Unforgettable tales of heroism, bravery and escape—the remarkable true stories of Canadian soldiers and civilians lost behind enemy lines in the Second World War

The Forgotten tells the story of the more than 10,000 Canadian servicemen, merchant mariners and civilians whose war ended in surrender, capture and imprisonment, through the eyes of a group of men in Hitler’s grasp: Private Stan Darch, who had already survived the cauldron of Dieppe; seventeen civilian priests and brothers captured at sea, one of whom risked his life to hide an escape tunnel after the Great Escape; Edward Carter-Edwards, who endured the hell of Buchenwald concentration camp; and RCAF Sergeant Ian MacDonald, who, having been on the run for six weeks after being shot down, was betrayed to the Gestapo and survived six weeks in the notorious Fresnes Prison in Paris. To survive the often horrid conditions of Stalags across Europe and the hunger marches through the freezing snows of the winter of 1944–45, these otherwise ordinary Canadians demonstrated extraordinary valour and commitment to each other and to the Allied cause.

Nathan M. Greenfield, author of the Governor General’s Award finalist The Damned, shares never-before-heard stories of these forgotten Canadians in thrilling and often heartbreaking detail in a book thateveryone will remember.