721. Mad Mitch's Tribal Law
by Aaron Edwards
This was not a terrible book but it was a disappointment. Aaron Edwards is a lecturer at Sandhurst, specialising in terrorism and counter insurgency. So, he is good on the seedy incompetence of civil service, intelligence service and politicians when it comes to Aden in the run- up to 1968. But the book is peppered with red flags. Why would a Shackleton need to open the undercarriage doors to drop bombs? There is no such newspaper as the Glasgow Sunday Mail. Only an illiterate would refer to "13 forces" killed or injured. Stirling may have been in the Argylls' recruiting area but it's men were to a large extent drawn from the slums of Glasgow and the grim Clydeside towns to the west. Also of concern was referring to Lt. Col Colin Mitchell, the Mad Mitch of the title, pretty much throughout as simply Colin. Edwards is naive when he rejects the allegations of brutality against Mitchell's men due to a lack of corroboration. Five years after Aden the whole battalion, approximately 500 men, kept quiet for a further decade about the murder of two men on a Northern Irish farm by members of the regiment. I can't help feeling Edwards wanted to write about Aden and was advised to bring the Argylls in to spice the story up to get a Scottish publisher. Another red flag was provided by some of the opening chapter paragraphs that are obviously meant to read like a thriller. I was puzzled as to how he knew what people about to be gunned down were thinking and felt.
720. Slim, Master of War
by Dr Robert Lyman
Former British Army officer Robert Lyman makes a good fist of arguing that William Slim was the country's greatest general of the Second World War. The book looks at the Burma Campaign 1942-45 at a divisional and corps level. Lyman follows how Slim succeeded in getting his men out of Burma, managing the British Army's longest retreat in history - and let's not forget that successful retreats are the toughest of military operations. Then how Slim built an army capable of defeating the Japanese. Lyman also explains how he forced the Japanese to fight on his terms at Imphal and in the process grievously mauled their 15th Army. Though Lyman has to admit Slim underestimated the threat to Kohima. Then Slim foxed the Japanese with a surprise crossing of the Chindwin River and showed himself to be a master of armoured warfare on the plains beyond. Lyman argues that Slim's command style and grasp of strategy set a template for how modern wars should be conducted. Some of Lyman's campaign accounts are a little hard to follow, but then as the Duke of Wellington said, one can no more give an accurate account of a battle than of a society ball.
719. Warriors in Scarlet
by Ian Knight
This look at Victorian-era soldiering wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be. I was expecting more first- hand accounts of what it was like to be A Soldier of the Queen. Instead, there was more in the way of campaign accounts. Prolific writer and expert on Victoria's wars Ian Knight does not pull many punches when it comes to the savagery on both sides of many of the conflicts in the first part of Victoria 's reign. The book starts with the first soldier to die after Victoria's accession, an officer killed during an armed insurrection in Kent. The book also takes in the little known campaigns against the Xhosa in South Africa, the Maori in New Zealand and the Sikhs in India. Knight takes as his cutoff point the Indian Mutiny's conclusion in 1859 when the last of the senior officers who had cut their teeth with Wellington in the Peninsular War finally faded from the picture. Knight makes some interesting points but I was disappointed by the lack of Scottish content. After all, Scots were far less likely to be as illiterate as their English, Welsh and Irish contemporaries during the period in question and therefore more likely to have written about their experiences. This is a good book but not Knight's best work.
718. Chastise: The Dambusters
by Max Hastings
This proved to be a very readable account of the legendary 1943 Dambusters raids from prolific military writer Max Hastings. He doesn't get bogged down in the technicalities but gives enough detail to make the science understandable. Sadly, he seems more interested in his fellow private school boys who took part than in the other aircrew. But that is a minor quibble. Also sadly, Hastings as explains that although the key Mohne Dam was breached by the bouncing bombs, the neighbouring Sorpe also had to be destroyed for the scheme to succeed and due to its construction was always very unlikely to succumb to the bouncing bombs. The RAF failure to prevent repairs to the Mohne after the raid through conventional bombing was also a major blunder. Hastings devotes a lot of space to German accounts of the catastrophic flooding caused by the breaching of the Mohne. An interesting and not too long read.
717. Spearhead Assault
by John Geddes
Many of the early accounts of the fighting at Goose Green during the 1982 Falklands War didn't make a lot of sense. It eventually transpired that this was an attempt to protect the reputation of 2 Para's commander and VC winner Lt.Col H Jones. Spearhead Assault is a look at the battle through the eyes of a corporal and his mates published 25 years afterwards. "John Geddes" comes across as articulate and professional and there is no sign of ghost writer SquaddieSpeak. 2 Para faced a deadly network of mutually supporting Argentinian machine gun positions. Two suggestions to break the deadlock from battalion officers were brusquely, and rudely, rejected by Jones and men died in virtual suicide missions ordered by him. After he was killed by the machine guns, the suggested solutions, outflanking the Argentinians via a beach and using the Milan antitank missiles against the machine gun nests, were implemented and the battle was won. This is not a hatchet job but an attempt to tell the story of the battle from the point of view of the men in the frontline. "Geddes" went on to join the SAS and left the Army in 1997 as Warrant Officer. He now heads a private security business. The descriptions of the fighting are first class. I'll be surprised if this book isn't shortlisted for the 2024 Book of the Year.
716. Dilemmas of the Desert War
by Michael Carver
I’d wanted to read this examination of the Libyan Campaign of 1940 to 1942 by Field Marshal Michael Carver for some time. Carver was a staff officer in the desert and knew or worked for several of the key participants. Sadly, there didn’t seem to be much more information or insight than appeared in his 1960s books about Tobruk and Alamein. And as with Tobruk, I had trouble following his descriptions of the battles. Though, perhaps, he is reflecting the confusion of the time. The book, written around 1986, appears to be intended to set the record straight when it comes to 8th Army commander Neil Ritchie, much maligned and criticised for his supposedly lacklustre performance and finally replaced by his boss Claude Auchinlek. Carver argues Ritchie was badly let down by some of his Corps and Divisional commanders. A former head of the British Army, Carver is critical of several of the desert generals, including Archie Wavell, Auchinlek and Erwin Rommel. The book has very little to say about the battles at El Alamein and at the end of day adds little to what Carver said in his 1960s books. An interesting but not classic read.
715. A Million Bullets
by James Fergusson
I had hoped this book would be more of an overall look at the British military’s activities in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014. But instead Edinburgh-based journalist, and old Etonian, James Fergusson focuses on the initial deployment to Helmand in 2006. The battlegroup involved was built around 3 Para and as they were co-operating with another book, author Fergusson wasn’t able to get much out of them. But he did get good interviews from the Gurkha, Royal Fusiliers, Household Cavalry, Royal Irish, RAF and Royal Army Air Corps units involved. Fergusson, an experienced foreign correspondent, questions whether the whole British approach wasn’t flawed from the start. The points he makes are intelligent and time was to prove this 2008 book’s criticisms were borne out. Fergusson also managed to interview some Taliban fighters and showed some sympathy for their point of view. I came away less sure than Fergusson as to who was to blame for the flawed initial deployment.
714. Battlefields of the Second World War
by Richard Holmes
Doyen of British military historians Richard Holmes can be spotty. Some good stuff, some OK stuff and some dreadful and error ridden stuff. After a promising start, this look at four British battles of the Second World War slides back to OK. The look at Alamein is perhaps the strongest and Casino makes some good points too. There was little new or insightful in his account of Market Garden/Arnhem and the chapter on Bomber Command is little more than a rehash of other authors’ work. The book was a tie-in with a BBC TV series.
713. Born Fearless
by Phil Campion
The photos in this book suggested that Private Military Contractor Phil Campion would be discussing his days in the SAS and the Royal Hampshire Regiment, later the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment, as well as his work at a mercenary. But, nope, some discussion of his time with the Hampshires and brief mentions of the SAS but mainly this book is about his subsequent work on what is known as The Circuit. Luckily, Campion has some excellent tales to tell of jobs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza and the Red Sea. And he tells them very well. No real sign of any ghost-written SquaddieSpeak. Campion spent a lot of childhood in care but managed to win a scholarship to a private boarding school. Campion appears to be a character and a scrapper. So, he didn’t last long in boarding school and his career in the British Army was rocky. This book was a pleasant surprise.
712. Singapore 1942
by Chris Brown
I think I'm going to put this offering from History Press's Battle Story series up for the 2024 Book of the Year. This is on the basis of I wish I could have written such a succinct and wise little primer on what I think was the biggest surrender in British military history. The Battle Story series would make excellent high school history text books. They follow a fixed recipe which includes illustrations, maps and little side boxes, often about equipment or personalities. Shetland author Chris Brown is an excellent guide to how a Japanese force only a third of the size, certainly less than half, of the British Empire and Commonwealth defenders shattered London's hold on East Asia. The seeds of the disaster were sown long before the Japanese invaded Malaya but British incompetence meant a poor hand was played exceptionally badly. Brown is not slow to blame racism as a major factor in events. Brown lived in Singapore as a child and his lifelong interest in the battle and background knowledge pay off in this excellent little book.
711. One Bullet Away
by Nathaniel Fick
I left this US Marine Corps memoir on the secondhand bookshop shelf several times. Then the price dropped below the equivalent of a pound and I thought I'd risk it. Author Nathaniel Fick served with the US Marines in both the invasions Afghanistan and Iraq. The Marines are one of the more competent branches of the American military. But no one plays a perfect game, so I think Fick is not being entirely candid. Though the book is not without criticisms. Usually, a sure sign that one is coming is that Fick does not name the superior officer involved. Fick is good on the dilemmas faced by a platoon commander. One was what to say to his men when they criticised stupid decisions made by superior officers and he had to balance discipline and belief in the chain of command with them losing confidence in him. Another is when he delays a search to give medical aid to an Iraqi teenager and therefore possibly missed a finding cache of anti aircraft missiles which may have been used later to down US helicopters. An interesting book. Though I would have thought a classics graduate from an expensive university would have known that it's impossible to celebrate a six month anniversary.
710. France Summer 1940
by John Williams
This is a look at the collapse of France in 1940 through a French prism from the Ballantine's Illustrated History of the Second World War stable. Most English language books tend to focus on the activities of the British Expeditionary Force and Dunkirk or the Panzer thrust through the Ardennes. Author John Williams was a former British officer and so his criticisms of the French Army have to be taken seriously. Basically he says France was lost within the opening couple of days when its army showed that it would be unable to organise a piss- up in a brewery. French politicians were not much better. As usual with the Ballantine histories, lots of maps, tons of photographs and a smattering of equipment line drawings.
709. Jack Tar
by Roy and Lesley Adkins
This look at life on board the warships of Nelson's time was somehow lacklustre and pedestrian. I can't quite put my finger on why. Husband and wife Roy and Lesley Adkins are best known for their book about the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. That book would have involved delving into a lot of memoirs. This book seems like an attempt to get another book out of that research. The book touches on most aspects of life on a Georgian warship, from storms to hammocks to prostitution. It is hard to disagree with the notion that those in jail were better off because prisons seldom sink. The book quotes widely from memoirs and that might be part of the reason that it was a slog at times: late 18th and early 19th Century prose seems turgid and bloated to the 21st Century eye. I think maybe the book is 25% too long. I didn't hate this book but I felt it represented an excellent idea poorly executed. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood.
708. Brothers in Arms
by James Holland
This excellent book follows the fortunes of the tankmen of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry from D-Day through to the German Surrender. It's rare to come across such an evocative account of tank warfare. Without overdoing it, James Holland, almost has the reader smelling the petrol, the cordite and the sweat. The SRY was a Sherman equipped close infantry support unit which saw more action in Northwest Europe than almost any other tank unit: usually one squadron per battalion in an infantry brigade. During the course of the campaign the squadrons lost 150% of their established strength. Holland consulted numerous books and war diaries. But it is to his credit that he appears to have got so much out of the SRY veterans he interviewed for the book. This one is definitely being shortlisted for the 2024 Book of the Year.
707. Prelude to Waterloo: Quatre Bras
by Andrew W Field
This is a look at what is often treated as just a skirmish two days before the 1815 Battle of Waterloo - seen through French eyes. An interesting idea and former army officer Andrew Field pulls it off. The battle featured the Royal Scots, Camerons, Gordons, and the Black Watch. Field is able to bring a professional eye to his appreciations of events at the key crossroads. He also seems very well informed about the French Army of 1815, both the positive and the negative. None of the key players play a perfect game; Wellington, Napoleon, Ney, d'Erlon, or Blucher. Field gamely attempts to untangle the hindsight fueled blame game which resulted from Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. Crucial to this is not only who ordered whom to do what but also when the order in question was given and delivered. The Fog of War blows thick over the battlefield.
706. The Second World War: A Military History
by Gordon Corrigan
Former Gurkha officer Gordon Corrigan sometimes has some interesting things to say. I thought this look at the Second World War by a military professional might be worth a look. It was. But it was also a bit of a curate's egg. His thoughts on Churchill, Montgomery, and many of the other Allied leaders were interesting. Though he let some of Americans off too easily and was a little too awestruck by some of Germans. But he also made several rookie mistakes like mixing up the Camerons and the Cameronians. And I'm not sure which Canadian division was involved in the Rhine Crossing. And were the Gurkhas really the best troops on the Allied side? His coverage the Bomber Campaign against Germany seemed to be to be simply a condensation of Robin Neillands's The Bomber War. So, stimulating and interesting but I wouldn't rely on this book if studying for the History Higher exam. Also, it's not clear if some of the footnotes, which resonate like the letters to the editor from a reactionary Home Counties retired colonel, are supposed to be tongue in cheek. Funny is hard.
705. Ghosts: An Illustrated History of the SAS
by Ken Connor
This book turned out to an edited down version of SAS veteran Ken Connor's Ghost Force, only with a lot more pictures. Connor served with the regiment during what may turn out to have been its golden years through the 1960s to just after the Falklands War. Connor seems to be a real insider with good sources and an eye for a good story and telling detail. He's not afraid to criticise. But generally the book is a sympathetic portrait. Connor takes a shrewd and insightful view of what the regiment is and what it is not. The book goes through to the end of the First Gulf War. It has to be hoped that fiasco was the nadir of the regiment's history. I hadn't realised how much control of the regiment had fallen into the hands of ticket-punchers with little or no sharp-end experience.
704. Battle Scars
by Jason Fox
A book about a soldier’s battle of a different kind. Television personality Jason Fox, perhaps best know for the pseudo-SAS selection programme Who Dares Wins, discusses his fight with PTSD and burnout after serving in Afghanistan with the Special Boat Service. He, and probably also the reader, was disappointed by the standard of care he received from the Royal Navy and the speed at which he was shown the door. Luckily, he found an understanding civilian employer, and, eventually, a coping treatment programme that worked for him. I would have been interested in knowing where the money came from to pay for his rehabilitation. The book opens with some memories of his service in Afghanistan but perhaps because of the secrecy involved in the job this is sometimes a little hard to follow and his ghost writer sometimes lapses into what I term SquaddieSpeak. Fox finds himself not wanting to discuss his problems with the his mates for fear of losing their respect and trust and also with the bosses for fear of destroying his career. I’m pretty confident there are many lessons to be learned in this book. And I hope it encourages people to get the help they need and to see there is light at the end of the tunnel.
703.Brave Battalion
by Mark Zuehlke
Backwards ran the sentences until reeled the mind. There's just something about Mark Zuehlke's writing style that exhausts me. It took months to read this book about the exploits of the Canadian Scottish regiment during the First World War; sometimes only a page a day. I put another of his books aside after four pages about two years ago and haven't been able to face going back to it again. He prefers a long word to a short one and a flowery phrase to a simple description. Shells don't explode; they broadcast. Zuehlke is better known for his books about the Canadians fighting in the Second World War and which rely heavily on first-hand accounts from veterans. I forced myself to finish his book on the fighting for Ortona in Italy because the Loyal Edmonton Regiment played a prominent part in the battle and I knew several of the veterans interviewed for the book. I suspect the fact that I found the writing style such hard going made me less forgiving than I might have been with regard to the silly mistakes that I came across in the book. Where is Arcaracle? Could it be near Acharacle in Argyll? The Canadian military authorities were very lax when it came to recording Scottish places of birth accurately and anyone who knows much about the period would have realised that and double checked. And did the Germans really have a 5.9 mm field gun? That's surely a rifle calibre. Around 120,000 men took part in the First Day of the Somme, around 20,000 were killed and 40,000 wounded; I don't think Zuehlke can justify his claim that “Kitchener's Army advanced into a maelstrom of machinegun fire and all but a few perished in a single day”. Is that not what they call hyperbole? The Canadian Scottish, formed in 1914 from volunteers taken from several kilted militia regiments, has featured in several books in the past. I'm not sure this book adds anything. I got no feel for the war, no feel for the regiment, no feel for the fighting, no feel for the men involved; it was a flat hard grind of a read. Zuehlke is best known for his books on the Second World War but he's also written about the Spanish Civil War and about the War of 1812 when British and Canadian troops repelled a US invasion. This book has the feel of something that was knocked out to maintain the kind of output needed to sustain a fulltime career as a writer. When the regimentj was formed the troops paraded in the kilts of their parent militia regiments – which had adopted the tartans of their sister units in the British Army -The Seaforths, the Gordons, the Camerons and the Arglls. Zuehlke informs the reader that a compromise tartan was suggested for the new regiment – MacKenzie. I wonder what tartan the Seaforths from Vancouver had been wearing previously. I think that was the point, very early in the book, where Zuehlke lost my trust.
702.Battles in Britain
by Tim Newark
This lavishly illustrated coffee table book is billed as a military history of Britain from the Roman Invasion to World War Two. It bears the imprint of English Heritage. It is by one of the United Kingdom’s most prolific writers on military history. It takes about four hours to read. Having written for a number of tabloid newspapers I’m a big fan of brevity, so I don’t have a problem with the four hour read. It’s far more challenging to explain complex issues in short, easy to understand sentences than at length in what used to be called the Quality Broadsheets. But sometimes Newark sacrifices clarity and even the facts to keep things simple. I wouldn’t quibble with what he says about English history in this book, but his Scottish stuff is a little shaky. There was no Scottish rebellion after Charles I was executed by the English Parliament. Scotland owed no allegiance to Westminster and the men who fought Cromwell’s men at died at Dunbar in 1650 were part of a national army. The Government troops routed at Killiecrankie in 1689 were not “English”. There was one English battalion, two Scots battalions in Government service and three battalions of Scottish mercenaries in Dutch service. This misrepresentation is all the odder as Newark is at pains to stress there were more Scots fighting on the Government side than on the Jacobite side during the 1745-46 rebellion. I’m not clear if Newark realises that the two “French” battalions which fought on the Jacobite side at Culloden were actually composed of Irish and Scots exiles. This is the second Newark book I’ve reviewed. Both have been informative and entertaining. But both have also been flawed. This book features many pictures of military re-enactment groups in action and highlights the insights they have gained into warfare as far back at the Romans. Newark is good at highlighting how these groups have helped bust many myths and misconceptions. This book was a good read but it wasn’t quite as good as I hoped it would be.
701. Reap the Whirlwind
by Spencer Dunmore and William Carter, Ph.D
This is a look at World War Two Bomber Command's Royal Canadian Air Force bomber group, No. 6. It is very much an antidote to the modern feeling that the bomber crews were nothing but baby killers who contributed little to defeating Germany. Many Canadians served with RAF squadrons during the war and conversely many RAF British air and ground crew served in No 6 Group, which was based in North Yorkshire and Co. Durham. The backbone of No 6 was made up of Halifaxes rather than Lancasters and in its early days after the group went operational in 1943 a number of Wellingtons were also used. Dunmore and Carter are honest about the problems due to the shortage of experienced and competent senior RCAF officers in the group's early days. The book relies heavily on the recollections of survivors and I sensed that the authors were surprised by the loyalty Bomber Command supremo Arthur Harris inspired. Group and squadron official records were also consulted and there were times I felt details were included, such as pilot names, simply to avoid missing people out. Sadly, I've Whirlwind read and reviewed several books about Bomber Command recently, so there was little, though not nothing, that I hadn't already read before. But if someone only had time to read one, then this is up there in the top tier.
700. The Second Oldest Profession
by Philip Knightley
The title refers to espionage. Well known, and respected, journalist Philip Knightley delves into 20th Century intelligence and counter intelligence and is far, very far, from impressed. In fact, he decides this world of smoke and mirrors, lies and betrayals is basically a waste of time. He casts major doubts on the real value of Enigma, the deception operations prior to D Day, Soviet atom spies and almost every sacred myth out there. Bureaucratic empire building based on scare tactics is, Knightley argues, more than somewhat convincingly, is at the root of the problem. The book came out in 1987 before the full extent of Soviet infiltration of the CIA was known. And before it was known what would replace the KGB bogey man in British and American intelligence demands for even more money. Islamic extremism. This was a thought provoking delve into a world in which nothing is quite what it seems.
