by George G. Blackburn. I've just acquired this book, two books bound into one, about 1000 pages, for the grand sum of £2.99 from Book World, a local cheap bookshop. If you have an interest in seeing what the NW Europe campaign looked like from an infantryman's foxhole, you need to read this book. Packed with all the detail left out by official histories (even includes how Compo rations were made up & what they tasted like!), it covers the career of a Canadian artillery FOO from July 1944 to May 1945.
Sorry if I've posted this in the wrong place, it was quite hard to decide which subject it fitted in, as it includes literally everything, even including the enemy units he was firing at.

I think that book is part of a trilogy. The 3rd book is called "Where the Hell are the Guns?!"

The book you described sounds like a really great read!

For anyone looking to get a really good insight as to life in the line, Blackburns trilogy are absolutely required reading. As a professional journalist, hs writing style is well above average for even good history books and the level of detail he has put into these three tomes is beyond belief.

From the really funny stuff to the tragic to the absolutely petrifying, these books cover it all. If you can read these and not have about 50 amazing diorama ideas leaping abuot your brainpan, well, you have no artistic soul at all.

One of the images that these books burned into my brain is the situation one night in June while his Regiment is on call for emergency SOS and harassment missions. They have been firing all day, it is pouring rain, absolutely everyone is completely shagged out and yet the calls for arty keep coming in from infantry regiments being attacked nonstop in the beachhead. He tells of the regiment pretty much collapsing into sleep with a single man operating each of the regiment's guns and a couple guys in the plotting positions. Loading, laying and firing. All night. In shifts. The breeches of the guns recoiling into the ponds that the gunpits had become. Gouts of steam rising off the gently glowing barrels each time the breech splashes water on the lone gunner and his piece. Hour after raining hour.

By the time the the regiment was stood down in the mid morning a tally showed that the regiment had shot just over 24,000 rounds in a single 24 hour period. Imagine that. That's 1000 rds per hour for a full day. 1000 rounds per gun spread out during that day. 1000 rounds weighing about 35 pds plus boxes to be humped 200 yards across the fields to the pits.

The mind boggles.

Paul