# Shock Troops By Tim Cook



## dangerboy (19 Oct 2008)

"*Shock Troops - Canadians Fighting the Great War 1917-1918, Volume Two*" by Tim Cook.  Shock Troops is the companion volume to "At The Sharp End" http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/70596.0.html and covers the latter part of WWI.  As you can guess the book starts off with the Battle of Vimy Ridge and then moves on to the rest of the battles, Hill 70, Amiens and Passchendaele to name a few.  It also talks about the formation of the Canadian Corp and of Generals Byng and Currie.  The author has like the previous volume chosen to present the war from the Infantry point of war, so you will not hear much about the other arms except where they supported the Infantry.  It then ends with the author explaining how Canadian society treated the returning veterans and how post war generations came to view the "Great War".

If you liked his first book, then you will probably enjoy this book also.  I would recommend it to anyone looking for books on the Canadian involvement in WWI.

"*Shock Troops - Canadians Fighting the Great War 1917-1918 Volume Two* "by Tim Cook.  Hardcover, 728 pages, published by Viking Canada, ISBN: 978-0-670-06735-0.  Canadian price $40.00


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## ltmaverick25 (25 Oct 2008)

I just finished reading this and the first volume to go with it.  This 2 volume set is one of the best, all encompassing books available on Canada's military contribution to the Great War.


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## dangerboy (10 Feb 2009)

First World War book wins prize

Ottawa author honoured for gripping history

By Louisa Taylor, The Ottawa CitizenFebruary 10, 2009 4:03 AM
  


Tim Cook, an historian at the Canadian War Museum, takes the reader into the trenches with his new book on the First World War which has won the Charles Taylor Prize.


It has been a busy year on many fronts for Ottawa author Tim Cook.

Last summer, he saw the opening of an exhibition he curated on trench life in the First World War at the Canadian War Museum. Later, he celebrated the arrival of his third child, and published his latest book to excellent reviews. Gripping history seen largely though the eyes of the men who fought it, Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War 1917-18, is the second of two volumes Mr. Cook has written chronicling the war. Yesterday, that book captured the top honour at the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.

The jury of Jeffrey Simpson, Shirley Thomson and Warren Cariou praised Mr. Cook's "unstoppable narrative momentum" and said "what shines through most brilliantly is the complex humanity of the soldiers, the officers and the family at home."

The two volumes on the Great War were written "for all Canadians," says Mr. Cook, who relied on quotes from soldiers' letters home, diaries and first-person accounts to bring the mud and blood of the conflict closer to modern readers.

"The ripples from the death and destruction in this war were unimaginable, every town in this country has got a memorial from the First World War. This is the war where Canada experienced mass death."

Mr. Cook, 37, has been the Great War historian at the Canadian War Museum since 2002, when he moved from Library and Archives Canada to help set up the new museum.

He has written several other books, which he describes as "more academic."

"Being nominated for the Charles Taylor Prize says to me that I've achieved part of my goal, which was to tell these stories in an evocative manner, while solidly underpinned by the archival research," says Mr. Cook.

"Stories of the Canadians really drive the narrative."

"I've read tens of thousands of letters and diaries," adds Mr. Cook. "Imagine how hard it was to sit down in a trench with the lice and the rats and the mud and your friends dying around you and you write this 500-word letter. ... There's power in those words."

An Ottawa native, Mr. Cook grew up in Beacon Hill and went to Colonel By High School.

Two other books were nominated for the Taylor Prize this year.

Queen's University history professor Ana Siljak was nominated for Angel of Vengeance: The Girl Assassin, The Governor of St. Petersburg and Russia's Revolutionary World. Toronto academic Elizabeth Abbott was nominated for Sugar: A Bittersweet History, chronicling the history of sugar and the cost of its popularity.

The $25,000 prize, which honours the memory of the late Charles Taylor, a former Globe and Mail reporter and author, marks its 10th anniversary this year. It was founded by Mr. Taylor's widow, Noreen, and his sister, Judith Mappin. University of Ottawa literature professor David Staines is one of the prize trustees.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen


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## Ronald Poirier (31 Mar 2009)

SHOCK TROOPS by Tim Cook includes an excellent description of Vimy Ridge. However,no mention is made of the involvement of the 22 Infanty Battalion even though the Royal 22ieme Regiment displays Vimy on its Colours. Furthermore, the history of the Regiment (Histoire du 
Royal 22e Regiment 1964 Pélican) states that the Regiment participated in the Battle of Vimy in April and June 1917. Is this an oversight on Mr Cook's part?


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## Michael OLeary (31 Mar 2009)

Ronald Poirier said:
			
		

> SHOCK TROOPS by Tim Cook includes an excellent description of Vimy Ridge. However,no mention is made of the involvement of the 22 Infanty Battalion even though the Royal 22ieme Regiment displays Vimy on its Colours. Furthermore, the history of the Regiment (Histoire du
> Royal 22e Regiment 1964 Pélican) states that the Regiment participated in the Battle of Vimy in April and June 1917. Is this an oversight on Mr Cook's part?



From the War Diary of the 22nd Bn, CEF, they went into the battle as "moppers up" behind the attacks of the 24th, 25th and 26th Battalions, not as an attacking battalion themselves.

War Diary; 22nd Canadian Infantry Battalion


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