699. We Die Alone
by David Howarth
I tried to read this book when I was a little kid. Maybe there wasn't enough bang-bang in it but I didn't get very far into it. Author David Howarth has proved to be pretty reliable recently and this tale of Second World War survival in the Norwegian Arctic was no exception. I surmise that Howarth heard the tale of Jan Baalsrud through his connection with the Shetland Bus operation which ferried resistance workers between Scotland and Norway during the war. Howarth and Baalsrud returned to Norway in 1953 to retrace the journey to safety in Sweden and meet many of the people who helped in the escape. The original resistance fighter landing was betrayed and all but Baalsrud killed out of the 12 strong party - mostly murdered as prisoners by the Germans. Baalsrud's attempt to reach Sweden was eventually thwarted by severe frostbite and he had to rely on helpful villagers and Lapp reindeer herders. It is an extraordinary story of survival, courage and betrayal. And Howarth is a master story teller.
698. Strange Battleground: The Official History of the Canadian Army in Korea
by Lt Col Herbert Fairlie Wood
I wasn't sure what this book would be like. Official histories can be more than somewhat dry. And there is some controversy about the first troops sent to Korea in 1950. Regular officer, and Korean War veteran, Lt Col Herbert Wood does refer to the volunteers of the Special Service contingent as "Soldiers of Fortune" types. Though some would argue that the mixture of Second World War veterans and youngsters in fact constituted the best Canadian troops sent to the peninsula. Wood tackles a number of issues including the legal technicalities of the Special Forces enlistment, logistics, the juggling of personnel to almost triple the overall size of the Canadian Army due to Korea and Cold War tensions, the political and operational challenges posed by serving under British command as part of the Commonwealth Division and also under US command as part of the 8th Army. The accounts of the fighting give lie to the commonly held notion in Canada that Canadians only fought one hard battle, Kap'yong. And I would guess the majority of Canadians now have never even heard of Kap'yong. Wood weaves his tale together well and I'm glad I finally made time to read this one.
697. The Bomber War: The Allied Air Offensive Against Nazi Germany
by Robin Neillands
This proved to be a robust and well researched defence of Air Marshal Arthur "Bomber" Harris and RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War. The Allied Bomber offensive was the most controversial aspects of the conflict and there are those today who regard Harris and his crews as war criminals. Peacetime hindsight and censure is easy. Robin Neillands also looks at the American experience; if only to demolish the myth that they attacked only military targets using precision bombing while the RAF engaged in mass murder of civilians. Harris never had enough bombers to prove his theory that they could win the war on their own. And the Americans did in effect defeat Japan using bombers. Neillands cuts through the hypocrisy, lies, and smugness to give the bomber crews the credit due to them. This is a very valuable, not to say well written, contribution to the debate.
696. The Yom Kippur War
by A J Barker
This account of the October 1973 Middle East war was rushed out in 1974 by Purnell as part of what they called their Illustrated History of the Violent Century. Surprisingly, perhaps, it stands the test of time. Author A J Barker was a professional British officer and had just completed a book about The 1967 Six Day War when the Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal in 1973. He is equally sceptical when it comes to both Arab and Israeli claims. But he seems convinced that the Egyptians always intended to push into Israel proper. The Syrians also came close to crossing the Golan Heights into Israel. But both, ultimately, were let down by poor command and control combined with a lack battlefield flexibility. Barker also does a good job of explaining the Israeli comeback and how if the Egyptians had performed adequately it could turned into a disaster.
695. The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy
by Peter H Wilson
Perhaps it does indeed take an almost 1,000 page book to do justice to a conflict which despoiled much of Central Europe between 1618 and 1648. Certainly, Hull University history professor Peter Wilson doesn't have a lot of padding in this account of one of the most complicated, and some would argue basically unnecessary, conflicts in European history. Wilson does a reasonable job of explaining the constitutional niceties within the Austrian dominated Holy Roman Empire which sparked and fanned the winds of war. He has made an effort to be fair to the participants, refusing to take the black or white approach favoured by many writers who have tackled the subject, and does a lot to dispel the propaganda and myths. He also casts his net wide to include the complicated roles played by the Spanish, French, British, Dutch and the Papacy. He is less impressed by the military prowess of Sweden's King Gustavus than many army staff colleges. But once again, his comments are persuasive. This is a lengthy but rewarding read.
694. Panzer
by Philip Warner
Philip Warner is usually a good read. So, I decided to take a chance on this apparent potboiler. A flip through at the bookshop had me wondering about its quality because many of the numerous photos did not seem to coincide with the topics suggested by the chapter headings. In fact, there was a match. The book is more of a well illustrated extended essay than a detailed examination of the German use of armour. Warner makes some good points in the early chapters but, as with many writers, seems to lose steam when it comes to the fighting in the Soviet Union. There is still some interesting analysis but I was left yearning to know more about how the Germans mis-used their armour. So, an excellent try but not up to Warner's usual standard.
693. Skorzeny's Special Missions
by Otto Skorzeny
This book is subtitled The Memoirs of Hitler's Most Daring Commando and was first published in 1957. As the Cold War froze, perhaps the search for Good Germans, or rather Good Austrians, was on. I can't help feeling that Skorzeny is being economical with the truth when it comes to his commitment to Nazism. By his own account, he and his men appear to have played a key role in suppressing the planned rising in Berlin which was to follow the assassination of Hitler on 20th July 1944. Skorzeny's most famous coup was the rescue of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from custody after his overthrow. The Austrian seems to have admired Mussolini almost as much as he liked Hitler. But his explanation of why he felt it necessary to vaingloriously overload the small plane which flew the Italian to safety from his mountain resort prison by climbing aboard himself doesn't hold water. Where the book is interesting is when Skorzeny talks about the Nazi leadership and also about some of the secret weapons the Germans tried to develop. The panic induced by something like only four jeep loads of poorly disguised and pretty current affairs ignorant Germans pretending to be American soldiers during the opening phase of the December 1944 Battle of the Bulge is astonishing. The whole scheme was so badly under-resourced.
692. The Battleship Era
by Peter Padfield
This book follows the evolution of the armoured battleship from 1858 through to 1945. The wrong turns, such as the belief that ramming was superior to gunfire following the Italian-Austrian sea battle at Lissa in 1866, are fascinating. Padfield appears to know his stuff and even the discussions of naval architecture are made interesting. Not unnaturally, given Britain's desire to rule the waves in the century following Trafalgar, a lot of space is given to the Royal Navy - including one literal wrong turn. But other nations, France, the USA and Japan in particular, are given their due in this thoughtful analysis of the Battleship Era. I could, perhaps, have done with a little more about how the aircraft carrier supplanted the battleship, but this is a minor quibble. However, Padfield does a good job of explaining why nautical airpower was underestimated in the years before 1939.
691. Scotland For Ever
by Various
This book celebrating Scotland's soldiers was put out in 1915 with all profits going to the Scottish Red Cross. A number of publishers and writers appear to have waived their copyright as their contribution to providing hospital beds and ambulances. The book is mixture of extracts from regimental histories, military memoirs, fiction and poetry. The fiction now feels a bit dated and I have no idea if the poetry was ever any good. Although the book was, as I've mentioned, published in 1915, the content only goes up to about 1900 and the Second Boer War. My copy also has a number of high quality illustration plates. It would seem that many people cut the illustrations out of their copies and framed them.
690. Military Origins
by Major Lawrence J Gordon
This proved to be a highly eccentric, if not idiosyncratic, little book. Former British Army officer delves into military tradition dating back to the Bible and the Romans. Though far from encyclopedic I should think most readers will learn a couple of new facts. Gordon has a highly individual writing style and sometimes it was not easy to tell when he was being sarcastic. The subjects tackled include the murky world of military finance, ballooning, medical services, uniform items, military music and heraldry. A quick read but worth the $2 it cost me.
689. Monty and Rommel: Parallel Lives
by Peter Caddick-Adams
I'm not sure that former British Army officer Peter Caddick-Adams's attempts to argue there were numerous parallels between Britain's Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Germany's Erwin Rommel quite comes off. But it is obvious that both were ruthless self promoters and deeply unpopular with their peers. And not quite the military geniuses they claimed to be. Caddick-Adams is able to cast a professional eye over the pair's careers and to add some interesting insights. He produces well rounded portraits of both men; not entirely flattering but probably very fair. Caddick-Adams seems to know his 20th Century military history backwards and does an excellent job of putting events into context. I think we have an early contender for the 2024 Book of the Year.
688. The Road to En-Dor
by E H Jones
I've seen this billed as one of the great escape stories of the First World War and it's been almost constantly in print since 1919. So, I was intrigued. Especially when I realised that much of the book involves trying to escape from a Turkish prisoner of war camp utilising a ouija board. Interesting approach. Lieutenant Jones tells his story well. I was worried that there might be too much padding to the tale but Jones carries it off well. I won't say how it works out or spoil the sting in the tail. It is an unusual escape story.
687. No Names, No Pack Drill
by The Troops:edited by Troy MacInnis CD (Ret'd)
This is a selection of soldiers' stories from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Some date back to the regiment's formation in 1914 and then they go through to the mid-1990s. Some are amusing and some are horrifying. Some are contributed by decent people. Other contributors come across as sadistic meatheads who were a danger to not only themselves but to all those around them. So, the collection probably accurately reflects the make-up of the average infantry battalion. As the title suggests, most of the contributions are anonymous. Which sometimes makes it difficult to follow the stories. Should the teller have known better? The book is also let down poor proof reading and transcription. I don't think the Yugoslavs used P72 tanks.
686. Dieppe
by Brigadier General Denis Whitaker and Shelagh Whitaker
The 1942 Dieppe Disaster remains one of the most controversial Canadian military operations of the Second World War. Over 3,000 Canadians were killed, wounded or taken prisoner in the space of a few horrendous hours. Denis Whitaker was there as a captain in the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry. This book is his look, along with his journalist wife, Shelagh (who I suspect did most of the writing), at the raid. He is perhaps too keen to justify the raid on the French seaside resort in terms of valuable lessons learned prior to the D Day Landings. I still say the lessons should have been obvious without indulging in such an ill-planned and badly bungled operation. But he is almost certainly correct that it was staged to head off pressure from the Americans and Soviets for a 1942 landing in France. Churchill and his senior military officers succeeded in demonstrating how disastrous such a landing would be. Forget about snatching a German naval coding machine or radar equipment, those missions were just add-ons. Much of the book looks at the buildup to the landings and draws on Denis's and other veterans' recollections. It was a very bad plan appallingly executed.
685. Trafalgar- The Nelson Touch
by David Howarth
David Howarth was a fine writer. The reader can almost hear the creak of the battleship timbers and the slap of the waves as the British and combined French-Spanish fleets close in on each other off Cape Trafalgar. Howarth could draw on his own experiences as a Royal Navy officer and as a keen yachtsman to write one of the best books ever about the much storied sea battle in 1805, which established British naval supremacy for over a century. By Howarth's account the result of battle was never in doubt. The role of Admiral Horatio Nelson is examined and the importance of the Nelson Touch explained. Howarth shows a sympathy for both sides and all ranks. He does a good job of unravelling the seaborne ballet of violence and death that was Trafalgar.
684. Jocks in the Jungle
by Gordon Thorburn
The Jocks in the title are the men of the 1st Cameronians and 2nd Black Watch and the jungle is in Burma during the Second World War. The two battalions formed the basis of four Chindit columns and were selected because they included a number of men who had already done some fighting. The Cameronians had been part of the retreat from Burma in 1942 while the Black Watch had seen service in East Africa, North Africa and Crete. Author Gordon Thornburn's English father bridged both regiments, being recruited into the Black Watch and then transferred to the Cameronians. Sadly, he appears not to have spoken much about his Chindit days. But ex-advertising copywriter Thornburn managed to find enough other veterans to spice his book with first hand recollections. As he admits, the stories and experiences could have come from any of the battalions which supplied Chindit columns. Far more Chindits died from disease and probable exhaustion than at the hands of the Japanese. Thornburn is an engaging writer and though much of the source material is from official reports he avoids the official, and propaganda, version of the Chindits. Brave hardy men pushed beyond their limits. US General "Vinegar" Joe Stillwell is only one of a large cast of villains. As both Scottish battalions were regular army units, their fate was probably not a surprise to the older sweats in their ranks. My grandfather told me he did everything he could to avoid being sent to Palestine in the late 1930s after seeing the state of the men returning from postings there. And Palestine was a benign environment compared with the Japanese infested jungles of Burma.
683. 100 Days to Victory
by Saul David
This was an interesting idea - to attempt to tell the story of the First World through the lens of 100 days. Prolific military historian Saul David gives it a good try. In fact, the book is more about 100 events than 100 days because a lot of background is required. He favours seeing the war through the eyes of the British officer class. I say "class" because there is rather a lot from nurse Vera Brittain, her officer bothers and their chums. He also delves into his own family's participation, again all officers. Even the upper class suffragette Pankhursts are given too much credit for securing votes for women. The snaggle toothed under-nourished women slaving in the armaments industry played a far more important role. No mention of the women behind the Glasgow rent strikes who struggled against rack-renting landlords. And while we read often of the grief of Brittain and her ilk over the loss of sons or lovers, I can't remember anything in this book from a working class widow. Hanging the history of a war on 100 days or 100 objects is an interesting idea. But a good idea can die due to poor execution. This one is competent but perhaps an opportunity missed. Discussion of the appalling treatment of working class widows, their families, and the ex-rankers who became officers but were never regarded as gentlemen would have added some spice.
682. Terror in the Starboard Seat
by Dave McIntosh
The seat in question is the navigator's in a Canadian squadron Mosquito fighter during the Second World War. Author Dave McIntosh went on to become a journalist, so the writing style is good. Though at times he is coarse and opinionated. Reading the book is probably a lot like it would be meeting him in a bar. McIntosh makes no bones about being no hero, nor even a top notch navigator. He claims to have deliberately misled his pilot several times in a bid to thwart what he felt were foolhardy exploits. But as he got a Distinguished Flying Cross, perhaps he over-egged the writing pudding a little. The book gives a more honest account of squadron life than most. Drinking, sex and awful British wartime food all feature. He claims the only time after crossing the Atlantic that he didn't sleep in a damp blanket was at a US camp in Belgium. A vivid slice of Canadian air force life.
681. Omdurman
by Philip Ziegler
If any battle encapsulates the Hilaire Belloc lines "Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim and they have not", it is surely the 1898 Battle of Omdurman when machine guns mowed down the charging Dervish hordes. So, surely not much more to say. Natives armed for with medieval weapons are torn apart by modern weaponry; machine guns, quick firing artillery and magazine rifles. In fact, author Philip Ziegler, with a fine eye for telling detail and anecdote, justifies a full book about the battle. Ziegler is kinder to Herbert Kitchener as a battlefield commander than many but is not uncritical. His portrayal of the majority of British officers as wooden tops, albeit brave asses, is refreshing. The real heroes are the Sudanese, both Dervish and in Egyptian service, and the ordinary British Tommies and Jocks. The British-led Anglo-Egyptian army could easily have blown it and Ziegler shows how. Not quite a contender for the 2023 Book of the Year but nonetheless a good read.
680. Beachhead Commando
by David Lee
The Royal Naval Commandos are an all too often forgotten part of the Allied military effort during the Second World War. These were the key Royal Navy men who controlled the numerous invasion beaches in European and Far Eastern theatres. Most of the book is made up of the reminiscences from veterans of landings ranging from Dieppe in 1942 through to Operation Dracula in 1945. Author David Lee proved to be a good picker and editor of veterans' tales, which give a fascinating picture of life and death at the sharp end of the beach landings. He also includes material from the shore-based spotters for the naval guns supporting the landings and the frogmen who destroyed underwater anti-invasion obstacles. I'm not sure the 1942 Torch Landings in North Africa were a purely American operation and I know that the wartime chief of the Clan Cameron was called Donald Cameron and definitely not Campbell Cameron.
679. Khartoum
by Michael Asher
Author Michael Asher has a couple of advantages when it comes to this account of the Mahdi Empire in Sudan between 1883 and 1898. He runs camel tours of the Sudan and thus knows the country and the people better than most people who tackle the subject. And secondly he is a former soldier, a British paratrooper, as well as a prolific author. He is kinder than many to Charles Gordon, "of Khartoum", and to his friend Herbert Kitchener, who eventually reconquered Sudan 13 years after the former's death at the hands of the Islamic fundamentalist Mahdist's men in 1885. Asher shows that Kitchener's victory at Omdurman was by no means the guaranteed outcome, thanks only to magazine rifles, machine guns and artillery, which many dismiss it as. There are blunders aplenty on all sides and Asher's contention that the British victory was more due to the quality of the ordinary soldier than the generalship rings true. Sadly, Asher makes some silly mistakes. Redvers Buller's VC was won in the Zulu War, not one of the Kaffir Wars, and Winston Churchill did not see active service in South Africa before Omdurman. On the other hand it turns out the Remington rifles issued to the Egyptian Army were .43 calibre and not the usual .45. And former Gordon Highlanders Colour Sergeant Hector MacDonald was on the roll of the Royal Fusiliers when he commanded a Sudanese brigade at Omdurman. Though he was first commissioned into the Gordons.
678. Soldiers of Destruction
by Charles Sydnor Jr
I had a couple of concerns about this history of the German SS Totenkopf Division. Firstly, I was worried that like all too many books it would glamourise the Waffen SS. Secondly, it was by a US academic and they have a bad track record when it comes to accuracy and analysis. As it turned out Charles Sydnor Jr takes an even- handed view of what was a key part of the Nazi criminal enterprise. After a shaky start, the Totenkopf Division, built around the organisation that ran the Nazi concentration camps, proved to be one of Hitler's most reliable and hard-fighting units. That elite status owed much to its Nazi roots. Sydnor does not buy into the argument that the Waffen SS was far different from the mainstream SS. He's right. Murder and mayhem were everyday events. Sydnor must predate the disastrous dilution in academic quality which accompanied the rapid over expansion of US higher education to accommodate draft dodgers such as Donald J Trump and his ilk during the Vietnam Era. I would have been interested in what Sydnor had to say about how Totenkopf and the other SS units compared with their Wehrmacht counterparts when it came to brutality and murder. For too long it's been pretended that SS were an exception.
677. The Armed Forces of World War II
by Andrew Mollo
Author Andrew Mollo notes in his introduction that this is the sort of book he wished had been around when he was a five year old living near Aldershot. It is certainly ambitious in scope and attempts to encompass the many national uniforms, insignia, organisational details, along with brief looks at a number of campaigns. The jewels in its crown are the 365 colour drawings of military personnel from all around the world by highly accomplished artists Malcolm McGregor and Pierre Turner. The illustrations have since been repackaged. The organisation text tends a little too much towards the "anorak" tendency. The book takes in army, navy and air force uniforms, some from countries and campaigns all too often relegated to footnotes in many other books. This is a brave try that doesn't quite come off.
676. The Gallant Six Hundred
by John Harris
This is a 1973 look at the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. Ex-newspaperman John Harris's interest was sparked by encountering a man in the 1930s who witnessed the charge as a young drummer boy. And the book has the feel of a labour of love and the result of a lifetime of research. Harris has delved deeply into the archives and letters from the participants and key figures. He works hard to rehabilitate the reputation of Lord Lucan, the commander of the British cavalry in the Crimea. Lucan comes across as competent but not an easy man to like or support. Lord Cardigan, the brigade commander who led the charge, was in Harris's opinion an arrogant feather brain who was only obeying orders. Harris lays the blame for the disaster on the mismanagement of the British commander in the Crimea, Lord Raglan, and the officer who delivered the infamous order for the charge that sent the brigade into the Valley of Death, Captain Louis Nolan. Harris argues there was no misunderstanding about which guns Nolan wanted to charge. Harris does a good job of bringing the men behind the letters and reminisces alive. His thesis is well worth considering.
675. The Second World War
by Antony Beevor
Antony Beevor is usually a sure bet when it comes to a good read. This history of the Second World War is no exception. Beevor is a sound writer and he manages to focus on several aspects of the conflict which, while not ignored, are often given scant coverage. In this case he is far more impressed by the Nationalist Chinese war effort under Chiang Kai-Shek than many other historians. The focus on civilian suffering and casualties is also welcome. The culpability of the German armed forces and civilian population in murder and atrocity has seldom been better outlined in a general history. He is also not blind to the failings of almost all of the leading figures in the war. Few come out of this book without damage to their reputations. All in all, a commendable crack at a massive and complex subject.
674. The Armada
by Garret Mattingly
Books by American academics seldom fail to disappoint. This 1959 book about the Spanish Armada is an exception. This could be because it was written before the massive expansion of university and college education to meet demand from draft dodgers such as Donald J Trump during the Vietnam Years. The over-rapid dilution of teaching talent fatally undermined US tertiary education and it has still not recovered. Mattingly puts the Armada into context by looking at how the 1587 execution of Mary Queen of Scots was a game changer in international relations. He astutely dissects events in England, Spain, France, Rome and The Low Countries. He is kinder to the Armada's commander Medina Sidonia than most historians and rates the 1588 expedition as basically a Mission Impossible. Mattingly has a lot of interesting things to say and though the text is more than 60 years old and the writing style can be a tad of a slog, perseverance is rewarded.
