A Chance for Glory

It is 1939. Three young men from the same small Canadian town, eager to be part of the history of their time, go off to war. Johnny Henderson, to escape his father's wrath, sails to England, determined to become a pilot in the R. A. F.. Gordon Cooper, a young lawyer with a promising career, joins the Royal Regiment of Toronto and heads overseas, where, after being involved in espionage for the British, he takes part in the Dieppe Raid. Keith Reid's destiny takes him to Hong Kong, to a fierce but hopeless battle against the Japanese, followed by a lengthy term as a Prisoner of War. This is a flesh and blood story of deep emotions, of pain and joy, of love between men and women, between parents and their children. Colleen Mitchell is a nurse, who travels overseas to work in Canadian field hospitals. Frances Easton, an American feminist, finds herself trapped in conservative values she has previously scorned. Gillian Crosswell represents the thousands of English women with whom Canadian and American men formed passionate alliances. Audrey Gage joins the Red Cross Women's Corp in order to pursue her unfaithful husband and becomes acquainted with an entirely different person within herself. This book has been ten years in the making. It is based on years of research and personal interviews with veterans in every branch of military service, and with former P. O. W.s. Research into previously unopened files of the Tokyo War Crime Trials, of correspondence between Mountbatten and Hughes-Hallett, of numerous private diaries and letters home form its basis. The truth that is foremost in A Chance for Glory, is what hovers in the hearts and brains of those who go off to war, - the intensity of love they have known, the desire to die if they must, as soldiers before them have died, bravely and honourably. It is a story which will appeal to every generation- to those in their wild and fiery youth, and to parents, who are helpless to do anything but be spectators of a tragedy they are able to predict.