Newfoundlanders initially viewed World War II as a foreign conflict and believed that the violence in Europe could not spread to these shores. That complacency was shaken on March 3, 1942, when U-587 fired torpedoes at St. John's during the first German attack on North American soil. In the months that followed, U-boats destroyed ships at Lance Cove and Wabana on Bell Island. And in a fatal surface attack on the Newfoundland ferry Caribou, German submarines sent it to the bottom of the Atlantic with the loss of 137 lives. Battlefront Newfoundland records and preserves the provocative history of Newfoundland and its people during these dramatic years of WWII. Jack Fitzgerald is the bestselling author of Crimes that Shocked Newfoundland and The Jack Ford Story: Newfoundland's POW in Nagasaki.

Jack Fitzgerald was born and educated in St. John's, Newfoundland. During his career he has been a journalist, a feature writer and political columnist with the St. John's Daily News; a reporter and public affairs writer with CJON and VOCM News Services; editor of the Newfoundland Herald and the Newfoundland Chronicle. During the last years of the Smallwood administration he was assistant director of Public Relations with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. He has also worked as Assistance Officer with the Department of Social Services. Jack Fitzgerald also hosted a regular radio program featuring off-beat Newfoundland stories on radio station VOFM.

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