673. Agent Sonya
by Ben MacIntyre
The Sonya in question is the German house wife and Communist secret agent Ursula Kuczynski who ran a spy network which handed over Allied atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union during the Second World War. I wasn't sure if author Ben MacIntyre admired Sonya and approved of her work to share the atomic bomb with Stalin. I'm also not sure if Vladmir Putin's failure to identify Roger Hollis as a Soviet agent working in the UK is conclusive proof that he wasn't. It might be even scarier that such an incompetent, the only other explanation for his failure to catch Sonya, could become head of MI5. Hindsight is always 20/20 but even so, British stupidity in this case is staggering. After she gave up spying Sonya became a prolific author in East Germany and MacIntyre had the advantage of her autobiographies and thinly disguised autobiographical fiction. He also had access to her sons and the biographies of several of her associates. This would have been a hard one to mess up.
672. Secrets of the Conqueror
by Stuart Prebble
At last, a book that was a pleasure to read. The Conqueror in the title is the British submarine that controversially sank the Argentinian cruiser Belgrano during the 1982 Falklands War. Gotcha, etc, etc. But television journalist Stuart Prebble was more interested in writing about what the Conqueror did next. A top secret mission involving stealing Soviet submarine detection equipment. It was a story Prebble waited 30 years to tell. But even decades later there was only so much he, or his informants, were allowed to say. So, the book also takes in the Belgrano sinking and the disgraceful cover up that followed. Surprisingly gripping stuff and damning indictment of Whitehall, Scotland Yard, the law courts, Fleet Street and unidentified Conqueror officers. Prebble is a highly gifted journalist and writer. Though why he thought Old Etonian MP Tam Dayell had even a trace of a Scottish accent baffles me. Anyway, a definite contender for the 2023 Book of the Year.
671. Darkest Hour
by Bruce Gamble
Only an American could open a book about an Australian military disaster in 1942 with a chapter about Americans. But that is exactly what retired US navy flyer Bruce Gamble does in this account of the Japanese capture of New Britain and its aftermath. I'm not sure Gamble has a strong grip on Australia or its military. I have a feeling the 2pdr gun used solid shot as standard, not just as training ammunition. Gamble seems on firmer ground when he discusses the Japanese. The fighting was over in less than 24 hours and as Gamble points out, the outnumbered and outgunned Australians never had a chance. He's strongest on the attempts by the survivors to escape the island and the routine massacres of prisoners by the Japanese. All the non-officer prisoners, more than 1,000 men, including troops captured in New Ireland and male civilian internees, died in the locked holds of a ship taking them to Japan as slave labour when it was torpedoed by an American submarine. The book is marred by several howlers. Gamble confuses the Christian and surnames of one of the dead and has another man dying twice. With his focus on any excuse to mention Americans, I wish he'd explained why US prisoners were dropping like flies while their Australian officer counterparts in the same camp only suffered one death. Something similar happened with prisoners of the North Koreans and Chinese only a few years later.
670. Vimy Ridge 1917: Byng's Canadians Triumph at Arras
by Alexander Turner
This slim volume in the Osprey "Campaign" series looks at the much mythologised capture of Vimy Ridge. At least much mythologised in Canada. Irish Guards officer Alexander Turner brings a professional eye to events and does his best to counter the Canadian nationalist narrative. As is almost always the case with Osprey books this one is rich with photos, original artwork and maps. Illustrator Peter Dennis is an old and experienced hand. Although short, this is a top rate and thoughtful account of the First World War on the Western Front as it was fought in 1917.
669. The Second World War: A Short History
by R A C Parker
This proved to be a readable and accessible summary of Second World War from an Oxford academic. Personally, I think he went too easy on the United of America and its profiteering approach to the conflict. Why else did it pressure the UK, bankrupted to buy US war material, to invade northwest Europe in 1943, when hardly any US troops were available? Their equipment, our blood. But apart from a blind spot when it comes to the cynical and greedy USA, few would fault Parker's analysis and summary of issues. I'd recommend this in preference to Joanna Bourke's effort (Review 581).
668. By Land and Sea
by Robin Neillands
This is a look at the Royal Marines Commandos from a former Royal Marines Commando. Robin Neillands, who did his National Service with 45 Commando in Cyprus, therefore had some rapport with the numerous Royal Marines who contributed their memories and reflections for this book. About half of the text follows the fortunes of the Royal Marines Commandos during the Second World War. At first they were given a hard time because unlike their Army counterparts they were not all volunteers. But as Neillands points out many of the Parachute Regiment's battalions were converted line infantry units. Neillands lets the former Bootnecks basically tell their own story through their postings and battles in the Middle East and Far East through to the Falklands War. As usual, Neillands proves an engaging writer with a good eye for a story.
667. Hitler's Panzers
by Dennis Showalter
I read US academic Dennis Showalter's book about the biggest clash of tanks and armoured vehicles at Kursk in 1943 (Review 393) and was reasonably impressed. So, it was no surprise that this was a sane and sober look at the German approach to armoured warfare. Showalter proves sceptical when it comes to the claims of senior German Generals that Hitler blew things for them and that without his interference they would have won the Second World War. He also pours cold water on their attempts to distance themselves from the Nazis and wartime atrocities. Showalter seems to know his stuff when it comes to technology and tactics and is a smooth writer. He certainly seems to have the measure of self proclaimed pioneer of tank warfare Heinz Guderian. In fact, he presents excellent pen portraits of many of the German panzer generals, famous, infamous and now forgotten.
666. Our Friends Beneath the Sands
by Martin Windrow
This is a realistic look at the French Foreign Legion and France's colonial wars between 1870 and 1935. Oddly, it starts out in Paris and the smashing of the Left Wing Communard rising, in which the legionnaires played a prominent part. I found the differences author Martin Windrow highlights between the British and French approaches to colonial conquest very interesting. The action switches from Algeria, to Vietnam, then West Africa, onto Madagascar and finally to Morocco. Windrow spends a lot of time delving into detailed accounts of the fighting and it looks as though he has done a lot of research. His approach to The Legion is clear-eyed and in some ways refreshing. Windrow appears to have a good feel for matters military.
665. White Death
by Robert Edwards
Financial-analyst-turned-sports-writer Robert Edwards makes a surprisingly good fist of this account of the 1939 Soviet invasion of Finland. His interest in International Politics pays off as he looks at the complicated response to the attack from other nations. Britain and France came within a whisker of sending troops to fight the Soviets. Only the stupidity and general incompetence of their national leaderships prevented war with the then German-allied Soviets. Edwards also puts the activities of Finland's neighbours Sweden and Norway under the microscope. But he fails to mention just how rich Sweden's trade with Germany made that country during the war. Edwards also does a good job of explaining how the poorly equipped and heavily outnumbered Finns succeeded in holding the Red Army juggernaut at bay for so long. The book cuts off when the Finns capitulate. Details of Finland's later alliance with the Nazis and second peace deal with the Soviets would have been interesting.
664. The Fighting Never Stopped
by Patrick Brogan
Sadly, this encyclopedia of world conflicts since the Second World War by journalist Patrick Brogan only goes up to 1989. And sadly, many of the places and family names would still feature today if it was brought up to date. Brogan broke it up into countries with a final couple of chapters based on varieties of terrorism. The book still has some relevance because it explains the roots of the numerous conflicts and their histories up to 1989. But it may have been too big and ambitious a project. No-one person could have researched all these conflicts in depth and some of Brogan's sources may have been too superficial. The Battle of Omdurman in 1899 was not won by a cavalry charge involving a young Winston Churchill. The charge was a mistake and the battle was won by Maxim machine guns and Lee Metford magazine rifles. It was not a single bomb that killed 18 soldiers at Northern Ireland's Warrenpoint in 1979. There were two bombs, one killed six, the second a dozen. President John F Kennedy was not assassinated in 1967. Minor points but as a journalist Brogan would know one mistaken fact calls everything written into question.
663. Decisive Battles of World War II
edited by Brigadier Peter Young
This is a coffee table made up mainly of extracts from the memoirs of leading commanders and planners involved in some of the more memorable battles or campaigns of the Second World War. It was published in 1989 to mark the 50th anniversary of the start of the war - unless you're Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Russian or American. Some extracts are more illuminating and interesting than others. Editor Peter Young deliberately chose some extracts which saw events through Japanese, Soviet or a German point of view. The single source-point of view approach naturally means that balance is sacrificed. Sometimes, even truth is lost as commanders and planners seek to explain away their mistakes and disparage their fellow, supposed allied, colleagues. I read the American edition. It retained the original British spellings for the main text but US spelling for the Young's chapter introductions and the captions. Some of the captions are very dodgey.
662. Constantinople: The Last Great Siege 1453
by Roger Crowley
I knew the fortified walls of Constantinople finally succumbed to the Ottomans and their massive siege guns after numerous failed sieges over the centuries. But Roger Crowley shows the story is far more complex than simply new versus old technology. The capture of the eastern Christian outpost was a close run affair. The Islamic Ottomans came close to failure despite outnumbering the defenders, who did not have enough men to defend the entire length of the massive fortified walls. As well as giant stone cannon ball firing artillery the Ottoman army, which included a large number of Europeans, employed a variety of siege techniques. The move of part of the Ottoman fleet across land to circumvent the massive chain barrier blocking sea access into the Golden Horn was a master stroke. Crowley relies heavily on eyewitness accounts from both sides to create an accessible version of one of the turning points of history.
661. Bomber Offensive
by Sir Arthur Harris
This should be a must-read for anyone interested in RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War. Arthur "Bomber" Harris, surely one of the most controversial British senior officers of conflict, tells his own story. In this book he foresees and attempts to head-off many of the criticisms aimed at him through to this day. Though he may be accused of over-egging the pudding, his arguments and reasoning are rational. He led Bomber Command from the days when it couldn't hit the town a barn was in, never mind its door, through to the devastating carpet bombing of Germany thanks to a combination of improved navigational technology and better target marking techniques. He points out that the Americans for all their talk about precision bombing of German targets resorted to area carpet bombing against Japan. It may surprise readers to learn that by 1947 Harris regarded heavy bombers as obsolete. His criticisms of fellow Allied commanders, the Civil Service, the Army and the Royal Navy may drip with vitriol but Harris comes through from this book as a thoughtful and intelligent man.
660. The Great War
by Peter Hart
The Imperial War Museum's Peter Hart attempts in this book to puncture the Oh What a Lovely War/Blackadder Goes Forth myths surrounding the First World War. Hart does not subscribe to the Lions Led by Donkeys school. The much villainised Field Marshal Douglas Haig is treated sympathetically. Hart's analysis of the very rapid evolution of warfare in the industrial era takes on the conflicts on land, sea and in the air. No commander was able to cope quickly enough with all the twists and turns. Hart's speciality is personal testimony and while interesting, I found myself wanting to skip the first hand accounts and get back to the his thoughts on the bigger picture. This was a very thought provoking book and a worthwhile contribution to the seemingly unending debate on the conflict.
659. Desert War in North Africa
by Steven W Stears
This book put out by America's Horizon Magazine was a pleasant surprise. It was one of a number of specials covering a wide range of historic and cultural matters in the mid 1960s. For an American book it is amazingly even-handed and unchauvinistic. It even credits Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery with some ability. It appears to be a mini-coffee table book and is filled with photos and maps. The main text is interspersed with book extracts about specific incidents seen through the eyes of participants. The book also includes reproductions of War Artists' impressions of the Second World War in North Africa drawn from the Imperial War Museum's collection.
658. Desperate Siege: The Battle of Hong Kong
by Ted Ferguson
I put this book about the 1941 surrender of Hong Kong back on the shop shelf several times over the months. Then I saw some extracts in The Book of Canadian Military Anecdotes (Review 645) and thought I'd chance it. I'm not sure I did the right thing. Perhaps when this book was written in the late 1970s it was trendy to be snide about the British. My mum's uncle Albie was killed serving in Hong Kong in 1941 and he bore no relationship to the Brits portrayed by Canadian journalist Ted Ferguson. The clue to the flavour of the book should perhaps have been in the American spelling used. According to Ferguson even Winston Churchill used US spelling. And I'm still baffled by how a journey that began in a motorcycle sidecar ended with the guy being in a carrier, presumably Bren gun carrier. And I'm still not clear if the author thinks a 9.2" gun was anti-aircraft weapon. Ferguson appears to have failed to realise the role played by Triad gangsters acting as Fifth Columnists in the battle. The one thing Ferguson is good at is bringing personal testimony alive. But that was perhaps not enough.
657. Battle at Sea
by R G Grant
This book from Dorling Kindersley bills itself as a look at 3000 years of naval warfare. As always with DK books it is lavishly illustrated with photos, reproductions of paintings, maps and diagrams. The text was produced by the experienced military historian R G Grant and includes chapter summaries, looks at life afloat and a digest of battles. I read the American edition. Sadly, some British spelling got through and the book suffers from several typesetting errors, including a wrong caption and a map that confuses Rosyth and Cromarty. Too much sloppiness mars what could have been a worthwhile reference book. Unfortunately.
656 . Memoirs of the Second World War
by Winston S Churchill
Even though this is an abridgment of Winston Churchill's six volume history of the Second World War it still runs to just over 1,000 pages. Churchill was the only major wartime leader, I don't consider France's Charles De Gaulle to be one, to write about the conflict. The USA's Franklin Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler died during the war and Joseph Stalin wasn't putting anything on paper. The book is as much of interest for what Churchill got wrong as for what he was right about. Stalin certainly fooled him when it came to his supposed surprise when he heard about the Atomic Bomb. The sackings of desert generals Archie Wavell and Claude Auchinleck, according to Churchill, had little to do with lack of offensive action against the Afrika Korps. In Wavell's case it was a reluctance to deal with the threats posed by Iraq and the Vichy French in Syria. With Auchinleck, it was being too slow to assume field command of the 8th Army when Neil Ritchie was so obviously out of his depth. The book seemed to run out of steam when it came to the latter stages of the war. I don't know if it was Churchill the writer who ran out of steam when he got to recounting events after 1943 or Churchill the politician who was getting tired-out during those events. Or perhaps it was me who ran out of steam tackling a 1,000 page tome. But interesting to see Churchill's version of the war. We know now that some of the inspired Allied "guesswork" mentioned by Churchill was actually due to intercepted German radio signals decoded thanks to Ultra.
655. A Brief History of British Sea Power
by David Howarth
This book had two things going for it. The books in the " A Brief History of" series are usually pretty good; whoever selected them had a good eye. And secondly, David Howarth's work is often good value. This book was first published as Sovereign of the Seas and that was probably a better indication of the content. Sea Power suggests more of a focus on matters military. But the book treats exploration and maritime trade with equal emphasis alongside the naval prowess. Howarth served with the Royal Navy during the Second World War and was a keen sailor. He was also a very smooth writer with an excellent eye for a story. He was also clear-eyed and sensible when it came to the reasons why Britannia once ruled the waves. This was an easy but informative read.
654. Guderian
by Kenneth Macksey
It would be no exaggeration to say that former British Royal Armoured Corps officer Kenneth Macksey was a great admirer of German general Heinz Guderian. Guderian is credited with being the father of Blitzkrieg and one of history's top exponents of tank warfare. Macksey has scarcely a bad word to say about him. And that might be the problem with this book. Guderian was very controversial. Even Macksey has problems explaining away his good relations with Adolph Hitler. Macksey looks back to Guderian's service in the First World War to find the inspirations for his approach to warfare which left the Poles, French and British sprawling in the dirt in the period 1939 to 1940. It is interesting to get a fellow tank man's take on Guderian but Macksey is too keen to give him the benefit of the doubt. Macksey laments that Guderian is not properly recognised in Germany but it could be the case that his countrymen knew him too well.
653. Russian Roulette
by Giles Milton
Once again Giles Milton proves to be a lively and entertaining writer. His dip into Britain's intelligence war against the Russian Bolsheviks often reads like a thriller. There don't appear to be any Milton factual howlers this time but I'm still inclined to treat the book with a pinch of salt. Much of it seems to be based on the memoirs of professional liars. Some of the sources were honestly coy, others deliberately misleading and some recollections are downright fabrications. Milton also consulted India Office files and material held at the British National Archives, but its driving force is the first-hand accounts. This appears to be two books stitched together, one about events in St Petersburg and Moscow and the other in Central Asia near the border with India. It is a shame that Milton did not, for whatever reason, consult the Russian archives. I find it hard to believe British spies were so much better than Bolshevik counter intelligence. If a fraction of what Milton claims about British infiltration is true, then Stalin's purges were well justified.
652. El Alamein
by Bryn Hammond
Does the World really need another book about the battles around the Egyptian railway stop at El Alamein in 1942? Well, maybe. Is this it? Well, maybe. Military historian Bryn Hammond is interested in how much the Allied victory was down to Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery and how much was down to his predecessor as commander of the 8th Army, General Claude Auchinleck. At the end of the day, Hammond argues, Montgomery benefited more than he was willing to admit from Auchinleck's work. But the acid test to my mind is that Montgomery's offensive at Alamein succeeded and Auchinleck's was a dismal failure. Though Montgomery had time to bed in the new six-pounder anti tank guns, Sherman tanks and 5.5" artillery guns. I was left wondering if Hammond was aware that Auchinleck's protege, some would say eminence gris, Eric Dorman-Smith Irished-up his name after the War and ran training camps for the IRA. Hammond's accounts of Italian courage and determination may be an eye-opener for some. I wish Hammond had had more to say about the change of plan Montgomery made half way through the battle as Operation Lightfoot became Operation Supercharge. The book is heavily seeded with first hand accounts, many from the Imperial War Museums' sound archives, which help introduce a human perspective on events beyond the command map boards.
651. Great Battles of World War 1
by Anthony Livesey
I think I would have regarded this book as a great Christmas present when I was 10 or 13 years old. It's beautifully illustrated with maps, 3D terrain renderings, details of weapons, original photos, paintings and posters, and specially commissioned battle scenes. There are also numerous boxes discussing various aspects of the conflict. Sadly, the page design is a little confusing and the text, despite being written by a former soldier, is uninspiring and unenlightening bog- standard. A great book for someone about to sit the O Grade History exam but not for an adult hoping for a fresh perspective on the First World War.
650. Fly for Your Life
by Larry Forrester
I put this biography of Second World War RAF pilot Robert Stanford Tuck back on the bookshop shelf a couple of times because it didn't appear to be a first hand account. But then recently I came across a couple of mentions of him and became intrigued. Luckily for me, the book was still at the shop. Perhaps when it comes to autobiographies, the writer can either be too modest or too lacking in self awareness. It was obvious that Tuck had worked closely with author Larry Forrester and that Forrester had a way with words. The writing was vigorous and colourful without being overwrought. Tuck was a prewar regular and one of the RAF's first Spitfire pilots. I would imagine Tuck had some say in the final draft, so the criticisms of Tuck are a little surprising. But Tuck appears to have tried to painfully honest with Forrester, such as when it came to machine gunning a downed German airman bobbing in sea. Oddly, the book does not mention Tuck was Jewish. That puts a different light on his time as a prisoner or war and subsequent escape across Poland. Sadly, Forrester, perhaps with an eye on a future career as a successful Hollywood scriptwriter, falsely claims the USA declared war on Germany. Despite that, I'm making this book the first contender for the 2023 Book of the Year.
649. The Blitzkrieg Story
by Charles Messenger
This look at Blitzkrieg by then serving Royal Tank Regiment officer Charles Messenger was published in Britain in 1976 as The Art of Blitzkrieg. More than half the book is taken up with an examination of how armoured warfare theory evolved in the 1920s and 30s. So, don't expect a lot of bang-bang. Basically, Messenger seems to be saying that blitzkrieg only really works against third rate opposition, such as the French or Egyptians. The legendary German blitzkriegs against the Poles and French in the first months of the Second World War were conducted using what were not much better than motorised prams. Sadly, being written before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and access to its archives, the book appears to underestimate the subtlety and skill of the Red Army's approach to armoured warfare and leans heavily on the self- serving recollections of the German tank commanders for events in Russia. Messenger takes the story, and his arguments, up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. This American edition is marred by sadly typical poor typesetting and proof reading. Overall, this is an interesting take on armoured tactics from a professional.
648. The Longest Battle
by Richard Hough
I didn't expect much from this book about the Second World War at sea. And with a slow start which seemed to simply regurgitate the same old stories, my caution seemed justified. But author Richard Hough drew me in and took me to some unexpected places. Hough also wrote fiction and soon his descriptive prose had me tasting the salt sea spray as warships ploughed through the Atlantic waves chasing the Bismarck. Much of the book focuses on the Royal Navy but Hough had some nice things to say about the Italians and Germans. I was surprised by Hough's damning by faint praise of the Americans in the Pacific. His grip in events is strong and it's hard to dispute Hough's findings. He also looks at too often forgotten aspects of the war, such as the coastal craft and British submarines. I hadn't known that playboy sailor Lord Louis Mountbatten got rid of one of the Royal Navy's top fighting admirals, Sir James Sommerville, simply because he didn't like him. Shades of the disgraceful way Mountbatten tried to treat leading British land commander Bill Slim. Mountbatten literally didn't know left from right. Or, apparently, right from wrong.
