Historian Tim Cook was a frequent contributor to Legion Magazine. He died on Oct. 25, 2025.
[Marie Louise Deruaz]

A Cornish toast to historian Tim Cook

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

The traditional Cornish fishing village of Mevagissey, situated on the west coast of England, seemed like as good a place as any to discover the works of Canada’s “preeminent military historian” Tim Cook. It was a pleasant enough day, just after Christmas, while outside, parting clouds and a tame ocean breeze presented prime conditions for exploration—to amble along cobbled streets, to frequent ye olde pubs, perhaps even to trek through the hills bound for oh-so-near Pentewan.

The urge, however, was absent. Quayside saunters and savoured pints could wait. Far more tantalizing was Cook’s newly unwrapped tome, The Necessary War, Volume 1: Canadians Fighting The Second World War: 1939-1943, a gift from a bemused father-in-law wondering why a Brit would desire such a seemingly obscure read.

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Victoria Cross Medal (left). Private Jess Randall Larochelle (right). [CORPORAL ISSA PARÉ, RIDEAU HALL © OSGG-BSGG, 2007; DND]

Campaign group renews efforts to award Jess Larochelle the Victoria Cross

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Canadian Armed Forces veteran Bruce Moncur knows what makes a legend. He wasn’t present to witness the exploits of Royal Canadian Regiment comrade, Jess Randall Larochelle, on Oct. 14, 2006, having himself been wounded in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan several weeks earlier, but he didn’t need to. Why would he, the now-5th grade teacher argues, when the tale spoke for itself?

That day, Larochelle’s platoon encountered a numerically superior Taliban force while manning a remote observation post. Two soldiers had already been killed when the Restoule, Ont., private, having sustained a broken back and fractured neck vertebrae amid the battle, all but singlehandedly fought off 40 insurgents by machine gun and rocket-propelled grenade for an hour, perhaps even more.

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A collage of veteran Ann Burke’s time as a radar plotter in the Royal Canadian Navy in the 1960s. [Courtesy Ann Burke]

Memoir: Veteran recalls a special relationship with HMCS Bonaventure, Canada’s last aircraft carrier

STORY BY ANN BURKE

I have harboured a deep love of the sea and ships for most of my life. My enlistment into the Royal Canadian Navy in the 1960s was fuelled by this interest and fresh memories of living aboard a yacht on the south coast of England before immigrating to Canada. I recalled being tethered to the mast in a sudden English Channel gale and, earlier in my life, a reckless excursion of rowing beyond the limits of an Isle of Wight harbour with another girl to get a close-up look at HMS Queen Elizabeth. Fortunately, the latter adventure ended happily after a little help from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

As a youngster, I would sit for hours listening to stories shared by a Royal Navy chaplain who secretly delivered mail to ships off the coast of the Isle of Wight as they covertly awaited their orders for the D-Day invasion. I also spent hours looking at the wonderful ships he made from matchsticks, and I treasure the paintings he gave me as a child.

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The new graphic novel Separated from Santo. [Courtesy Heritage House Publishing]

New graphic novel highlights Italian-Canadian internment during WW II

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Teacher Brian Barazzuol was around eight years old when he first heard the wartime story of his great-grandfather, Santo Pasqualini. It was a tale not of fortitude in battle, nor even of bearing arms for King and country at all.

The resiliency was there, unquestionably, but the familial fight in the Second World War had taken on a far more personal guise, a then-adolescent Barazzuol had discovered. His ancestor was one of 31,000 Italian Canadians declared so-called enemy aliens, some 600 of whom—Pasqualini among them—were interned.

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