Seven Days in Hell: Canada's Battle for Normandy and the Rise of the Black Watch Snipers

by David O'Keefe

AT THE BEST OF TIMES SOLDIERS, LIKE ATHLETES, ARE an overly superstitious lot. Much of this has to do with the lack of control they experience when consumed by the context of combat. Facing the fear, trepidation and horror that walk hand in hand with war, soldiers tend to turn to some good luck charm, or engage in a series of rituals, hoping to influence their fate or their luck. Sergeant Fred Janes of the intelligence section, who had been Lieutenant Stan Duffield’s senior colleague at the Royal Bank of Canada during peacetime and was now his subordinate, kept a bank key ring clipped to his webbing.8 Harold Burden, the division’s middleweight boxing champion, tucked his good luck charm, a rabbit’s foot, into his sniper’s smock, while Captain John Kemp squirrelled away his father’s Colt .45 from the Great War in a secret pocket of his battledress tunic.9 Private Alex Duncan, the notoriously clumsy member of the scout platoon, maintained complete faith in his St. Christopher’s medal—he believed it had helped him cheat death on several occasions during training.10 Dale Sharpe kept a souvenir coin he had picked up while on leave in London, along with a photograph of his wife and three children.11 Barney Benson carried a silver flask engraved with R.E.H., which some suggested were the initials of his mysterious fiancée, whom they only knew as Ruth.12 Highly spiritual men such as sniper Tommy Latham and his former rifle platoon mate Private Johnny Breslin, both devout Roman Cat...