647. The German Army on Vimy Ridge 1914 -1917
by Jack Sheldon
This book looks on the two and half years of fighting for in the Vimy Ridge area during the First World War through mainly German eyes. What struck me was how much more articulate the Germans were compared with their British contemporaries. Perhaps something to do with educational systems. The book also benefits from being written from a retired British infantry officer, Jack Sheldon, who is able to cast a professional eye on events. Sheldon seems to have spent a lot of time in the Bavarian military archives and collected a mass of eyewitness material from accounts ranging from the first clashes with the French in the opening phases of the war through to the storming of the German trenches by the Canadian Corps in April 1917. Needless to say, the Canadians do not come out so well in this book as they do in accounts written by Canadian historians. The book works well from a From the Other Side of Hill point of view and I'll be keeping an eye out for Sheldon's other books on the German Army during the First World War.
646. The SAS in World War II
by Gavin Mortimer
It is hard to take someone seriuosly who writes that the USA declared war on Germany in 1941. Or that there was a famous British mountaineer called Charles Bonnington. Or that the Germans reached the River Meuse in their 1944 Ardennes Offensive. Is it Belsen or Belson? On the other hand, Gavin Mortimer does hint heavily that the legendary Paddy Mayne was far from popular. Though, Mortimer doesn't mention Mayne's cowardly attacks on fellow soldiers in the dark of night. He also gives murderer Roy Farran an easy time, noting he was acquitted of beating a teenage Jewish activist to death. What he doesn't say is that the acquittal came despite at least two confessions from Farran to the murder. This book is basically a retread of Mortimer's earlier Stirling's Men about the SAS during the Second World War. Only with more photos. The book leans heavily on interviews done for Stirling's Men a decade earlier and the extracts from them are its best feature. Not a terrible book. But not a great one either.
645. The Oxford Book of Canadian Military Anecdotes
edited by Victor Suthren
To me, and most dictionaries, an anecdote is short and amusing, and usually first hand. Many of the extracts in the this book are neither. But maybe former Canadian War Museum curator Victor Suthren didn't choose the title. What this book is is a collection of extracts from Canadian military history books and memoirs. After a weak start, covering the New France and British Conquest periods, the book settles down into an interesting look at Canadian military experience. There is a bit of a weighting in favour of the First World War but that might be no bad thing. It was interesting to see the 1837 Rebellion in Lower Canada viewed exclusively through insurgent eyes with the British regulars as the enemy. I finished this book wanting to track down some of memoirs the extracts were taken from. A worthy attempt to explain the Canadian military to Canadians.
644. Napoleon's War in Spain
by Commandant Henry Lachouque, Jean Tranie and J-C Carmigniani
I wonder if the senior US and NATO commanders in Afghanistan read this translated from the French account of the Peninsular War 200 years earlier. There are a lot of parallels: support for a puppet government, remote command, a xenophobic population of religious fanatics, unforgiving terrain, multi-national occupying force, little local respect for central government and lack of overall campaign coordination. In this French version of the war in Portugal and Spain, Wellington comes over as less of a military paragon than depicted in most British accounts and the Spanish, both regular and guerrilla, play a far bigger part in the fighting. The French are braver and more resourceful than British writers usually give them credit for. And this book's authors point out that the French Armies included many Poles, Dutch, Germans, Spanish and Italian troops. The book is filled with illustrations, maps and uniform plates.
643 . Their Finest Hour
by Philip Kaplan and Richard Collier
This intriguing American book was brought out to mark the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and thus benefited from input from still-living people who took part in it. It is lavishly and imaginatively illustrated. But it is the text from British writer Richard Collier that makes the difference. Collier was determined to bust many of the myths surrounding the legendary fight in the skies over southern England. He casts his net wide to include pilots from both sides, ground crew, fire fighters, civilians and radar operators. He also takes the story back to the interwar years. Collier also is not afraid to tackle issues such as the summary execution of downed Luftwaffe personnel and the extraordinary events at RAF Manston. I think he succeeds on putting a very human face on events. The only aspect of the book that didn't really work for me was the poetry extracts. Oh, and some odd page design choices.
642. Revolt in the Desert
by T E Lawrence
When I read the Seven Pillars of Wisdom as a teenager I really enjoyed the account of the First World War Arab rebellion against the Turks. T E Lawrence wrote this shorter version of his adventures to finance Seven Pillars. Frankly, I'm amazed that Revolt in the Desert didn't kill the project stone dead. It's overwritten and at times overwrought. It reads like a travel book with occasional Turks, written for graduates of one of the snottier English universities. This book, for me, quickly turned into a chore. It only really gets going in the closing chapters. Lawrence comes over as a highly unsympathetic character.
641. Excuse Us! Herr Schicklgruber
by H Clifford Chadderton
I got this book out of curiosity because I knew Cliff Chadderton through his work for the War Amputees. He was a great interview. I thought the book might be more of a memoir about being an infantry officer in 1944 Normandy than it proved to be. Instead it was more a scrapbook tribute to his fellow members of Canada's Royal Winnipeg Rifles. Although Chadderton promised to keep things light, there is a lot of death and tragedy. Also, some of the research is a bit squiffy. I don't think the Green Howards served with the 40th Division in Normandy. The book is a little bit of an oddity but a good natured and reasonable read, with some good anecdotes.
640. The Thirty Years War
by C V Wedgwood
This book was originally published in 1938 and it is tempting to think that it was as much about the perilous state of European democracy at that time as it was a history of a 17th Century conflict. Author C V Wedgwood notes in her introduction that the war serves as a warning as to the tragedies that ensue when "men of narrow hearts and small minds are in high places". An apt reminder for our own troubled times. There are few, if any, good guys in this story of hubris, vanity, greed and stupidity. But the worst of the perpetrators seldom suffer the consequences of their actions. It is ordinary people who pay the price. Wedgwood's research seems thorough, her grip on the facts sound and her insights and analysis spot on. A very worthwhile read well written.
639. Army of Steel
by Nigel Cawthorne
This book, also known as Fist of Steel, from amazingly prolific writer Nigel Cawthorne bills itself Tank Warfare 1939 - 1945. Well, not really. It's about German tank warfare and seen mainly through the lens of Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian's writings. There are a more than a few factual errors, eg. The Panzer III's primary armament was not a 20mm machinegun and the British 15th Division did not serve in the Western Desert. Despite the mistakes, this book would be a fair enough introduction to the subject for a 13 year old. Cawthorne is a smooth writer. Though lacking much insight, it is a reasonable regurgitation of some of the better known books on armoured warfare.
638. Napoleon as a General
by Jonathon Riley
This look at the career of the legendary Napoleon Bonaparte comes from a former British commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, Jonathon Riley. So, the author has some interest in the mechanics of high command. The opening chapter was a bit cerebral and I more than half expected a Command Decision Process flowchart to appear or something along those lines. Despite the title, Riley refuses to be drawn into whether Bonaparte was a good commander or not - only noting that at the end of the day, he lost. Riley also notes the poor quality of most of the commanders who opposed him. The book looks at, firstly, the Corsican's early days as a young commander in Italy, then his highly rated 1806 Campaign in Germany and concludes with his 1813 defeat at Leipzig. Riley also makes comparisons between generalship at turn of the 19th Century and in the early 21st.
637. Tank Tactics
by Roman Jarymowycz
Sad to say, this book was a big big disappointment. I had high hopes because Roman Jarymowycz is an Austrian/Canadian historian and former commander of a tank regiment, albeit a reserve unit. The book supposedly looked at tank warfare in 1944 Normandy. The focus was firmly on how wonderful the Americans were in comparison with the British and Canadians. But it's hard to take anyone seriously who thinks that General Miles Dempsey commanded the 1st British Army in Normandy. American spelling; American shoddiness when it comes to historical fact. Jarymowycz makes much of the technical superiority of the German Tiger and Panther tanks. But most German tanks in Normandy were Mark IVs. Normandy was also unsuitable for the kind of tank warfare of which the author is such a disciple. Even historians who take Jarymowycz somewhat seriously seem to think he goes too far in his condemnation of senior British and Canadian commanders. This is a dire book. If you want a sensible criticism of British/Canadian tank warfare in Northwest Europe, try John Buckley's. (Review 369. British Armour in Normandy 1944) instead.
636. Boots on the Ground
by Richard Dannant
I wanted to read this book about "Britain and its Army Since 1945" as soon as possible after finishing The Regiments Depart (Review 634), which covered the period 1945-70. I think the fairest thing would be to consider the two books as complimentary. Boots is more about the army's relationship with the British Government and in particular the impact of military budget cuts. In contrast with The Regiments, coverage of actual operations in Boots is reduced to the briefest of sketches. Massacres and misbehaviour are barely touched on and some well documented instances are are completely ignored. For a book written by a former head of the British Army there are a surprising number of silly factual errors. This is a worthwhile read, rather than a must-read, from someone who sometimes comes over as more of a politician than a soldier. It represents one point of view.
635 . Modern Soviet Armour
by Steven J Zaloga
Well, this look at Soviet and Warsaw Pact combat vehicles was modern as of 1979. Actually, the book has a lot going for it. Steven Zaloga knows his stuff and writes well. It follows the development of Soviet combat vehicles from the end of the Second World War and analyses their effectiveness. Some of the analysis is based on Soviet supplied weaponry captured in the Middle East and Vietnam. The book also looks at vehicles produced in Czechoslovakia, Poland and East Germany. As well as vehicle data tables the book is richly illustrated with photographs and 1/76th scale drawings.
634. Alamein
by C E Lucas
I can't help feeling this book, first published in 1962 and revised three years later, was a response to some revisionist criticism of the victor of Alamein, Bernard Montgomery. Certainly, it credits Montgomery with a flexibility and skill not usually attributed to the late British commander. C E Lucas has an advantage over many who have written about the 1942 battle because he was there. So, he gives an excellent feel for what it was like fight in the Western Desert. And he spoke to a lot of other British soldiers who took part, from Montgomery downwards. This is definitely a semi-worm's eye view looking at key parts of the battle from a company/battery/squadron level. Against that, there is very little from the German/Italian viewpoint nor any feel for the higher command decision making process. One thing is clear, the battle's outcome was by no means a foregone conclusion. The British had blown similar overwhelming material advantages in previous battles.
633. The Regiments Depart
by Gregory Blaxland
Even recently published books about the British Army include this 1971 book in their bibliographies. It is easy to see why. It follows the retreat from empire after 1945 through to 1971 in an accessible and easily readable way. It is hard to know if the title refers to the withdrawal of the regiments from the empire or the demise of the regimental system itself. Former soldier Blaxland combines big picture with well chosen detail as he follows the various regiments through a wide range of conflicts from full scale war in Korea to restoring democratic institutions in soon-to-be independent African states. An exhaustive but not exhausting read. But it's hard to know if Blaxland, as a former soldier, is being naive or coy when he fails to wonder why there were no wounded when the Scots Guards opened fire to foil and alleged mass escape by two dozen ethnic Chinese rubber plantation workers at Batang Kali in 1948 Malaya. There are other examples. His regimental knowledge can also be a let down. The Highland Light Infantry began life as the 73rd McLeod Highlanders and were not honourary Highlanders. And the Cameronians disbanded in Douglas in 1968, not Edinburgh. But basically the book is sound and will be going on my reference shelf.
632. Gladius
by Guy de la Bedoyere
This book readily admits it is not a history of the Roman Legions. It is more of a series of glimpses of the Roman Army grouped under subject headings such as Making Soldiers, Violence and Atrocities, Family Life, and King Makers for Sale. de la Bedoyere draws from a number of sources, including the classic Latin histories, official and private letters, tomb stones, monuments and archaeological finds. He seems to know his stuff. The damp boggy soil of Britain and the dry arid lands of Egypt mean that both counties proved excellent sources of preserved artifacts. The book helps put a human face on the army that held the first great western empire together. It is easy to see how the Latin texts provided the blueprints for the later and even more extensive British Empire.
631. Scottish Battles
by John Sadler
I have a theory that after a gap of around a decade it may well be worth bringing out a new book on an old theme. After 10 years or so it is difficult to get hold of the previous attempt to cover the subject. And perhaps after a decade some new information has come out. I think this book may be one of these books. Though to be honest it has little new to say. But it is reasonably well written and there are very few obvious gaffes. The book is more of a military history of Scotland than an examination of the key battles. There are excursions into border and clan warfare and looks at the evolution of weapons and tactics over the centuries. I disagree with the author's contention in his final chapter that Highlanders basically only joined the British Army in any numbers after Culloden. The supposed "Lowland" regiments before the 1750s had large Highland contingents and there were even kilted companies of Scots Guards and Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1704. Royal Scots outposts in 1680s North Africa communicated in Gaelic. But overall this English book makes a fair fist of it.
630. Uncle Bill: The Authorised Biography of Field Marshal William Slim
by Russell Miller
The words "Authorised Biography" can often be taken to mean the whitewashed version. The biographer has to balance the benefits of access to personal papers, family and friends of his or her subject against a possible loss of objectivity. No-one, or at least no-one author Russell Miller takes seriously, has a bad word to say about the man considered by many to have been Britain's best 20th Century battlefield commander. Maybe, perhaps, William Slim was indeed the paragon presented by Miller. But I doubt it. On the other hand Miller's portrayals of Harold Alexander as a pea brain, Louie Mountbatten as over-privileged chancer and Oliver Leese, like Alexander an over-promoted Guardsman, as almost entirely useless, are spot on. I suspect Miller benefited immensely from having access to Slim's unpublished biography. The result is readable but workman-like, and strangely unenlightening . I find hard to swallow that there was a warehouse in India packed with Maxim machine guns dating back to The Mutiny, 1857-58, as Maxims were not introduced until 1891.
629. Undercover War
by Harry McCallion
This partial glimpse of the world of British anti-terrorist activities in Northern Ireland seen through a very dark glass had some pretty poor reviews when it came out. But closer examination of the reviews showed most were from ignorant Americans or die-hard Irish Republicans. Former SAS man turned Royal Ulster Constabulary officer turned lawyer Harry, who was part of those activities, does tend to give the soldiers the benefit of any doubt when it comes to allegations of a shoot to kill policy. But he firmly condemns the activities of the first British undercover unit into Northern Ireland, the Military Reaction Force, which was not only murderous but often incompetent. They set up a mobile laundry service in Republican areas with a non- existent phone number painted on the side. McCallion argues that the MFR drove many people to take the side of the Provisional IRA. As an insider McCallion benefits from a number of good sources and there are even some funny anecdotes buried in the book. Most of the book focuses on surveillance specialists 14 Intelligence Company and the SAS units which acted on the information it provided. McCallion also looks at the tricky subject of how much informants should be allowed to go to retain their terrorist credentials. He also raises the possibility that internal politics within the Provisionals resulted in the deaths of several of its most effective leaders who were opposed to the Northern Ireland Peace Process. The full story of 14 Intelligence Company and the other Crown Forces involved will never be told but this partial glimpse is thought provoking. I was disappointed that as z Scot and former member of the Parachute Regiment McCallion stated 18 members of the regiment were killed by the IRA at Warrenpoint in 1979- it was 16 paras and two Queen's Own Highlanders.
628. The Last Tommies
by Richard van Emden
I was interested to compare this book of reminiscences from First World Veterans with a similar project from Max Arthur called The Last Post (See Review 625) written around the same time. Although a couple of the war stories were almost word for word in both books, Richard van Emden cast his net far wider than Arthur to include the memories of some veterans who died at around the turn of the last century. van Emden also gives more background about the war. His discussions of the veterans and the nature of their memories is also a bonus. That is not to suggest that Arthur's book is inferior. Rather the two books compliment each other. van Emden's selection includes memories ranging from the amusing to the downright macabre and horrifying.
627. Dervish
by Philip Warner
A 1973 book which looks at the Dervish Empire in the Sudan which flourished between the capture of Khartoum and death of General Gordon in 1885 through to the British-led reconquest commanded by Herbert Kitchener in 1898. Writer Philip Warner delves into the memoirs of European prisoners for much of his analysis of the African Empire and makes an effort to be fair to all sides. In view of the fact that Sudan and its neighbours are now among the most unstable and miserable places in the world today, this book has some merit when it comes to explaining how we might have got to this point. Most British accounts ignore the Dervish’s war with neighbouring Abyssinia for much of the period of their Empire. And I don’t think many of the senior British officers, or politicians, escape some degree of criticism from Warner. Kitchener comes out better than I thought he might. I was a little disappointed that Warner did not have more to say about the Dervishes breaking into the British square at Tamai in 1884 and the Black Watch’s part in what could have been a military disaster. This book offers a different enough take on events to be interesting.
626. The Yompers
by Ian Gardiner
This book had me from the first paragraph when Royal Marines Falklands War company commander Ian Gardiner speculated that though soldiers fight for their mates alongside them there is also an element of fear: the fear of being branded a "waster" by those same comrades. Gardiner was unusual in the Falklands as he was already a combat veteran; having been attached to the Omani army almost a decade earlier (see Review 394). The book is sprinkled with humour, human decency, much thought and wisdom, and not uncritical of how the war was fought. Gardiner has a way with words and is honest enough to confess to making mistakes. He also peppers the book with colleagues' experiences. The Falklands weather is the main enemy for much of the book and there are some handy survival tips amongst the pages. There is also much mature thought on the nature of command in combat. Gardiner commanded X-Ray Company of 45 Commando - which got through the storming of the Twin Sisters without any fatal casualties. Gardiner attributes this to a belt-fed 7.62 machine gun for every eight or nine men and the initiative and courage of those men. We may have the first double winner of the SMD Book of the Year.
625. The Last Post
by Max Arthur
This is a series of around 20 interviews with the last survivors of the First World War, first published in 2005 when all of them were more than 100 years old. Some talked about war; some barely mentioned it but spoke mainly about their lives before and aftUer the conflict. Max Arthur gave them their heads and did not even correct basic mistakes they made – the massive explosion which gutted the Canadian port of Halifax in 1917 had nothing to do with a German submarine. The randomness of survival to over 100 years old meant that a wide range of jobs, branches of the military, and experiences are covered in this book. The only major distortion is that all the men were very young and junior in rank. Several of the contributors died before the paperback edition came out in 2006. An interesting read, particularly when it comes to discussing the lives of ordinary men across the full span of the 20th Century.
624. SAS Storm Force
by Rowland White
I had my doubts about how much of this book would be about the SAS and how much would be about the Sultan of Oman's British-piloted air force in this account of the legendary battle of Mirbat in 1972. Rowland White's previous books had been on an RAF theme. The focus was indeed on the contribution of airpower to breaking up the attack by Communist insurgents on the coastal base of a small detachment of SAS men. Reviewers said the book read like a page-turning thriller. And thanks to some cavalier statements in the book I'm inclined to treat the book more as fiction than history. The Sultan of Oman served as an officer in the Cameronians while heir to the throne. But White seems to switch between the Cameronians and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders when discussing the Sultan's period with the British Army. He describes the head of Oman's armed forces, Brigadier John Graham as an ex-Cameronian when he actually served with the Argylls in the Second World War. And I doubt that some of the Sultan's troops were armed with bolt action .303 Martini Henry rifles. The Martini Henry was not bolt action and it didn't used .303 ammunition. I don't know enough about Strikemaster ground attack jets to know if White's claims for it are accurate. But I decided to take almost everything he said with a pinch of salt. On the other hand, White does a fair job of giving the background to the Communist insurgency, the events leading up to Mirbat and of putting it in context.
623. 3 Days in June
by James O’Connell
This is an account of Britain’s bloodiest, and most controversial, battle during the 1982 Falkland’s War as told by many of the participants. The storming of Mount Longdon was carried out by the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment and several books have accused the Paras of murdering Argentinian prisoners and one of them of slicing off Argentinian ears as souvenirs. This book does not touch on any of those accusations. It was a project launched by one of the British veterans who lost an eye in the battle and eventually became a taxi driver, James O’Connell. Sometimes the book can be a bit confusing as the same incidents seen from different viewpoints appear at various points. But that might be a good thing as battles in real life are confusing. Many recollections focus on efforts to save the dying and wounded. The contributors vary from the brigade commander to cooks and also include some Argentinians and Falkland Islanders. It didn’t take long to suspect that one of most inspiring figures in the book, Corporal Stewart McLaughlin, was the guy allegedly found to have human ears in one of his pouches and that would explain why he did not get a posthumous gallantry medal. This is a good read. It was originally self published for distribution amongst members of 3 Para and therefore contains far less nonsense than many war books.
622. The Paras
by Max Arthur
This collection of reminiscences takes up the story of the Parachute Regiment where Max Arthur’s previous book, Men of the Red Beret, left off with the Falkland’s War. The book has another crack at the Falklands and once again allows the veterans to tell their own stories. But the blokes, and one woman medic, all come over very well. Sadly, I don’t know how much is down to Arthur’s nudging and editing and how much of the content is the soldiers’ own work. However, the book gives an interesting insight into how the Paras see themselves and their regiment and its work in the Falklands, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. This book is well up to Arthur’s usual high standard.
