This book will become a classic on conflict from the perspective of a chaplain....Padre Wilmot's story provides...personalities that bring this story to life, where other histories provide only dry statistics and commentary....For padres and other support professionals, this book is thought provoking, as the essence of the challenges and coping strategies remain the same sixty years later. If nothing else, this book should serve as a catalyst to discussions on the roles of these professionals and the relationships with the chain of command at all levels.

Through the Hitler Line is a concise history of the West Nova Scotia Regiment's campaign in Italy...it should be read in the schools, so that a generation becoming more and more separated from the reality of World War II may know the anatomy of sacrifice, and be convinced that war is not just a video game.

Wilmot's memoir is a story of remarkable faith, discipline, and determination....[which] allows us a detailed and honest view into regimental life...[and] also [provides] a valuable study in military leadership....In the end this work is a powerful testament of faith. In our more secular world, it seems jarring to read how Wilmot, amid the carnage, continued his daily ritual of prayer, meditation, and Bible study. But his clear, honest prose reflects a moral certainty that is very moving. Few wartime memoirs are better.

A remarkable and unique view of war from a non-combatant.

Provides a comprehensive answer to the question, 'What does a chaplain do in a war zone?' [as well as offering] some insights on and vignettes of the men in the West Nova Scotia Regiment who played their small, but heroic, part in defeating the Axis forces in Europe.

If you need to be persuaded that we have to find another and a better way of settling international disputes than war, then read Wilmot's wartime journal and be convinced.

In his book Through the Hitler Line: Memoirs of an Infantry Chaplain, Laurence Wilmot admitted a chaplain's role could sometimes be confusing. At first he felt 'the military considered clergy...an unnecessary nusiance and interference' in the middle of battle. The padres, he said, proclaimed the peace of God to men sworn to war. Like most padres, Wilmot created a role for himself assisting the medics, retrieving casualties on stretchers from the battlefields, caring for the dead and their personal effects, writing to families, providing comfort and aid to soldiers regardless of their faith. Wilmot was one of many padres decorated for bravery.

This is a rather good military memoir. The late Canon Laurence Wilmot's book provides rare insights into frontline combat conditions through the eyes of a World War II army chaplain.... His compassionate depiction of the courage and self-sacrifice displayed by the so-called ordinary Canadians--while neither glorifying war nor belittling warriors--documents the price of the freedom we enjoy to this day. Wilmot's description of infantry fighting in Italy is as good as it gets. He is particularly vivid when describing a little-known battle at the Arielli. He served in the thick of things there, working as a frontline stretcher-bearer, helping to bring in scores of wounded men while under heavy enemy fire himself. He conveys his compassion and devotion to the soldiers without a flicker of self-aggrandizement. The book-jacket blurb is the only way you would know he was awarded the Military Cross for bravery in 1944.

The late Laurence Wilmot's memoirs rarely touch on abstract theological issues, but he was an acute observer an ddevout Anglican priest whose service with the Canadian army in Italy during World War II tested his faith, courage, and physical strength to the limit....Readers will be rewarded with provocative insights into what is called the ministry of presence, as well as how Wilmot sustained this ministry in extraordinarily brutal times. His book will provide cause for reflection and insight for all who minister, civilian or military.