third of these, Copp answers very well, except that he
glosses over the failings of the three divisional commanders with the
extraordinary contention that failure of divisional leadership in battle
did not really matter very much. Copp does not address the second critic
directly—which is perplexing, since John English is a Canadian
historian of great stature—nor does he identify the critics of the
Falaise Gap. A possible explanation of these shortcomings is that the
problem is not so much criticism but the fact that the Canadian
contribution to the Battle of Normandy has been ignored, particularly by
the Americans. Copp arguably tries to do too much. It would perhaps have
been better to have presented a story, an analysis, and a critique,
leaving the critics to an appendix of historiography.

For all that, this is the best account, from any country, of the Battle
of Normandy since Carlo D’Este’s Decision in Normandy (1983).