621. Grampian Battlefields
by Peter Marren
This was a surprise find at a Canadian library surplus sale. And what a pleasant surprise. English naturalist and historian Peter Marren appears to have written this account of armed clashes in North East Scotland while working there for the Nature Conservancy Council. Sometimes these locally focused histories are a bit "anorak". But Marren combines a smooth writing style with a good tactical eye for terrain, solid historical research and knowledge of local legend and ballad to create a little gem. Some of the battles were more skirmishes than anything but that does not detract from their interest. The conflicts range from Mons Graupius, which he places at Bennachie, through to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, taking in Robert the Bruce's civil war against the powerful Comyn family and a look at McBeth's campaigns. All in all, nicely done.
620. Military Elites
by Roger Beaumont
I decided to take a chance on another book by an American academic. In a way it did not disappoint because like nearly all books I've encountered by American academics it was riddled with errors and inaccuracies. Which is a shame. Because Roger Beaumont was no fan of 20th Century military elites, not to be confused with special forces. Beaumont spreads his net wider than just the SAS, paratroops, Marines, SEALS and Rangers to include such groups as the U.S. Strategic Air Command, submariners and the RAF's Pathfinder squadrons. In many of cases Beaumont examined showed the casualties were high and the achievements low. Propaganda and myth often exaggerated the contribution made. All very interesting. But it is hard to take Beaumont's analysis seriously when his ignorance of basic facts suggests heavily flawed research. Britain's SAS did not wear green berets; North Africa and the Western Desert are west of the Suez Canal; the Chindits were not "Chinese troops trained by Americans"; the 78th Division was not designated as a mountain warfare unit and did not serve in Northwest Europe; it is far from true that all the first Royal Marines Commandos and Chindits were volunteers; and I seriously doubt that the Glider Pilot Regiment consisted of over 33,000 men, three divisions worth of troops. I suspect Beaumont had a theory, several theories perhaps, possibly correct, but could not be bothered getting the facts. A shame.
619. Grant As A Military Commander
by James Marshall-Cornwall
The Grant in question, as you've guessed, is Ulysses S Grant, Union Army commander in the American Civil War. Author James Marshall-Grant is less familiar. He was a Second World War British Corps commander in North Africa. So, he brings a professional eye to this look at Grant's career. The American Civil War was an important topic ofstudy at the British Staff College before the Second World War and I suspect this influenced Cornwall-Marshall's assessments. I also get the impression that the retired British general visited the scenes of many of Grant's battles. Overall, Cornwall-Marshall rates Grant highly but he is not blind to his subject matter's shortcomings. But Grant usually learned from his mistakes and most of the heavy butcher's bill associated with his campaigns can be laid, in Cornwall-Marshall's opinion, at feet of his subordinate commanders, many often purely political appointees. An enlightening tome.
618. Raising Churchill's Army: The British Army and the War Against Germany 1919 - 1945
by David French
I was keen to get my hands on this one after reading David French's book on the British regimental system (Review 609). I was not disappointed. French argues that even in 1944 the British infantry were man for man inferior to their German counterparts - but they were not intended to be a match. British military leaders had decided in the aftermath of the First World War to rely on technology and mechanization. Unfortunately, successive governments starved the Army of resources and devoted what they were prepared to spend on the military to the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. Throughout the war British rifles, brens, mortars, artillery and tanks were inferior to their German equivalents - a reliance being put on on quantity over quality to compensate. Even worse, while their Germans trained their men to operate two ranks above and encouraged initiative, senior British officers regarded the rank and file as being too stupid to tie their own shoe laces and positively discouraged anything other than thoughtless obedience from their subordinates. Training was haphazard and often inadequate. Command and Control procedures were often a shambles. There was only so much the ruthless but competent commander Bernard Montgomery could do to tackle the deficiencies. It is said an army reflects the society it springs from. So, no surprise that the weaknesses French identifies can also be seen in Britain's overall performance in the world since The War.
617. Vikings at War
by Kim Hjardar and Vegard Vike
This is a book of three parts: one very good, one OK and one a bit of bust. The look at Viking culture and way of war by Norwegian academic Kim Hjardar is very good. He draws on archaeology, Viking sagas and Christian chronicles to create a fascinating portrait of these often maligned and misunderstood characters. Hjardar's interest in historical recreation also adds to his understanding and sympathy for his subject. The chapter on Viking weapons and armour, by Vegard Vike, was a little too "anorak" for my taste. But it is probably of great interest to those who wish to kit themselves out as a Viking raider. The third part, looking at Viking conquests and incursions, is too much of a recitation of kings and dates of battles. It is possible that Hjardar felt he couldn't depart too far from the sparse historical record. The book benefits from being written by two Norwegians who can make links that a, say, British or American writer, might miss. Though a times the translation into English seems a little lacklustre.
616. The Normandy Campaign: Sixty Years On
edited by John Buckley
This collection of scholarly essays was a surprise pleasant find, though it's apparently taken me 16 years to stumble across it. The contributors are mainly British and much of the book is aimed at dispelling the notion that the Germans outfought the troops 21st Army and were only beaten by overwhelming Allied superiority in material. Editor John Buckley tackles British tank operations, and other subjects covered include intelligence and deception, airpower, German mistakes, Operations Totalize and Bluecoat, the bombing of Caen, British documentary coverage of the fighting and American tactical innovation. The stellar cast of contributors includes Stephen Hart, Stephen Badsey, Gary Sheffield and Canada's Terry Copp. All but the very last essay, on Hollywood war movies, are delights and thought provoking.
615. Jane's Naval History of World War II
by Bernard Ireland
This proved to be a succinct but thoughtful look at the war at sea 1939-45. A lot of the book is about the war in the Pacific but there is a strong British flavour to book. I had not realised what heavy weather the Americans made of their submarine campaign against Japan, nor in the numerous clashes between the two country's aircraft carrier task forces. I came away feeling that Japan was defeated only because the Americans could build more aircraft carriers. The Royal Navy pathetic number and quality of carrier aircraft is also explored. Writer Bernard Ireland devoted chapters to various aspects of the conflict such as surface warfare, amphibious landings, carriers, submarines and anti-submarine technology. He has many interesting things to say about each and I came away feeling he really knew his stuff.
614. Special Forces in Action
by Alexander Stilwell
I suspect this 2007 book was mainly aimed at teenage boys - and I don't mean that as a criticism. The book is well illustrated and the text is unsensational, though it possibly overstates the achievements of special forces troops in the main period covered, namely 1990 to 2006. Author Alexander Stilwell gamely attempts to penetrate the secrecy surrounding special operations but the text is peppered with phrases such as "it is believed". Most of the focus is on British and American special forces but other nations, such as France, Australia, Canada and Germany all get some attention. There is also a chapter on South American anti- drug and counter revolutionary/terrorism units. Stilwell gives a lot of credit for the idea of special operations to TE Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, while completely ignoring the original Commandos, the Boers of 1900-02.
613. Band of Brothers
by Stephen Ambrose
Trust me, the TV series of the same name is way better than the book. I'm appalled that this Stephen Ambrose character was allowed to teach history. The book is written by Ambrose but Second World War veterans of the Second Battalion of 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment's Easy Company played a large role in its preparation. So, it can be assumed that they endorsed the numerous snide comments about Britain and the British. I thought I'd check out a reference to a Colonel O Dobey, the Mad Colonel of Arnhem. I'd never heard of The Mad Colonel of Arnhem. But there was a Lt-Colonel David Dobie who did indeed cross the Rhine after escaping from the Germans and helped arrange for Easy Company to ferry around 130 Arnhem evaders to safety. Major Digby Tartham-Warter, was in charge of the evaders and may have qualified for the description "Mad Major" due to his insistence on frequently brandishing an umbrella during the fighting at Arnhem's road bridge. The Americans are critical in the book about the noise the evaders made but it seems they were ordered to make a racket in order to fool the Germans as to their number. Later in the book Ambrose claims wrongly that the British 1st Airborne Division took part in the 1945 drop on the east bank of the Rhine known as Operation Plunder. I hope that gives you some idea of Ambrose's worth as a military historian. I would happily have thrown this drivel aside halfway through.
612. Decisive Factors In Twenty Great Battles Of The World
by William Seymour
Caitiff; Marplot; Lububration; Contumacious: if you use words like these every day then this is book for you. I can't believe British military historian was able to fill a book with such pompous and pretentious language. The text itself attempts to fulfil the promise of the title by looking at why some battles were won or while others were lost. Seymour, best known for his two volume Battles in Britain, was a professional soldier between 1934 and 1949, so his analysis is worth considering. Treachery, hubris, incompetence, illness, and personal rivalry all seem to have played their part in defeat, often in combination. By the way, a previous owner of my copy wrote down dictionary definitions of many of the obscure words employed by Seymour on a blank page at the back of the book.
611. The Best Little Army in the World
by J L Granatstein
Prolific, but respected, Canadian historian Jack Granastein makes a big claim in this look at the war in northwest Europe after D Day. Does he justify it? Perhaps not, not unless the reader is Canadian and wants to believe. That said, Granatstein does show that the Canadian Army's efficiency and fighting ability improved as the campaign went on. It was certainly no worse than the British or American. The book mixes big and little picture material. But sadly there is little fresh or insightful. Granatstein falls into the trap of claiming that the Canadians fielded the biggest volunteer army of the Second World War. First time around I gave him the benefit of the doubt and took it that he meant in the European fighting. But a second reference makes it clear he is ignoring the Indian Army fighting the Japanese. He also doesn't seem to realise that the Stuart and the Honey are the same tank. This is not a bad book about the Canadians in northwest Europe; if you haven't read one before.
610. Montrose
by C V Wedgwood
This is a very short biography of the Marquis of Montrose, one of the most successful commanders in Scottish military history. If I quite often refer to an author cantering through a text, then this 158 pager is a full blooded charge. But C V Wedgwood knew her Civil War and was an accomplished writer. There can be no doubt that Wedgwood was an admirer of Montrose but it would appear there was much about him that was indeed admirable. Sadly, the same cannot be said for many of the men on whose behalf he fought; either the Covenanters or father and son kings, Charles I and Charles II. An excellent little read.
609. Military Identities
by David French
This book turned out to be a dispassionate look at the British Army's old county- based regimental system and whether it worked. The approach is academic but well known and respected military writer David French has a good eye for an anecdote or an interesting aside. The book focuses mainly on the English county regiments. I wish French had taken a closer look at the Highland regiments. A lot of myths are punctured about just how local the old "local" regiments were. Sadly, it was written before the Royal Regiment of Scotland was created but it was probably inevitable that the situation in which most of the recruits came from the Central Belt would eventually have to be acknowledged, regardless of what tartan they ended up donning. French casts his net wide looking at issues such as recruitment, barrack life, military "justice" , marriage, overseas garrison duty, food, pay, officers, training, the non-commissioned ranks, civilian relations and part-time soldiering. A very worthwhile contribution to the social history of the British Army.
608. Battle for the Skies
by Michael Paterson
The subtitle of this book was World War II Aces tell their story. So, I thought it would concentrate on fighter pilots. But, no, there was a substantial contribution from bomber crews. The book is almost entirely eyewitness testimony with brief linking text. The content is pretty bog standard. I didn't gain many fresh insights. Some of the material from American contributors is somehow a little off or iffy. I suspect that was down to whoever collected it. This was not a bad or terrible read but not really a worthwhile one either.
607. Charles Edward Stuart: The Life and Times of Bonnie Prince Charlie
by David Daiches
I'm not sure I would ever refer to Charles Edward Stuart as Bonnie Prince Charlie. And I could easily have given this book a pass. David Dachies was better known as a literary historian or as the brother of Lionel, the famous lawyer. But he appears to have a good grip on 18th Century Scottish history and the Jacobite risings. I hadn't known that shortly after arriving in Scotland in 1745 that Stuart revoked the 1707 Act of Union. Dachies also raises the question of what would have happened if Stuart had consolidated his hold on Scotland instead of invading England. That was not something that occurred to Stuart. I'm a little more sympathetic to Stuart in his latter years as a result of reading this book. Though Daiches could perhaps have explained how and why Stuart alienated almost all of of his most devoted adherents. Stuart's wife comes across as a real piece of work.
606. Abundance of Valor
by Will Irwin
I had second thoughts about the wisdom of buying this book within minutes of paying for it. American books usually turn out to be a disappointment; poorly researched and chauvinistic. But books by former military men sometimes prove the exception. Will Irwin claims to have served with the US Special Forces. This book is a look at the work of American, and to a far lesser extent Dutch, agents parachuted into the Netherlands in support of Market Garden in 1944. From what I can work out from this book, the presence of two or three more Americans would have almost certainly resulted in the capture of the bridge at Arnhem. Actually, Irwin doesn't quite go that far but some of claims in the book might raise some eyebrows. Sadly, Irwin treats basic geography and easily checkable facts with cavalier carelessness. The British had no 76th Home Guard Division; there is no Loch Tobort near Inverie; where is Loch Moray; were paratroopers really based at the Yorkshire village of Swinden; and the German version of the bazooka was the panzerschreck, not the panzerfaust. The latter part of the book mainly follows the fortunes of one American agents captured at Arnhem.
605. The History of the Middle East Wars
by J N Westwood
This is what used to known as a coffee table book and therefore is maybe about 70% photographs. It charts the conflicts associated with the foundation of Israel. By my reckoning John Westwood has produced a fair and balanced text in which there are no real good nor bad guys. The affairs of Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon are always influenced by the perceived interests of the United States and the Soviet Union, with the UK, France and Germany all adding to the toxic mix. Westwood keeps his accounts of the various conflicts short but reasonably clear.
604. No Prouder Place: Canadians and the Bomber Command Experience 1939-1945
by David L Bradshaw
This book proved to a surprise contender for the 2022 Book of the Year. It was obviously a labour of love for former Canadian jet fighter pilot David Bradshaw. His postwar service in the Canadian air force obviously gave Bradshaw an insight and sympathy for the Second World War's bomber crews. Although seen through a Canadian lens, this is at heart an honest examination of Bomber Command during the Second World Wars; from the days when entire target cities were missed by tens of miles to the point near the end of the war when it was almost possible to put a bomb in a pickle barrel from twenty-thousand feet. The book is filled with accounts from veterans, naturally mainly Canadian but also from German interceptor pilots, which give a lot of colour to the well informed analysis. The battle of technology makes for good reading; I had no idea the Germans fitted an idiot proof photo electric gunsight on their Messerschmitt 163 Komet rocket fighters. The book is obviously a reply to much of the ill informed criticisms of the Allied Bombing Campaign which have taken firm root since the Second World War and mostly succeeds in that aim. Worth sticking with for the whole just short of 500 pages.
603. Churchill's First War
by Con Coghlin
Daily Telegraph foreign correspondent Con Coghlin does a reasonable job of looking at British national icon Winston's Churchill's part in the Malakand fighting on India's Northwest Frontier in 1897. Certainly his account is closer to the mark than Churchill's own account in My Early Life, written 30 years after Malakand. Coghlin makes good use of Churchill's letters home. Coghlin, however, stumbles when he gets greedy and tries to parallel Churchill's war with the conflict in Afghanistan in the early years of the 21st Century. I just was not convinced. Coghlin also stumbles when it comes to historic fact. The Coldstream Guards played no part in the 1839 invasion of Afghanistan; the Gatling guns in the Second Anglo Afghan War were a disaster rather than war winners, one broke down after firing a few rounds, the other managed to fire off nine drums of ammunition before packing in; and Lord Kitchener did not fight the Mahdi in Sudan in the late 1890s, the Muslim leader had been dead for almost 15 years. Such sloppiness calls into question much of what Coghlin writes.
602. The Last Days of the Raj
by Trevor Royle
Scottish journalist Trevor Royle has written some good books. He has written some bad books. This one, about in British pullout from India in 1947, is in the "Satisfactory but could do better" category. The root of problem is that Royle's parents were both part of the Raj and I seem to recall that he was born there. He therefore fails to take a balanced and dispassionate view of events, though admittedly he does try. Being part of a colonial setup is corrosive to the soul. I'm too young to remember the exodus from India back to the UK but I was around when a number of people returned from Rhodesia after majority rule came in. There was something damaged about the former Rhodesians. There was also something wrong with many participants in the Raj. During the Second World War the Indian Army expanded from 200,000 men to closer to two million. There were not enough public school boys, who believed the Raj was an employment agency for the otherwise unemployable, to provide the required number of white officers. So grammar school boys were brought in. The Indians found them far less racist and open to ideas than their more privileged predessors. Things functioned better. Royle almost gets there and doesn't have enough to say about how poor whites, such as the regimental rank and file, were treated by the Raj. He is also too inclined to give Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last viceroy, the benefit of the doubt. A lot of people, both British and Indian, who have made a lifetime study of the end of the Raj are not inclined to be so generous.
601. The Prince in the Heather
by Eric Linklater
At first I thought once well known Scottish writer Eric Linklater had indulged in a lot of artistic licence in this very readable account of Charles Edward Stuart's time on the run after the Battle of Culloden in April 1746. There was too much detail and dialogue. But at the end of the book Linklater reveals that it is basically a rewrite of The Lyon in Mourning, or at least the bits about the aftermath of Culloden. That book was a labour of love which involved the author interviewing almost everyone who came into contact with Stuart. So, if not The Truth, the reader is at least getting The Legend first hand. And in Linklater's more than capable hands it is a tale well told. I have to admit I find it hard to reconcile the portrait of Stuart in the book with the drunken obnoxious wife beater he later became. The book is accompanied by some very atmospheric and moody 1960s photos of some of the places visited by Stuart and his helpers. The photographer, Don Kelly, even outlines the technical details of what he did to take the pictures, such things as the F-stop.
600. Two Sides of the Beach- The Invasion and Defense of Europe in 1944
by Edmund Blandford
I wasn't expecting much from this book. The American spelling of Defence seemed to be a red flag. So, I was delighted to find I was reading what turned out to be a strong contender for the 2022 Book of The Year. Freelance artist turned military historian Edmund Blandford's selection of testimony from British and German soldiers who fought in Normandy is spot on. He captures the confusion, and at times terror, of frontline fighting in a way many other writers have often failed to do. The historical analysis which leavens the firsthand testimonies is also thought provoking and evenhanded. His coverage of issues such as cowardice, mental breakdown, surrender and desertion is also sane and sensible. Also, unusually, I failed to spot a single factual error or misprint. Blandford also strives to be fair to Allied land commander Bernard Montgomery and the too often maligned British Tommy or Jock. A very good read.
599. Secret Wars
by Gordon Thomas
This book bills itself as a look at a century of existence of MI5 and MI6. It is not. There is very little about either organisation prior to the Cold War and there is an awful lot about Israel's Mossad and the American CIA. And then there is the question of how much journalist Gordon Thomas has to say is true. The world of espionage is a world of lies, half truths and deception. Thomas must have asked himself about his sources "Why is he or she telling me this?". I'm not convinced he always managed to separate the wheat from the chaff. That said, Thomas is a good writer, though a little inclined to hyperbole. Sadly, the book jumps around from subject to subject and keeps confusing MI5 and MI6 and vice versa. I doubt this book has pride of place on the shelves of those with an informed interest in espionage and anti-terrorism.
598. The Battle of Britain
by Richard Townsend Bickers
This book could have been a mess. It pulls together several narratives, a battle timeline and brief biographies of some of the leading RAF pilots who flew in the late summer of 1940. And not only that, but although veteran fighter pilot Richard Townsend Bickers wrote the bulk of the book, there are several other writers involved, experts in their field. But somehow the whole thing holds together to make for quite an interesting read. The topics tackled include a look at the opposing air forces, a summary of the battle, attempts to give an idea of a typical day for both sides' fighter pilots and a look at aircraft involved.
597. The Ghosts of Cannae
by Robert L Connell
I have no idea why it took me so long to get through this book. The writing style was easy on the brain and academic military historian Robert Connell seemed to have a good grasp of his subject. He knew what was interesting and when to keep things short. The destruction of an entire Roman army in 216 BC by a Carthaginian force under Hannibal is handled briefly and the book is more a history of the Second Punic War. Connell's narrative is insightful and hard-headed. Hannibal proved good at winning battles but bad at winning wars. A good read.
596. Testaments of Honour
by Blake Heathcote
This is basically edited transcripts of interviews with two dozen Canadian Second World veterans. Many talk about their lives and upbringing before they joined up and nearly all reflect on what their service meant to them, with some further reflections on the modern generation. Their experiences vary from an army chaplain, a military nurse, through to a member of the clandestine Special Operations Executive. Army, Navy and Air Force are all well represented and a number were either prisoners of war or evaders in occupied Europe. Some have some pretty amazing stories to tell. Sometimes the facts are a bit wonky but that's to be expected. One PoW recounts meeting a number of officers from the 51st Highland Division, but contrary to what he says they were not the rearguard at Dunkirk in 1940.
595. The Giant Book of Battles
edited by John E Lewis
This is a canter through 20th Century military history highlighting a number of battles and campaigns ranging from the attempts to relieve the town of Ladysmith during the Second Boer War to the First Gulf War. Some of the 42 accounts are extracted from books while others are drawn from a defunct magazine called War Monthly. They range from first hand accounts through to strategic analysis. The quality is variable but generally good and there are some gems included, especially concerning lesser known battles and campaigns. Editor Jon Lewis perhaps commits the biggest howler in the book when he says the US 82 Airborne Division are known as the Screaming Eagles. Nope, that's the 101st Division.
