Juno Beach

Canada's D-Day Victory: June 6, 1944

By: Mark Zuehlke

Narrated by: Steve Kehela

Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

On June 6, 1944, the greatest armada in history stood off Normandy and the largest amphibious invasion ever began as 107,000 men aboard 6,000 ships pressed toward the coast. Among them were 14,500 Canadians, who were to land on a five-mile-long stretch of rocky ledges fronted by a dangerously exposed beach.

Drawing on personal diaries as well as military records, Juno Beach: Canada's D-Day Victory, June 6, 1944 dramatically depicts Canada's pivotal contribution to the critical Allied battle of World War II.

©2005 Mark Zuehlke (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Interesting and unfamiliar side to the d-day story

What did you like best about this story?

It's similar to the common narrative we frequently read, but gives us the perspective of the "other end" of the Normandy beaches. So if you are into the Normandy story, this is a great addition.

What three words best describe Steve Kehela’s performance?

Bad. Reads like he's half computer. Absolutely horrible German pronunciation - something you'd think they'd screen before narrating a WWII book. Doesn't detract for the story however.

Good book Terrible narrator

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes for someone who is interested in Canadian history.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Get a new narrator, one who has some idea about Canada and has some idea on French and German pronunciation.

How could the performance have been better?

Get a new narrator, one who has some idea about Canada and has some idea on French and German pronunciation.

Did Juno Beach inspire you to do anything?

Read more Canadian history.

Great research, some odd pronunciation.

the book was very well-researched and was very immersive the only thing that took me out of the story was some of the odd pronunciations the speaker chose to do, for example luftwaffe and Regina we're very badly mispronounced. Other than that this was an excellent book and a much-needed account of the Canadians at Juno Beach.

History Little Known...

I really enjoyed listening to this book. I found the stories written from a first person's experience to be interesting. Although there were often mis pronunciations, the story was still compelling.

Canada is famous for being a steadfast ally but little is written about the important role played during D Day. I'm very glad the Canadian soldier's story and sacrifices has finally been told.

Great book, but the narration.....

You would think that if the narrator was going to read a book about Canadian soldiers in France, he would learn how to pronounce Canadian cities & vernacular, and perhaps some French words.

Honestly the content is excellent, but it was hard to get past the poor narration.

Detailed, Delightful & Emotional

Full marks for this audiobook, the narrative thread is very strong which helps capture the personalities of those involved in Juno Beach on D-Day whilst not dropping the ball on providing facts and figures in great detail.

The narrator was very good, but seemed to be struggling with the French and German names, this may have been in an attempt to mark them clearly. He also, after being so exacting with the continental names still didn't get some British place names correct, this wasn't an issue, just a source of a little ammusememt.

I fully reccommend this book. 🇨🇦

Important Canadian book read by an illiterate

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator almost forced me to stop listening to the book. For an important book on such a significant Canadian battle of World War II, one would hope that it would be read by a Canadian. However, the narrator was a dim-witted and completely illiterate American who couldn't even correctly pronounce major Canadian cities, let alone any other "big words". Whoever allowed this Audiobook to go forward with this narration should be fired. A complete DISGRACE!!!

an often overlooked piece of Canadian history

I'm so glad that this book was written to Chronicle the events of DDay at Juno beach. I learned a great deal. My only hope is that more is written to help frame the day from a human and historical perspective. This book makes the attempt but leaves room for improvement.

the performance was ok.. . but the awful pronunciation of French towns and even some Canadian ones had me scratching my head. this seems like a basic qualification for this performance.

Well done book, narration annoying

This is a Canadian telling of the Normandy landings. Overall, well done. The narrator has a problem distinguishing the plural form of abbreviations. So he talks about an LCA (Landing Craft Assault) and when he sees LCAs, he doesn't see that as the plural form of LCA. He reads it as L C A S. It was confusing as I had to catch on that he wasn't talking about someting different. (I had never heard of an LCIS, but I knew what an LCI was.) He also makes some other mistakes like referring to Drop Zone 5, when it's supposed to be the letter V, but he refers to V Corps instead of 5 Corps. If the narration hadn't had these ongoing annoyances this could have been a 5 star book.

Unfortunate narration

Overall this book tells the very critical and often overlooked Canadian landing on June 6,1944, sadly however despite having good tone the narrator clearly had no familiarity with many of the terms, names associated with these events and butchered most of them. Had that not been the case this would have made this a much better listen