"On June 6, 1944, nearly 15,000 Canadians-at sea, in the air and on the land-joined the long-anticipated D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe on the Normandy beaches. The piece of ground, on which the Canadians fought heavily armed and embedded German troops, had the codename Juno. On that day, Canadian troops fought their way farther inland than any other Allied force. For Canada, and all Canadians, this was a coming of age, an extraordinary moment of courage and sacrifice. To capture the essence of that historic amphibious landing, author Ted Barris employs a style that has made all his wartime histories bestsellers. Over many years of comprehensive research and interviewing, while they were still with us, he gathered the voices of hundreds of veterans-airmen, sailors, tankers, infantrymen, artillerymen, paratroops, signallers, medical personnel, medics, padres and embedded war correspondents-to peace together each step of the invasion at Juno Beach. In what has been described as Canada's longest day, readers follow the course of action minute by minute, hour by hour, as Canada's invasion force clears mines from the English Channel, delivers paratroops to inland drop zones, bombards the defensive works ashore, runs the gauntlet of German enfilade on the run-in to the beaches and breaches Hitler's Fortress Europe, all in twenty-four hours." -- Back cover.