594. Wing Leader
by Air Vice-Marshal "Johnnie" Johnson
After reading Winged Victory (Review 590 below) , I decided to splash out on British Second World fighter ace Johnnie Johnson's full memoir of the conflict for a little more detail. I'm glad I did. It was an excellent read, especially for a war book written in the 1950s, and may well be justified in being described as a "classic" of the fighter pilot memoir genre. Some readers have complained it is a little too nuts and bolts technical but I wonder what they thought it would be when they picked it up. Johnson with 38 "kills" was the top scoring Allied pilot of the war. Though, I'm not sure he mentions that in the book. The edition I got came from a Canadian publisher, as Johnson often commanded Canadian units. Definitely in the running for the 2022 Book of the Year.
593. The American Revolution 1774-1783
by Daniel Marston
This one is part of the Osprey Essential Histories series. It does just what it "says on the tin" and provides a summary, a canter through even, of what I like to think of as The First American Civil War. Osprey is a British publisher, so I took the use of American spelling as a bit of a red flag. But for an American, academic Daniel Marston is remarkably even handed. The regulars of Washington's Continental Army have gone up in my estimation thanks to this book. Marston is also careful to stress that the conflict morphed into a world war involving the British facing the French, Spanish and Dutch and this limited the resources available to crush those determined to exploit American grievances to seize power for themselves. For better or worse, the British shoot themselves in the foot again and again. A short read but an interesting one.
592. A Thoroughly Canadian General
by Paul Douglas Dickson
The General in question is Harry Crerar, who commanded the 1st Canadian Army in Northwest Europe after D Day, the "1" in Montgomery's 21 Army Group. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery didn't think much of Crerar and wanted the commander of the 2nd Canadian Corps, his protege Guy Simonds, in charge of the 1st Canadian Army. Canadian military historian Dickson tries hard to make Crerar out to be a more effective army field commander than his reputation, even in Canada, suggests. I'm not sure he entirely succeeds. But it's a good try. Crerar still comes over more as a politically astute manager than as gifted master of the battlefield. But Dickson is good on the challenges Crerar faced, particular with the British troops frequently placed under his command, and in building an army organisation from scratch. The First World War stuff is interesting too. Sadly Dickson makes a couple of missteps which hurt his credibility; St Andrews University is in St Andrews, not Glasgow; what the heck is the 15th Battalion of the 48th Highlanders, and the Royal Marines were not at Dieppe, the guys on the flanks were Army Commandos.
591. The Enemy Within
by Terry Crowdy
This book bills itself as "A History of Espionage". But it proved to be a hard read and poorly researched. It is from the Osprey stable and must be the poorest book of theirs I've come across so far. As a survey of espionage it is superficial and episodic. I suspect many of the tales are taken from a single source. There were a couple of stories that were interesting but all too many that took too long to tell. Author Terry Crowdy's writing style is often ponderous and sometimes it was hard to work out what he was trying to say. I don't think US President Abraham Lincoln lived until 1885 , Mozambique was a Portuguese colony, not Belgian; and Peter the Painter and his gang faced off against the Scots, not the Coldstream, Guards in 1911. Second worst book so far this year, after Joanna Bourke's thankfully brief The Second World War: A People's History (Review 581). Osprey should hang their heads in shame for publishing this one.
590. Winged Victory
by Air Vice Marshal J E 'Johnnie' Johnson and Wing Commander P B 'Laddie' Lucas
I didn't know what to expect from this 1995 book by two of the most prolific RAF Second World War writer-veterans. Would it just be a rehash of their previous work? It advertised itself as The Recollections of Two Royal Air Force Leaders. But not only did I get the memories of two of RAF's top fighter aces but those of many of their colleagues. Time lapsed may also have made the pair more candid in their assessments of some of the RAF leadership and the appalling mis-steps made than they would have 60 years ago. The book is a beguiling mix of anecdote, memoir, analysis and aviation history. It is also well illustrated. I'm glad I took a chance on it.
589. Meeting the Enemy
by Richard van Emden
Prolific writer about the First War, Richard van Emden, specialises in often neglected aspects of the conflict. This time he has chosen interactions between Britons and Germans. But he does not confine himself to soldiers. Much of the book is about civilian internees and their families or even enemy nationals who were allowed to continue to live in their adopted communities. He highlights the desperate straits faced by British women in the United Kingdom who were considered Germans because of who they married and therefore left to starve by the authorities. And then there were the conscripted sons of Germans forced into labouring units of the British Army. Or the British Prisoners of War who died or were crippled after being sent to dig trenches for the Germans on the Russian Front. The murder of prisoners and the Christmas Truces also feature. All in all an interesting confection.
588. They Came From the Sky
by E H Cookridge
I thought this book was going to be a brief look at the role played by the British Special Operations Executive in the French Resistance during the Second World War. Instead it focuses on the stories of three of the British officers who were lucky enough to survive. E H Cookridge was a journalist turned Intelligence Corps member turned author. The book is an easy and quick read. But it is very much in the heroic mold. The reality of the French Resistance was far more complex than this book suggests and it's actual contribution to the Allied victory was far far more dubious. Three tales reasonably well told. One odd thing was that though printed in the UK, the spelling is mainly American.
587. Knights of the Air
by Ezra Bowen
This is actually a lavishly illustrated look at arial warfare First World War from the team at Time-Life Books, as part of its Epic of Flight series. Not surprisingly, it is a very smooth read. How much it gives of a picture of those rickety flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants days is harder to say. Certainly, the research cannot be faulted. It is an American book, so possibly too much space is taken up by the US contribution to the air war than events would justify. Perhaps this best considered an attractive coffee table book. Or maybe a worthy introduction/taster looking mainly at the US, German, French and British flyers and their machines during the war. The last couple of chapters focus mainly on Germany's Manfred Von Richthofen and America's Eddie Rickenbacker.
586. The Miracle of Dunkirk
by Walter Lord
I plucked this one from the to-read pile while Dunkirk: The Necessary Myth (Review 579) was still reasonably fresh in my mind. Miracle, written by established American writer Walter Lord, was closer to the traditional British version than Myth was. There were more stoic Tommies and salty Tars in Lord's book, which seems more centred on personal accounts than Myth. The slow evacuation of French troops from Dunkirk was put down in Miracle to chaotic communications rather than British perfidy. And the British put up more of a fight than is recounted in Myth. On balance, Lord's version contained more heroism and less incompetence. But he didn't neglect all the less savoury behaviour and occurrences. He noted for example that the Tommies were more likely to be abandoned by their officers if they served with a non-frontline unit.
585. The Road to Kandahar
by Jason Burke
This look at Islamic extremism from British journalist Jason Burke was published 2006. I would love to know how Burke feels now, just over 15 years on. The book is part memoir, part travelogue and part analysis. Burke comes across as an intelligent and sensitive observer of the Muslim world from Algeria to Thailand, though most of the action is in the Middle East or Afghanistan/Pakistan. I think Burke may have been too optimistic about Afghanistan. I came away from there in 2002 with a very uneasy feeling. Burke appears from this book to believe the Taliban didn't have much of a future. But mainly I think Burke is correct in his belief that there is no monolithic Islamic extremism or single mastermind but rather the violence and discontent are driven by mainly local grievances and discontents. Burke comes across well and is a good writer who carries the reader along smoothly, though at times the book was a bit choppy and episodic.
584. Panzer Division
by Kenneth Macksey
Ex-British tank regiment officer Kenneth Macksey is usually a good read. And this look at the much vaunted German Panzer Divisions in the Purnell's Illustrated History of the Second World War series was obviously close to his heart. As a former tank man Macksey brings an expert eye and understanding to the German armoured soldiers who gave the world the word "Blitzkrieg". As ever with the old Purnells, the book is richly illustrated with photos, maps and drawings. But they wouldn't count for much if it wasn't for Macksey's almost surgical dissection of why the panzers succeeded at first and then ultimately failed. Possibly a must- read for anyone interested in tank warfare. Hitler might have done better if he could have time travelled into the future to read this 1968 classic. I'm glad I finally read it.
583. Desert Rats
by John Parker
This book supposedly charts the history of the famous 7th Armoured Division and its successors from the Western Desert in 1940 to Basra in 2003 Iraq. Former journalist John Parker is certainly a smooth and engaging writer. Sadly, what he writes can't be taken as gospel. It's hard to know how much of the constant stream of factual errors is down to shoddy or rushed research, carelessness, or just poor proof reading. I'm not sure that the British 6th Airborne Division jumped into Normandy again on 11th June 1944 but I do know it didn't take part in the Arnhem operation. The German Panther tank had a 75mm gun not an 88mm. It was the 9th Indian Division that surrendered at Kut in 1916, not the 6th. The author of The March on Tunis was Alan, not James, Moorehead. Mussolini didn't go into hiding after the Italian surrender in 1943 but was put under arrest by the new regime. And so it goes on. There are two positive things to say. Many of the first hand accounts make for good and informative reading. And certain important issues and criticisms of how operations were conducted are raised.
582. The Road to Kabul
by Brian Robson
This look at the Second Afghan War, 1878-81, may have been hobbled by being written in 1986 when there was another war going on in that country, this time involving the old Soviet Union, and research was difficult. Author Brian Robson used his experiences of soldiering with both the Indian and British armies, along with his time as a senior civil servant with the Ministry of Defence, when he cast his eye on this conflict. He certainly has a lot of sympathy and respect for the Afghans but his account looks at the war through an almost exclusively British lens. Who knows what he could done if he had enjoyed Afghan sources similar to those tapped by William Dalrymple in his account of the First Afghan War (See Review 565). The accounts of the battles in this book are surprisingly perfunctory. The only exception is a pretty full account of the disastrous British defeat at Maiwand. I was surprised in view of the numerous criticisms of Victorian legend Lord Roberts that at the end Robson compares him to the Second World Wars Erwin Rommel. Robson is also keen to pay tribute to the Indian troops who did the bulk of the fighting. The writing is solid rather than sparkling Was the war, which ended with a British withdrawal worth it? Read the book and see.
581. The Second World War: A People's History
by Joanna Bourke
If was a prize for the worst book of the year, this pathetic effort from academic Joanna Bourke would be a strong favourite to win. Bourke has some interesting ideas but her lack of grip of the facts left me doubting by Page 29 if anything she wrote could be trusted. I can't believe Oxford University Press gave this tosh its seal of approval. Contrary to what Ms Bourke believes: there were no Tiger Tanks in the Blitzkreig, they were introduced two years later; Israel was founded in 1948, not 1949; Finland did not win the Winter War of 1940; trying telling Sherman and Cromwell tank crews that the Allies had better quality armour than the Germans in Normandy ; I'd like to know just which British troops faltered during the 1944 German Christmas offensive in the Ardennes; the Germans were well aware of the Dunkirk Evacuation long before June 4th 1940; US General George Patton was not a D-Day commander; Bomber Harris did not instigate the RAF bombing of German cities but implemented plans already made; and the Germans had been driven back from Moscow several months before they reached Stalingrad. Believe it or not, there were even more mistakes. If this had been part of a A Level or Higher project, it would have earned a Big Fail. What Bourke does succeed in is in conveying the tragedy of the war. In many countries civil war accompanied resistance to German, Italian or Japanese occupation. The Allies did indeed commit war crimes which would have seen them on trial if they had lost war. And Bourke's thoughts on the German death camps are well worth considering. But, thank goodness this was a short book. I think I'm starting to remember why I was unimpressed by Bourke's breakout book, An Intimate History of Killing.
580. Boy Soldiers of the Great War
by Richard van Emden
I had hoped this book would be more about soldiers' experiences in World War One than about the emotive subject of teenage soldiers. To might delight it proved to be. People mature at different ages, I can remember going to high school with a couple of guys who were over six feet tall aged fourteen, so I can see that some folk were capable of soldiering from the age of sixteen. The British Army seems to have leant heavily on boys in their mid- teens to fill the ranks before conscription was introduced. Though it is hard to see how twelve and thirteen year olds were accepted as being nineteen, the age for frontline service. Almost as criminal as the blatantly underage was making upperclass boys in their midteens officers. It's one thing to fire a rifle, it's another for a sixteen year old public school boy to be responsible for 30 or 40 men. I'm pretty sure the Scots and Irish are underrepresented in this book. van Emden writes that when the Army finally pulled the underagers out of the frontlines in any great number many of them were Scots but this is not reflected in the most of the text. But the book does stand as a excellent collection of frontline experiences.
579. Dunkirk: The Necessary Myth
by Nicholas Harman
This 42 year old book was an attempt to take an honest look at the legendary Second World War evacuation of the bulk of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk in 1940. And in general, freelance print and television journalist Nicholas Harman makes a fair fist of it. The book has more to say about how the Royal Navy muddled through than it does about the Army. The BEF comes over as poorly equipped, poorly trained and poorly led and in Harman's very rarely gets to grip with the Germans. And when it does fight many of the Tommies are ordered to take no prisoners. The French do most of the fighting, unaware that the British are planning to desert them. The RAF barely even tries, preferring to keep its powder dry for the expected Battle of Britain. Churchill basically has to order the Royal Navy to evacuate French troops and even then the Senior Service bungles it.
578. Twentieth Century Warriors
by Field Marshal Lord Carver
Sadly, this book proved be somewhat of a curate's egg, good in some parts, not so good in others. The former British Chief of the Defence Staff takes a look at some of the major military players of the 20th Cenury - Britain, France, the USA, Germany, Russia, Japan, and China through the years to 1986. As a Cold War Warrior himself it perhaps shouldn't come as surprise that Michael Carver's strongest chapter is on Russia/the Soviet Union. Know your enemy, I suppose. The weakest is the British chapter. I'm not clear whether Carver was simply blind to the faults of the British or simply did not want to offend his former masters and colleagues. I felt he wanted to say more about the Americans but decided to mute his criticism. The look at armies, the French and German in particular, which dabbled too much in politics provide a much needed warning. The flashes of insight and clarity are balanced by too much coyness. Just about a worthwhile read.
577. Fighting Rommel: The British Imperial Army in North Africa During the Second World War 1941-1943
by Kaushik Roy
Professor Kaushik Roy looks at how quickly, and how much, the British Empire forces and their allies in North Africa learned from their clashes with General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps. His verdict is not fast enough and not well enough. The Afrika Korps was always outnumbered and though some of its equipment, such as the 88mm dual purpose gun, was superior to its Empire counterparts there was never enough of it. And yet the British struggled to contain the German opponents. The Empire troops did learn but lessons the German could teach were absorbed painfully slowly and sometimes the wrong interpretations were made. The British never mastered fast moving fluid all-arms armoured warfare and the early massacres of British tanks made their commanders too slow to exploit successes. It took way too long to work out that it was the German anti-tank guns and not their tanks that were destroying British Armoured at an alarming rate. Popular TV historian General Brian Horrocks was among the offenders and reading Prof Kaushik it is difficult to see him as the best man to command the later 1944 thrust to Arnhem. General Bernard Montgomery comes over in this book as a control freak who stifled innovation and initiative. Though his lack of faith in most of his senior subordinates was usually justified. But the Empire forces did have a learning culture, though not as good as the one they had during the First World War, and combined with material superiority they did eventually overwhelm the Germans. But the Africa Korps had a better mission- orientated command structure which encouraged battle winning on the spot initiative and exploited its superior training and tactical skills to the full. Kaushik takes a refreshing look at the Indian Army's contribution, in particular the 4th Division. He concludes that though Lieutenant General Francis Tuker, the 4th's commander for much of the fighting was a quicker learner and more innovative than most of his peers, he wasn't as good ad he thought he was.
576. Battle for the Falklands (1) Land Forces
by William Fowler and Michael Chappell
Prolific military publishers Osprey rushed out three specials in 1982 covering, respectively, the land, sea and air wars fought between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Despite the speed with which it was written I doubt if William Fowler would feel there was much he could usefully add to this short account of the land campaign. Though it took ten years or so before accounts of the fight for Goose Green to criticise the original battle plan and events began to make sense. As with most Osprey books, this one is well illustrated. Artist Mike Chappell was handicapped to some extent by a lack of definitive sources on Argentinian uniforms and equipment as he tried to reconcile handbooks and photo illustrations.
575. The Day of the Barbarians
by Alessandro Barbero
I picked up this slim book on the strength of how much I enjoyed Italian academic Alessandro Barbero's book about the Battle of Waterloo (See Review 64 ) . This time he is writing about the 378 Battle of Adrianople, which many historians believe marked the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire. Barbero argues that the seeds of decline and fall were sown earlier and in any case the situation was more complex, and interesting, than many realise. The Empire was short of people and immigration from the barbarian tribes, in this case the Gothic victors in 378, was key to its survival. It was also a major factor in the Empire's destruction, according to this well argued and enlightening book.
574. Armed Truce
by Hugh Thomas
This look at beginning of the Cold War in the years 1945 and 1946 by respected academic historian Hugh Thomas promised much but failed to deliver. Certainly, it was not a patch on Thomas's history of the Spanish Civil War. The book was supposed to be the first of series documenting the history of the Cold War but the project seems to have been abandoned after the first installment. I'm not sure whether I took against this book due to irritation with the American ineptitude it documented or with Thomas's failure to nail the Yanks for it. Thomas certainly fails to adequately explain why Britain came out of the war so weak, namely its deliberate bankrupting and undermining by its supposed US ally which believed until 1943 that it could win the war with British blood and American military hardware, both paid for and loaned. At the end of day Thomas concludes that even if the Americans had had a clue the Cold War was unavoidable because the Soviet Union needed an enemy to justify the hardships endured by its people due to its own dysfunctional system. Two dysfunctional political systems equals Cold War, that might be what Thomas is trying to say.
573. Fighting Sail
by Oliver Warner
This turned out to a richly illustrated canter through history of war at sea during the heydays of sailing ships seen from a distinctly European, if not British, point of view. Credited author Oliver Warner, usually a good read, died before the book was completed. Reading between the lines, it looks as though it was competed by Victoria Howard-Vyse. However, Warner's input is clear and he was an expert on the British navy during the Golden Age of Sail. The book only really finds its groove around in the period beginning around 1700 and fades out after the Napoleonic Wars. I was a little disappointed that a better look was not taken at the Royal Navy hubris which led to it being regularly bested by the fledgling US Navy in the War of 1812. I also wish more had been done to place the illustrations in closer to text to which they are linked. A nice summary, perhaps too Royal Navy-centric.
572. Hell & High Water
by Lance Goddard
Could do better. This slim book about Canada's part in the Italian Campaign during the Second World War combines photos, the reminiscences of veterans and a linking text. All are flawed. I suspect sloppy transcription of the reminiscences is part of the problem. In one excerpt a man describes being the commander of a machine gun battalion and later he is commanding a machine gun platoon. I suspect the latter is the case but I shouldn't have to guess. A photo of a Panther tank turret has a caption about 88mm guns. The Panther had a 75mm. TV guy Lance Goddard gets so much wrong about Monte Cassino that it was hard to take anything he writes without a pinch of salt. The best bits are the veterans' testimonies. It's all a shame as the Italian campaign does not get the coverage it deserves. And it deserves better than this.
571. Caesar's Legion
by Stephen Dando Collins
The Roman legion in question is the 10th or if you prefer the X. Stephen Dando Collins, an Australian-American, does his best to untangle the myth and propaganda to put a Roman Legion under the microscope. I had no idea that a typical legion was recruited from a specific locality and age group and not reinforced until the enlistment term of between 16 and 20 years expired. The 10th was recruited by the legendary Julius Caesar in 61 BC and fought in his major campaigns and battles - Gaul, England, the Iberian Peninsula and the Roman Civil War against Pompey and his successors. After his death it served mainly in the Middle East and was present at the destruction of Jerusalem in 69/70 AD. The book's final chapter is a very brief canter the final demise of the legion, now in Byzantine service and recruited from what is now Turkey, around 340 AD. This is an accessible though a little too US focused look at Legion Life when Rome was at its peak.
570. No 617 'Dambuster' Squadron
by Alex Bateman
This book is part of Osprey publishing's Aviation Elite Unit series, a series I was unaware of. As with most Osprey books, it is pretty solid. 617 Squadron is indeed best known for the 1943 Dambuster raids, it was specially formed to conduct them, but it did far more. As well as finally sinking the German battleship Tirpitz the unit also dropped the RAF's biggest and most devastating bombs. High precision bombing was also a unit forte. The book sometimes strays into "anorak" territory, I didn't need to know the serial numbers of every aircraft mentioned, but Alex Bateman generally kept the pace cracking along with accounts of all the missions, innovations and squadron fatalities. A good potted history.
569. The Battlefields of the First World War
by Peter Barton
I've already read two similar format books by Peter Barton, so I reckoned this one was a good bet. I wasn't disappointed. The book is built around the 200 or so panorama photos of frontline positions in Belgium and France taken by the Royal Engineers during the First World War. Perhaps surprisingly, few of the views are of mud churned moonscapes peppered with a few broken off tree stumps. In most the trenches are pretty much invisible and the battlefields do indeed look empty of people. Barton mixes his discussion of what can be seen in the panoramas with well chosen extracts from diaries, letters and memoirs of the men who were there. There are also brief descriptions of the fighting drawn from conventional military histories. The book deals with each sector, north to south, in turn between the years 1914 and 1918. There are also numerous maps, some contemporary and some modern, showing where the panoramas were taken from. I didn't quite get the hang of flipping back and forward through the book to match all the references to each panorama with the relevant mentions in the text but it's hard to see how that problem could have been dealt with. And, anyway, the quality of the text means this is a surprisingly minor quibble about a book built around photographs. An unusual but very informative and evocative contribution to the long list of books about the First World War.
