John Boileau and Dan Black tell the stories of some of the 30,000
underage youths -- some as young as fourteen -- who joined the Canadian
Armed Forces in the Second World War. This is the companion volume to
the authors' popular 2013 book Old Enough to Fight about boy soldiers
in the First World War. Like their predecessors a generation before,
these boys managed to enlist despite their youth. Most went on to face
action overseas in what would become the deadliest military conflict in
human history.
They enlisted for a myriad of personal reasons -- ranging from the
appeal of earning regular pay after the unemployment and poverty of the
Depression to the desire to avenge the death of a brother or father
killed overseas. Canada's boy soldiers, sailors and airmen saw
themselves contributing to the war effort in a visible, meaningful way,
even when that meant taking on very adult risks and dangers of combat.
Meticulously researched and extensively illustrated with photographs,
personal documents and specially commissioned maps, Too Young to Die
provides a touching and fascinating perspective on the Canadian
experience in the Second World War.
Among the individuals whose stories are told:
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Ken Ewing, at age sixteen taken prisoner at Hong Kong and then a
teenager in a Japanese prisoner of war camp
-
Ralph Frayne, so determined to fight that he enlisted in the army,
navy and Merchant Navy all before the age of seventeen
-
Robert Boulanger, at age eighteen the youngest Canadian to die on the
Dieppe beaches
