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Homefront and Battlefront: Nelson BC in World War II Sylvia Crooks Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing 2005. 228 pp. Illus. $24.95 paper.
WHEN AUTHOR Sylvia Crooks was a three-year-old growing up in Nelson, a young man named Maurice Latornell taught her how to skate. In 1944, Latornell died during a bombing mission over Berlin. For Crooks, Latornell's death "brought home ... more than any of the newsreels or war movies, the reality of the war" (105). At the time, Crooks did not know how or where Latornell had died. However, she never forgot him and eventually decided to research his life and death, beginning by confirming the spelling of his name on the Nelson cenotaph. This project eventually evolved into Homefront and Battlefront: Nelson, BC, in World War II, a chronicle of the lives of all the men whose names are commemorated on the Nelson cenotaph and the impact of the war on the city. This is a thoroughly researched and poignant book that makes a useful contribution to the history of the West Kootenay region and that will be of interest to historians of British Columbia.
Each chapter of Homefront and Battlefront covers a year of the war, with a final chapter covering some of the men and women who survived and returned home. The method of organization effectively enables the reader to see how the course of the war affected those on the battlefronts and those on the home front in Nelson. Casualties were relatively light during the early years of the...