568. Agent Jack
by Robert Hutton
This very smooth read looks at a seldom discussed but fascinating aspect of the Second World War: namely the number of British residents clamouring to serve Hitler and the Nazis. The Agent Jack of the title is former London bank clerk Eric Roberts who infiltrated fascist organisations in the UK both before and during the war and then later posing as a member of the Gestapo he ran a network of Fifth Columnists. Lucky for the British, as some members of the network proved rather good spies, the information the network managed to gather went only as far as Roberts's bosses at MI5 and not to Berlin. Many of the main players in British counter espionage during the war , including a number of men who later proved to be Soviet agents, appear in this fast-paced account from journalist Robert Hutton. As do civil service politics and jealousies. None of Roberts's network was prosecuted due to embarrassment at how easy it was in wartime Britain to recruit Nazi agents. Being a staunch anti-Semite and incredibly indiscreet did not prevent one of the Old School Tie Brigade rising to be be civil service head of the Foreign Office. This is a very strong contender for the 2021 Book of the Year.
567. The Crimean War : A History
by Orlando Figes
This was one has to go into the file marked "Interesting but dubious". Unlike many British accounts of the 1853-56 conflict this one from history professor Orlando Figes makes a lot of use of Russian and French sources. Much of the early part of the book looks at the background to the war and events leading up to its outbreak. At last I'm clear on the role of Austria and what the Danubian campaign was all about. Figes is also good on the aftermath of the war and its implications down to the present day. The accounts of the fighting in the Crimea show a sense of balance and compassion. But. But the coverage of the Sutherland Highlanders at Balaklava is so poor that it might be wise to take anything Figes says with a hefty pinch of salt. There was no 93rd Highland Brigade. There was a 93rd Highland Regiment. But Anthony Sterling was not a member of it, he was a staff officer with the Highland Brigade. Memoirist William Munro was not a sergeant in the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders but one of regiment's doctors. So many mistakes in so few paragraphs.
566. Battle of Britain
by Len Deighton and Max Hastings
Sadly, this experiment from the "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words" school does not quite come off. A mix of photos, diagrams, maps, drawings and text it was a bold conception. But the compromises made, particularly when it came to breaks in the text, and therefore the narrative, just prevent the book fulfilling its promise. The text is thoughtful and balanced. The use of boxed-off first hand testimony from participants helps give a flavour of the times. The look at not do of very often discussed aspects of the conflict, such as the sterling work of Post Office engineers (sometimes working around unexploded bombs) to keep Fighter Command's vital command and control communications working is very welcome. This was a worthwhile attempt at something different and may well have been useful as a school book.
565. Return of a King
by William Dalrymple
This book pits some excellent research against a turgid writing style that all too often turned reading sessions into a chore. Where it scores over most books about the 1842 destruction of the first British army to invade Afghanistan is in Dalrymple's use of Afghan sources. And Dalrymple's living in India gives him a feeling and sympathy for that neck of the woods. Interestingly, although published a decade ago, the book already treated the recent Western military adventure in Afghanistan as defeat. And that modern defeat came about, according to Dalrymple, for many of the same reasons behind the 1842 disaster. Dalrymple is even handed when it comes to assessing the various characters involved, though he is perhaps too soft on Colin Mackenzie, a distant relation of his it turns out. If Dalrymple had been a smoother writer I would have been tempted to put this sad tale in the running for the 2021 Book of the Year.
564. Most Secret War
by R V Jones
I think I'll put these tales of scientific espionage and Second World War battle of brains onto the shortlist for the 2021 Book of the Year. Reg Jones headed the most successful of Britain's scientific intelligence units. Among its coups we're foiling the German radio beams intended to guide their bombers to their British targets and tricking the V1 operators into firing their pilotless bombs short of London. Jones has a good eye for amusing anecdotes and liberally peppers this book with them. He becomes involved in battles of wits and expertise not only with the Germans but with his own scientific, civil service and military colleagues. More than half of good intelligence is correctly interpreting and understanding the information gathered from various sources. The book also offers a glimpse of the bad faith shown by the United States during the Second War. Jones even suggests that Winston Churchill lost the 1945 Election because so many Britons felt they had been sold down the river to the Americans.
563. England's Pride
by Julian Symons
After a promising start, this look at failed attempt to rescue Victorian icon Charles Gordon from the Sudanese city of Khartoum settles into a rather pedestrian account. Symons was a successful crime writer who on occasion turned his hand to history. Gordon, for me at least, failed to come alive in this book. Though Symons neither lionises him nor mocks him. The key figure in the book is Sir Garnet Wolseley, the inspiration for Gilbert and Sullivan's Model of a Modern Major General. The failure of the relief expedition ruined Wolseley's reputation as Our Only General. Symons argues that Prime Minister Gladstone determination not to let Gordon's refusal to leave Khartoum force his hand meant the relief expedition was dispatched too late. In war, it is said, error is the rule, not the exception. Mistakes, big and small, were made at all levels and Symons is probably correct when he asserts that it was a miracle that the expedition came so close to success as it did.
562. The Third Front
by Douglas Liversidge
Journalist Douglas Liversidge does an excellent job of capturing the starkness of life in Arctic during the Second World War in this account of one of least known theatres of conflict. Both the Allies and Germans set up crucial weather stations in the Far North and hunted the other side through the ice and snow wastelands. Men died, planes crashed and ships were crushed. Courage and fortitude counted for much. Liversidge gives no clue as to how he uncovered a lot of the fascinating detail he gives in this well written and evenhanded account which gives due credit to both sides. This is a definite contender for the 2021 Book of the Year.
561. Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman
by Frances Stonor Saunders
I'm afraid I can't share others enthusiasm for this account of 14th Century warfare in Italy. The Hawkwood of the title is mercenary leader John Hawkwood. But there is surprisingly little about the Essex man beyond what can be gleaned from official records. I got no feel for the man. There was far more insight from Ms Saunders into the various Italians involved in the bitter warfare between various city states for supremacy in the peninsula, with the added complication of rival popes also seeking dominance. Hawkwood fought for nearly all of them. This is an interesting account of late medieval warfare in Italy but not really much of a biography of Hawkwood. Saunders's stodgey writing style also made it hard for me to digest much of the book at each sitting.
560. Ill Met by Moonlight
by W Stanley Moss
This tale of how British- led Cretan resistance fighters kidnapped a German General during the Second World War is strangely flat. The book is based on the tidied up diary of one of British officers involved, Billy Moss. The party successfully stops the German's car and then spends several days hiking across Crete. They stay in a variety of places including houses and caves. A British boat picks them up. Meanwhile, the Germans are searching for the kidnapped General but seldom get close. Tale told. Quite how the 1957 film of the same name generated sufficient dramatic tension if it stuck closely to the book is beyond me. But though there is not a lot of bang- bang, this is an evocative tale of high courage with well drawn characters. I suspect much was left out when the book was written just after the war.
559. The Courage of Early Morning
by William Arthur Bishop
I indicated in my review of Canadian World War One flying ace Billy Bishop's wartime memoir Winged Warfare (Review 526) that I came away from it with little feel for the man. Well, I'm a little clearer after reading this biography written around 1965 by his son. I can't help feeling that the son as biographer is a two edged sword. Bishop Jnr would appear to be a better writer than his dad and would appear to have access to his papers and also to many people who knew the ace. Junior was also a fighter pilot himself, Spitfires, and in addition to many long friendly chats with his father he could also mine a wealth of family legend. But on the other hand, Junior liked and respected his father and wanted readers to share his high opinion of the controversial ace. Most of the controversy centres around how many Germans the notoriously lone wolf hunter really shot down. But regardless of how true a picture of Bishop the book actually gives, it does offer an interesting portrait of life in the old Royal Flying Corps and the early days of the Royal Air Force. Bishop it turns out was no great fan of his adversary Baron Von Richthofen.
558. India's War
by Srinath Raghavan
This is a look at India and the Second World War from an Indian academic. Srinath Raghavan takes a look at various aspects, including military history, Indian independence politics, economics, the British Empire and the Raj, and social affairs. I thought he would return to some topics as the war progressed but several of the chapters were stand alones. For a British reader the extent to which the United States of America was calling the shots long before it was attacked by Japan and Germany declared war on it was an eye- opener. Raghavan was an army officer at one point, so what he has to say about t he raising and training of the largest volunteer army in world history is well worth paying attention to. Indian attitudes to the Japanese raised Indian National Army are also nicely explained.
557. 1745 Charles Edward Stuart and the Jacobites
edited by Robert C Woosnam-Savage
This book was produced by Her Majesty's Stationary Office to accompany a 1995 exhibition at Kelvingrove in Glasgow to mark the 150th anniversary of the last Jacobite rising. It is a collection of eight essays looking a various aspects of the rebellion and it's legacy. The topics vary from a biography of Charles "Bonnie Prince Charlie" Stuart to the armies and the fighting, Jacobite glassware and if a king were a tree, what kind of tree would he be. Some of essays are easier to read than others. But nearly all were too short. I was gratified to find most agreed with my own assessments in the Culloden chapter of Scottish Military Disasters.This was an interesting but quick read. I'm not sure I would paid the £11.95 original asking price.
556.The Secret Raiders
by David Woodward
This is a look at the Second World War's all too often neglected activities of Germany's armed merchant ships and the havoc they wrought on the world's shipping lanes for three years. Although nowhere near the menace created by U-boats, the merchant raiders sank three times the shipping that conventional Kriegsmarine surface vessels sent to the bottom and as many as mining operations did. The German raiders often masqueraded as Allied merchantmen as they scoured the Atlantic, Indian Ocean and Pacific in search of prey. Author David Woodward leans heavily on the German's own archives of this form of licensed piracy but manages to keep his tale clipping along at an easy to read fair speed. Each section follows one ship on one voyage and sometimes when the vessels briefly work together or rendezvous for some reason, the separate narratives can be just a little hard to reconcile. Almost but not quite a contender for the 2021 Book of the Year.
555.Who Killed the Canadian Military?
by J L Granatstein
One of Canada's leading military historians and academics, Jack Granatstein, looked in 2003 at what had gone wrong with Canada's military in the years since 1956. In successive chapters he went through every Canadian Prime Minister since Lester Pearson through to Jean Chretien and his successor Paul Martin and outlined what damage each had done. He makes reasonably cohesive cases for the damage done by United Nations' Peacekeeping, short- sighted anti-Americanism, political correctness, civilian/military bureaucracy, rampant anti-militarism among politicians and budget cut after budget cut reducing the Canadian military to a poorly equipped very bad joke. The book had a new introduction and afterward in 2008 but this falls short in its examination of wether the war in Afghanistan changed things either for better or worse. At the end of the day, Granatstein puts the blame on on the Canadian electorate for allowing things to get so bad due to ignorance and indifference.
554. Operation Sea Lion
by Peter Fleming
This is an interesting but flawed book by the big brother of the guy who wrote the James Bond books, Ian Fleming. Big brother Peter was a well known travel writer in the 1930s. This is a bit of a surprise as going by this book he liked to pepper his prose with French, Latin and obscure English words such as "adumbrated" and "omnisubjugant". He also gets stuff wrong. The spies executed in the UK were convicted under the Treachery Act 1940, not the Treason Act. Where value of this book lies is that it was written by someone who was in England at the time when a German invasion seemed probable. Fleming even played a part in anti-invasion preparations. These went beyond my soldier grampa with a tin of paint which he was pour into the petrol storage tank of nearby garage. Fleming is opinionated and not afraid to be critical of the British leadership. He points out that even the much maligned British command during the First World War recognised the possibility of German invasion, which is more than their Second World War counterparts did, until it was almost too late. I won't spoil it for by revealing Fleming's surprise conclusion.
553. MI5
by Nigel West
These books always have to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Deception and mis direction are all part of the game when it comes to spies. This one by journalist Rupert Allason ,aka Nigel West, is almost 40 years old. So, some of the stories have changed and more official records have been released. Allason/West only takes the story up to 1945, though there is a postscript which is supposed to explain why the traitor Anthony Blunt was not prosecuted. It's hard to know why William Melville doesn't even rate a mention in the index when Andrew Cook in his book describes him as the first head of the Security Service (See Review 537). Either Allason didn't do his research or Cook has over- egged the pudding. All the same, this was still an interesting book and I learned a couple of things I hadn't known before.
552. The Battle of Britain
by Richard Hough and Denis Richards
I know... yet another book about the Battle of Britain. Is there anything new to say? Well, official RAF historian Denis Richards and former Hurricane pilot turned professional writer Richard Hough brought an insight and knowledge to the subject in this book,brought out to mark 50 years since the aerial conflict, often lacking in other accounts. They slip easily between insider anecdote and the Big Picture in an even- handed analysis of this myth muddied tale. Those puzzled by the quick exit of both Fighter Command chief Hugh Dowding and the group commander in the forefront of the battle,Keith Park, before the last contrail faded will find some plausible answers in this account. The book is also keen to spread the credit for victory beyond the heavily cliched Few in the cockpits of their Spitfires. In the running for 2021 Book of the Year.
551 . War in European History
by Michael Howard
Once regarded as almost the Dean of British military historians, at least of those drawn from academia, Michael Howard takes a look at the development of warfare in Europe pretty much Viking times through to 2001 . After an uninspired and uninspiring start, perhaps Howard wasn't particularly interested in the early years, this short book, hits it's stride. Howard is more interested in the influences of commerce, social change and technology on warfare than a catalogue of kings and battles. As would be expected from such a respected academic, he makes his points succinctly and what he says is worth thinking about. This is a short stimulating read.
550. The March to Tunis
by Alan Moorehead
Under its British title, The African Trilogy, this book by Australian war correspondent Alan Moorhead is one of my favourite accounts of the Second World War in the Western Desert. It is also a handy guide to how to cover a war. In fact I re- read it before heading off to Kosovo in 1999 . Moorhead had a good eye for telling detail and a well developed sense of humanity. The three books were all written during the war. This is a double edged sword. On one hand, it reflects how things looked at the time without the contamination of hindsight. On the other, there is a lot of self censorship. Criticism of how the British mismanaged much of the fight against the Afrika Korps is muted and some reading between the lines is required. I'd also forgotten about Moorhead's diversions to India, the USA, East Africa and wartime Britain. The book is also one of the few accounts out there which recounts the aftermath of Operation Torch and the activities of the British 1st Army's Tunisian campaign. Overall, a interesting tale well told. Oh, near the end when he mentions the Long Range Desert Group, Moorhead is writing about the Special Air Service.
549. War and Society in Europe 1870 - 1970
by Brian Bond
This proved to be a stimulating "Big Picture" look at at military affairs from the rise of Prussia through to the Cold War through the eyes of leading British academic Brian Bond. So, no detailed accounts of battles or campaigns. Instead a lot of thoughtful analysis and insight. And maybe a touch too much hindsight. Bond looks at how countries both prepared for war, or didn't, and how those conflicts were in the event fought. Bond was a good writer and his points are both well made and easily understood. I for one will be looking out for other books written by Bond.
548. The Opium War
by Julia Lovell
Much of this book focuses on the present day repercussions of the war the British fought to force the Chinese Empire to accept illegal opium shipments from India in the mid-1800s. To the Chinese Communist Party the war marked the start of China's woes and 110 years of humiliation. But as academic historian Julia Lovell points out, without being an apologist for the British, the story is not quite as simple as the Communists make out and their mis- use of history can easily backfire. The Chinese people are smarter than The Party cares to admit. Almost half of the budget for the areas controlled by the Communists before they defeated the Nationalists in 1949 came from opium sales. Lovell is not a natural story teller or writer and sometimes her prose could be heavy going. But she does have a lot of interesting points to make.
547. The Conquest of the Reich
by Robin Neillands
Basically, this is a follow-up to Robin Neilland and Roderick de Normann's D-Day 1944: Voices from Normandy (See Review 542) in that it leans heavily on eyewitness accounts. The focus is on the final five months of the war. Ex-commando Neillands chose his contributors well and their war stories range from the amusing to the grim. Neillands used several longish accounts but most are worth the effort. He also links the contributors' tales with a sometimes idiosyncratic overview of events. I like that he highlights the hypocrisy of the Americans, especially when it came to how their non-white personnel were treated. Where the book disappoints is in the poor proof reading and cavalier attitude to basic facts. The German Army which surrendered at Stalingrad was the 6th, not the VII , Bratislava is in Slovakia, not Hungry. But most irritating of all was the use of British spelling in US proper names and when quoting American contributors. It may be an armoured unit, but it's the 9th Armored Division.
546. Bomber Boys
by Patrick Bishop
Former journalist and military buff Patrick Bishop takes a look at the lives and now controversial exploits of the RAF's Bomber Command during theSecond World War. The book is strong on the personal experiences of the aircrew. It even has look at what it was like to be on the receiving, German, end of the bombs. The book's analysis of the value of the bombing campaign is also good. But it doesn't have much to say about the dramatically improved target location technology after 1943. Bishop lets himself down by comparing the loss of so many aircrew to the high casualty rate amongst Brtish officers in the First World War, in a loss of many of the brightest and best sort of a way. Many of the rank and file infantry in the First World War equally represented the brightest and best of British society and would probably have made works foremen if they hadn't been slaughtered on the Somme or Gallipoli. I was also a little disappointed by the lack of input to the book from Commonwealth and Scots aircrew. This was a good read but flagged in the last quarter.
545. With Wolfe to Quebec
by Oliver Warner
Oliver Warner was best known for his work as a naval historian. So it should not have been a surprise that he treated the capture of Quebec in 1759 as a highly successful joint operation. Warner was a smooth writer and this was a quick and easy read. He stuck to the essentials and refused to be bogged down with too much detail. But he still captured essentials of the tale and did not skate over some of the less savoury aspects of victor James Wolfe's character.
544. Voices from D-Day
edited by Jon E Lewis
I thought I would review this one while D-Day 1944: Voices from Normandy (Review 542 below) was still fresh in my mind. The format and period covered is slightly different but the basic idea of quoting eyewitnesses extensively is the same. Military history journeyman Jon Lewis opts in this book for straight eyewitness account extracts linked by very brief text, rather than the more integrated into a main text approach employed by Robin Neillands and Roderick de Normann in D-Day 1944. I'd say both books work equally well. Lewis also opts to continue the story from the 6th of June to take in accounts of the weeks of fighting involved in breaking out of the Normandy Beachhead. In the main, his eyewitnesses are worth reading and I think this book has more extracts from author conducted interviews than the Neillands/de Normann book; but I wouldn't bet the farm on that. Lewis also opts to quote from books written by senior officers and uses extracts from some official documents. At the end of the day, there is little difference in the quality of either book.
543. The First World War Remembered
by Gary Sheffield
This book is a confection of historic photos, copies of original documents, maps, photos of artifacts from the Imperial War Museum and a thoughtful text from one of Britain's leading military historians, Gary Sheffield. Sheffield keeps the text accompanying each section short and pithy but does his best to puncture many of the myths now surrounding the conflict. The book is an excellent summary and introduction to the war. But it is let down by the maps, which basically only show large scale units against a dark background and are very far from helpful. On the other hand, it is worth using a magnifying glass to read the original documents reproduced in the book.
542. D-Day 1944: Voices from Normandy
by Robin Neillands and Roderick de Normann
Ex-Commando Robin Neillands is usually pretty reliable. So, it was a surprise that a couple of silly errors found their way into this book: the German Panther tank had a 75mm gun, not an 88mm; there was no British General Alanbrooke; the Chief of the Imperial General Staff was called Brooke, first name Alan; and what was the British 3rd Army and what did it have to do with D-Day? Luckily, the bulk of this book is first hand testimony from participants in the landings and it does not rely on well known historical facts. Neillands and Roderick de Normann chose their eyewitnesses well. The chaos and carnage is vividly captured. As is the arbitrary nature of who lived and who died. Most behaved surprisingly well, but not all. Most of the accounts are from Brits or Yanks but the occasional German sneaks in. The final words in the book come from a German. I even learned something; that Canadian historians have in the main ignored the role played by the Liverpool Irish in the landings on Juno Beach.
541 . SIx Weeks
by John Lewis-Stempel
The Six Weeks referenced in this title was the supposed life expectancy of a junior British officer on the Western Front during the First World War. I'm afraid I can't quite buy into author John Lewis- Sempel's peon of praise for the English public schoolboys instantly transformed into leaders of men. But I may be prejudiced because, when I thought about it, I realised that two of the most revolting specimens of humanity that I was ever answerable to at work were privately educated in England. Lewis-Stempel barely goes into why only two officers were shot for cowardice during the war but hundreds of rankers were. The officers running the courts martial process obviously proved far more sympathetic and understanding to those Chaps who had once sported an Old School Tie. Instead, the book is populated almost exclusively by noble and brave soldier poets. He also fails to address the point that the British Army only found its groove late in the war when the ready supply of public school boys ran out and the officer corps became 40% made up of members of the lower social orders, many of whom had flocked to the colours around the same time as their privileged contemporaries had automatically been made sub lieutenants. . All that said, this is s well researched book drawing on memoir, diaries and letters home which paints a compelling portrait of men at war.
