These interviews were conducted in 2007 as part of the TV Series, Battlefield Mysteries, for History Channel in Canada. We were very lucky to be able to interview the most important men involved in this famous, maybe legendary, and very brief encounter, that took place on August 8, 1944 during Operation Totalize.
The battlefield was littered with the wreckage of 5 German Tiger tanks, including the Tiger 007, the tank of the highest scoring SS Panzer Ace, Michael Wittmann. Wittmann was a legend to the Germans and his loss was devastating to the moral of the men but the Allies hadn't heard of him until 1983 when his remains were recovered from a lost grave in Normandy. Who killed Michael Wittmann? We had to recreate a 15 minute battle that took place 63 years earlier.
Return to the Canadian battlefields of World War II with renowned military historian Norm Christie.
In their own words, the men who fought tell their stories, and we discover how the naive amateur soldiers of 1914 became, by 1918, perhaps the most feared, efficient and deadly Allied Corps on the Western Front.
Norm traces the origins of the Korean war, from the North Korean Invasion in June 1950, the battle for the Pusan Perimeter, the arrival of the Canadians, their first actions and the stand of the 2nd Patricias at Kapyong in April 1951.
Few realize that 20,000 of the 60,000 Canadians killed in the Great War are Missing. Norm shows how we can resolve some of the mysteries of The Missing. It explains the many reasons that so many soldiers simply vanished from the battlefields. There is particular reference to the missing cemetery that contains 44 soldiers of the Canadian Scottish (including William Milne VC), killed April 9th, 1917 on the Vimy battlefield, CA40.
Norm Christie examines old battlefields and visits the cemeteries and memorials that hold the secrets to the legacy and sacrifices of Canadians. Also, the Special Operations Executive ran underground operations against the Nazi occupiers, and provided a spirit of resistance to the isolated French people. And much more!