540. Forgotten Armies
by Christopher Bayly & Tim Harper
Sadly, this is not the easiest read but the reader is unlikely to mourn the passing of the British Empire in India, Burma and Malaya after finishing this book. I knew from my research into the 1948 Batang Kali Massacre in Malaya that the British administration there was seedy and second rate after the Second World War. It turns out from reading this book that it was just as incompetent and racist before the war and situation in Burma was no better. The gross and callous mismanagement of 1943 Bengal Famine helps explain why the Japanese allied Indian National Army enjoyed such widespread in the sub-continent and Indian diaspora. Academics Chrisopher Bayly and Tim Harper are unsparing, but even handed, when looking at the racism, ethnic hatred, incompetence, duplicity, collaboration and selfishness that turned war in Burma and Malaya into a nightmare for so many. Anyone interested in present day events in Myanmar would do well to read this book.
539. A Near Run Thing
by David Howarth
This is an account of the 1815 Battle of Waterloo built around about a dozen eyewitness accounts from soldiers from both sides. But author David Howarth sensibly decided to paraphrase the recollections rather than quote the often somewhat tortuous English of the original memoirs. He gives just enough background to keep the recollections in context. Howarth also brings a humanity and understanding to this account that is not always present in histories of this oft chronicled battle. Perhaps it was his Second World War experiences as a journalist and naval officer that helped give him this insight. Sadly, the book is marred by several silly factual mistakes. Sergeant Tom Morris served with the 73rd Foot, later the 2nd Black Watch, not the 30th Cambridgeshires. And Frederick Ponsonby was a Light Dragoon, not the commander of the Royal Scots Greys. .
538. Jungle Soldier
by Brian Moynahan
The soldier referred to is Spencer Chapman and the the jungle is Malayan during the Second World War. Former Sunday Times journalist Brian Moynahan is more than a little handicapped by that fact that Chapman was not only a very much a stiff upper lip public school sort of Englishman but also a bit of a line- shooter. I'm not convinced Moynahan caught him out on all his exaggerations. The ex- journalist is an obvious admirer of Chapman's and holds him to be the salt of The British Empire. The thing is that those Brits who survived serving with him in Malaya with the Chinese guerilla forces do not seem to completely share Moynahan's high opinion of him. I couldn't help feeling Chapman wouldn't have lasted long without the help of the mainly Communist Chinese fighters. But Moynahan does a good job of bringing life in the jungle alive for the reader. He is also good on Chapman's earlier life in Greenland, India and Tibet. The book is an excellent companion to Chapman's own war memoir, The Jungle is Neutral.
537. M: MI5's First Spymaster
by Andrew Cook
I have to admit I'd never heard of the subject of this book, William Melville. Irish born Melville rose to be head of the Special Branch before supposedly retiring in 1903 but actually helping form what would later become MI5 and MI6. Author Andrew Cook takes the reader on a gem of a journey through the London Underworld of the 1870s as Melville joins, and rejoins, the Metropolitan Police, then the world of Irish-American terrorists as he becomes one of the first members of the Met's Special Irish Branch, then onto Melville's work as a secret policeman countering anarchist activity in London, and through to breaking up German spy rings before and during the First World War. The cast of characters includes Jack the Ripper and the notorious, and much mythologised, Sidney "Ace of Spies" Reilly. These were the days when spies really did don fake beards. Cook navigates this fascinating tale well with just the right amount of background and colour. In a world of deception in which ruthlessness is essential and secrecy goes without saying, Cook seems to have done an excellent job of untangling a coherent and sensible version of this secret policeman's contribution to espionage in United Kingdom.
536. SOE in France
by M R D Foot
The SOE referred to is Britain's Special Operations Executive and this book is the official history of its work with the French Resistance during the Second World War. As we all know everyone in France was in Resistance during the war; Not. MRD Foot was a former Special Air Service officer turned academic historian commissioned in the 1960s to untangle the web of exaggeration and myth that already surrounded the SOE's work in France. He had his work cut out because many participants in the story, British, French, German or from other Allied Nations, were either dead or had an interest in perpetuating the myths. And the SOE's own records were only partial and those that did exist were not always well kept. Rivalry between various branches of the British intelligence services and other branches of the government added to the confusion, as did the exaggerated claims made by their French counterparts and Gallic historians. Despite all the hindrances, Foot made a fair fist of the job. He is good on the politics, in all senses of the word. The book starts off slowly as it deals with matters felt necessary in an official history. Once the action moves to France, it often reads like a how- not-to run a clandestine resistance organisation. Foot's own background perhaps made him fail to question sufficiently the SOE's recruitment policies. But he does point out that one of the most successful sabotage teams was made up of a fireman, a chauffeur, a garage hand and a student. This was a worthwhile read but sometimes hard to follow as the narrative chops between timeframes and locations as it attempts to tell so many interwoven tales of courage and duplicity. Foot makes a good case for the SOE being a very economical approach to fighting the Germans and points out that though the loss in personnel was high, it was no worse than for Bomber Command crews or a frontline infantry battalion.
535. Desert Warfare
by Bryan Perrett
This book claims to look at the history of warfare in the desert from Roman Times to the Gulf Conflict, the latter being the Iran/Iraq war of the early 1980s. But most of the focus is on the Second World War's clashes in the Western Desert; with the First World War running a close second. Bryan Perrett is always worth reading, particularly on armoured warfare. I wish he had had more to say about the shortcomings of British Army when it took on Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps and why it was all too often bested. The book takes a brief diversion to look at the French Foreign, Long Range Desert Group and Special Air Service. The coverage of the clashes between Israel and Egypt from 1956 onwards are even- handed and his analysis of the 1973 Yom Kippur War shows how political considerations can trump sound military thinking.
534. Bomber Command 1939 - 1945
by Richard Overy
This book was written to compliment a television documentary looking at whether the British bombing campaign against Germany really was the failure and war crime so often portrayed in popular memory. But respected British historian Richard Overy opted to take a wider look at Bomber Command during the war. The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs and laced with short reminiscences and anecdotes from participants. The focus of reflection is almost exclusively on the air crew, pilots in particular. Overy's text is mainly a thoughtful and candid analysis of Bomber Command operations. Although German military production increased during the war, Overy argues without the bombing campaign it would have soared even higher and the resources diverted to counter the raids starved the frontline troops of much needed air support and artillery. He also points out that though air crew losses were high, they were not much higher than those experienced by almost all British frontline units; the horrendous casualties suffered by the infantry in the Normandy campaign spring to mind. It is good to read a sensible book about one of the most controversial aspects of the Second World War.
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533. Fighter Command: 1939 - 1945
by David Oliver
This is a deft mixture of history, memoir, anecdote and photos telling the story of Britain's fighter planes based in the UK and northern Europe during the Second World War. Author David Oliver knows his stuff and he knows a good story when he sees it - and knows how to tell it well. Despite the title, Oliver also looks at the pre-war history of Fighter Command. The book ranges far and wide to take in recollections from ground crew, support staff, control room operators, nurses, and the men and women who delivered the planes from the factories. It also looks at the wide variety of aircraft used by Fighter Command, ranging from biplanes such as the Gladiator through to Spitfires, Hurricanes, Defiants, Tempests, Mosquitoes, Beauforts and Meteor jets. The photos are well selected and numerous. I was so impressed by this book that I splashed out on its companion volume, Bomber Command.
Next Week - Bomber Command 1939 - 1945 by Richard Overy.
532. Trench
by Stephen Bull
This was the book that got away from me at a library surplus sale a couple of years ago. Just as I was reaching for it, a hand appeared over my shoulder and plucked it up. So, a couple of years later I ended paying more for it than I usually lay out for a second-hand book. But it was worth it. This look at trench warfare on the Western Front during World War One cuts through a lot of the myths. Historian Stephen Bull has never let me down in the past and he still hasn't. The book leans heavily on official manuals and pamphlets put out by the various combatant armies during the war. But Bull is savvy enough to know there's a difference between theory and practice, so the book has numerous short extracts from frontline memoirs. The chapters vary from a look at the evolution of trench warfare during the war through to emplacement construction methods, weapons and tactics. Bull was obviously a frequent visitor to the battlefields and that adds to the value, and wisdom, of his analysis and observations. The book is from the Osprey Publishing stable, in collaboration with the Imperial War Museum, so the illustrations are top notch.
531. Escape to Freedom
by The Hon T C F Prittie, MBE and Captain W Earle Edwards, MBE, TD
This is two Second World War Two prison camp escape books for the price of one. The first half is Prittie's story and then Edwards tells his, before a quick round- up from Prittie of his successful escape in the closing days of war. I thought the pair would eventually team up and escape together, but I was wrong. The change of authors was a bit of a jolt at first. Prittie was a slightly more accomplished writer but Edwards grows on the reader. Both made multiple escape attempts, some quite ingenious. Both hold back from sharing all the details in the hope that the same tricks could be used again in a future war by soldiers to come. The illustrations are by a third escaped Prisoner of War. A good read.
530. The First Churchill
Correlli Barnett
The Churchill referred to in the title is John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough. Author Corelli Barnett is most famous for the hatchet job he did on Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in The Desert Generals, based in large part on claims made by the officer who regarded himself as the true architect of victory in the Western Desert in 1942, the eccentric and embittered Brigadier Eric "Chink" Dorman-Smith. This book is no hatchet job. It is certainly less effusive in its admiration of Marlborough than say the four volume biography penned by his descendent and Second World War Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill but Barnett still ranks him among Britain's greatest military commanders. Sadly, there is little inspired insight in this book. It may even have been the kind of pot boiler fulltime authors have produce annually to keep making a living. Barnett's biography of Napoleon (Review 510) was far more stimulating. Barnett's Marlborough never quite shakes his past as a courtier par excellence or the consequences of his much beloved wife Sarah 's ill-advised behaviour in what proves to be one of British history's great tragedies.
529. Cinderella Army
by Terry Copp
Canadian academic Terry Copp has written a number of interesting books about his country's part in the Second World War but somehow always manages to fall just short of a great one. This account of the Canadian 1st Army's campaign in Northwest Europe following the German retreat from Normandy through to VE Day is his best yet. He draws together the research and interviews with veterans conducted for his previous books to create a balanced and informative look at the fighting. As his previous books have included detailed looks at frontline experience, battle exhaustion, technology and Canadian military leadership, what Copp has to say is worth reading. The title refers to Copp's belief that the Canadians were the poor relations of the British 2nd Army in Northwest Europe as Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery focused on driving for Berlin. Copp is no fan of Montgomery. But then no-one and few units played a perfect game during the campaign according to Copp and it's hard not to agree with his analysis. All three Scottish infantry divisions, the 15th, 51st and 52nd, served under Canadian command and Copp's observations on them are also worth a read.
528. The True Glory
by Warren Tute
This is a bit of a coffee table book, published, I suspect to cash in on interest in the Royal Navy following the 1982 Falklands War. That's not say it's a terrible book, far from it. Author Warren Tute joined the Royal Navy during the early 1930s and seems to have done quite well for himself before becoming a professional writer after the Second World War. The book claims to cover 1,000 years of naval history but only really gets going from the time of the Spanish Armada onwards through to the end of the Second World War. The chapter on the Royal Navy between 1945 and the early 1980s is possibly the weakest. It is no blow by blow account but rather an often idiosyncratic overall view of a constantly changing institution. Tute's comments on the Royal Navy's leadership in both World Wars are well worth considering. The book could have done with better editing. HMS Campbeltown is spelled wrong, on one page the invention of the submarine schnorkel is attributed to the Germans but on the following page correctly credited to the Dutch, and Canada is missed from the list of NATO members.
527. Luftwaffe Fighter Aces
by Mike Spick
Just over 100 German fighter pilots scored more than 100 victories during the Second World War and the Lufwaffe's top ace netted an incredible 352 enemy aircraft. In this book British aviation writer Mike Spick looks at how the German "Experten" did it. The edition I got was American, so I'm not sure if that accounts for most of the few Allied pilots named in the book being members of the US Army Air Force. The chapters follow much the same format with a discussion of specific air campaigns, a comparison of the aircraft involved and the tactics, and finally a look at the careers of a couple of leading German aces. There are also helpful diagrams illustrating various fighter tactics. Spick appears to know his subject inside out and this was an enlightening read.
526. Winged Warfare
by Lt Col William A Bishop
Having read this book, I still don't know quite what to make of it. Billy Bishop was the Royal Flying Corps/Royal Air Force's second highest scoring ace of the First World War, with 72 German planes to his credit. But this book stops when the Canadian flyer had only downed around 40. The book was first published in 1918 , so there maybe just a touch of stiff upper lip Boys' Own about it. I'm not sure the reader gets much of feel for the real Billy Bishop, or perhaps there wasn't much to know. Bishop, who these days has a bit of a reputation in Canada as a line- shooter, is quite modest in this book. Some now question his tally as many were claimed by Bishop on lone patrols and lack independent verification. I think there are better pilot memoirs from the First World War, Saggitarous Rising springs immediately to mind, but these benefited from being penned some years after the war. Even as a reflection of how the average pilot felt at the time the book does not quite work - maybe because Bishop was no ordinary fighter pilot or man.
525. 1944: The Canadians in Normandy
by Reginald H Roy
When this book first came out in 1984, it was the first look at the Normandy Campaign from the Canadian point of view in decades. There have been many since but this one still has something worth saying. I knew Reginald Roy was an academic historian but early in the book I realised that he had a very firm grip on the mechanics of infantry warfare. And right enough, it turns out he had risen through the ranks of the Cape Breton Highlanders during the Second World War before joining academia. He had also worked on the Canadian Army's official history of the war. Subsequent books from other authors have since painted a less rosy picture of the conduct of the campaign but few have captured the flavour or atmosphere of those summer days and nights so well. And Roy is not uncritical of the Canadian military leadership.
524. A Soldier First
by General Rick Hillier
Rick Hillier was once the head of Canada's military. I never knew quite what to make of him. Having now read his autobiography, I still don't. He was only entering the public view around the time I stopped covering the military's activities in Alberta for my old paper, the Edmonton Sun and his Canadian postings had all been in eastern Canada. He mentions a lot of soldiers I did know but I couldn't help feeling that he didn't give the guys and gals at Land Force Western Area the credit they deserved. And I'm not sure from reading this book whether he always practised what he preached. He spends much of the book pillorying the media for ignorance and lack of interest in Canada's military. And yet during his time running the Army on a day to day basis, as Deputy Commander of Land Forces, when I wanted to cover the activities of Edmonton soldiers in 2002 in Afghanistan I had to go as a guest of the US 101st Airborne Division. And I don't think the two US pilots who killed four of those soldiers were, as Hillier claims, court martialed. They got a slap on the wrist because US air force chiefs feared some of the mud the pilots' defence team planned to throw at any court martial would stick to them. But Hillier is spot on in his criticisms of the United Nations, NATO, and Canadian civil service bureaucracy and politicians, both civilian and in uniform. The book is well written. But I think I heard that Hillier during a recent visit to Edmonton credited a co- writer not acknowledged in the book.
523. To War in a Stringbag
by Charles Lamb
I tend to take the claim that a book is a "classic" with a pinch of salt. But this account of the life of a Fleet Air Arm Swordfish pilot during the Second World War is a delight. Charles Lamb was on board the first Royal Navy vessel to be sunk during the war and took part in many well known events, including Dunkirk and the Siege of Malta. Lamb mixes the historic with the horrendous and humorous. It is also a very thoughtful book with many insights into leadership and the nature of men at war. The book was not published until in the mid-1970s, perhaps because Winston Churchill told Lamb he could never discuss his experiences. Churchill was particularly worried that word would get out about the cruel and sadistic treatment of British prisoners by the Vichy French during the war. Lamb tells his tale exceptionally well. By the way, "Stringbag" refers to the the utility and flexibility of the Swordfish biplanes rather than to any flimsiness.
522. Passchendaele: The Untold Story
by Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson
Scots Field Marshal Douglas Haig is one of the most controversial figures not only of the First World War but in British History. Australian historians Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson come down heavily on the side of him being a Bad Thing. This book focuses on the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as Passshendaele. They made a lot of use of the official Australian records, which appear to have been less effectively weeded than their British counterparts. Haig proves to be unrealistically optimistic, if not delusional, in his pursuit of a overly ambitious offensive which was well beyond the capabilities of the British Army in 1917. In fact Prior and Wilson argue that the meager gains achieved at a massive number of casualties left the British worse off than before as they had effectively pushed their way deeper into a trap. Haig's two main commanders, Herbert Plumer and Hubert Gough, are also savaged with surgical precision in this book. Not great surprise in the case of Gough but Plumer is usually regarded as one of Britain's better Generals. The politicians, particularly Prime Minister Lloyd George, had many opportunities to end the futile fighting but failed to do so. This rigorous well researched book is one of the most sensible looks at the British conduct of the war I have come across.
521 Red Storm on the Reich
by Christopher Duffy
Sadly, this book falls short. Christopher Duffy is best known for his excellent books on European warfare in the 18th Century. I am still not clear what he was trying to do in this book about the Red Army's drive across Poland and into Germany towards the end of the Second World War. It could be that Duffy was defeated by his source material, a mixture of self- serving testimony from the German commanders and highly selective and equally self- serving memoir from their Soviet counterparts. Or perhaps the canvas was just too big. But the end result is complicated and confusing with timelines and locations jumping all over the place. I would be surprised if Duffy considers this book among his best work.
520. Bandit Country
by Toby Harnden
This book by former Book of Year winner Toby Harnden had long been on my want- to- read list. Former Royal Navy officer and journalist Harnden took a look at the Northern Irish Troubles as seen through the prism of South Armagh, a strongly republican border community. Harnden tried to get all sides of the story but this 1999 book may just have been written too soon, when the IRA ceasefire still looked in jeopardy. That added to the fact that the republicans in South Armagh have a long standing distrust of any outsiders and of authority may have zipped some lips and hampered Harnden's efforts to be objective and even handed as possible. Much reading between the lines and looking at what is not said is therefore required. The cross border smuggling activities and mobster behaviour of some of the leading players, hard and ruthless men, also complicates this story. But all that said, Harnden is accomplished writer and journalist and this is a smooth, if not entirely satisfying, read.
519. Target Tirpitz
by Patrick Bishop
Who would have thought there were so many stories associated with the German pocket battleship Tirpitz? I have to take my hat off to former journalist Patrick Bishop for digging up so many. Some are a little tangential, such as the sinkings of the Bismark and the Scheer, but their inclusion is easily justified. The Tirpitz did not enjoy a sterling career but her very existence tied up a substantial proportion of the Royal Navy's major warships for much of the war. The British threw nearly everything but the kitchen sink, including human torpedoes and midget submarines , at the Tirpitz. Many brave men died attacking the German warship with what usually proved to be inadequate equipment. The book opens with an account of the vessel's sinking by RAF Lancasters as seen through the eyes of her German crew. Bishop is a smooth writer and this was an easy read.
518. The Life and Times of Pancho Villa
by Friedrich Katz
This is a whale of a book; at just under 820 pages of main text. But Austrian-raised US-based historian Friedrich Katz needed almost every page to do justice to this complex and fascinating tale of ex-bandit Pancho Villa's part in the Mexican civil wars around the period of the First World War. Katz does not waste many pages trying to unravel the baffling mix of propaganda and legend surrounding Villa's early life and criminal career. Instead, he focuses on the battle for power in Mexico and Villa's surprisingly large role in it. It is a story of greed, treachery, perfidy, cruelty, murder and corruption. Katz seems to conclude that while Villa was no angel, he is implicated in more than one murder and several massacres, his hands were cleaner than those of most of the other participants. The nature of revolution and revolutionary war is a central theme of the book. The malignant role played by the USA in this sad tale is also highlighted. Let's just say the business of the US government is Business. Villa made a lot of bad choices and decisions but Katz concludes his heart was, mostly, in the right place. This book was well worth the time it takes to get through.
517. The First World War
by Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson
There has a been a lot of nonsense written about the First World War. All too many people take the version presented by the BBC comedy Blackadder Goes Forth as Gospel. This short, well illustrated, book by highly respected Australian academics Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson goes a long way to redressing a sense of balance to discussion of the controversial conflict. It is an excellent and thoughtful analysis of the war. The maps are well executed and helpful. The final chapter turns much all too accepted "wisdom" on its head and correctly points out the peace treaty did not make a second round 20 years later inevitable. I wish this had been my High School History text.
516. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
by Giles Milton
Giles Milton is an lively and entertaining writer. But is that enough to save this book about some of the more unconventional aspects of the British war effort during WW2? I would hope Milton would be the first to admit that he was obviously out of his comfort zone when he tackled this project, loosely based around the activities of the Special Operations Executive. Towards the end of the book he claims that one of the central characters, Millis Jeffris, was the first to realise the potential of shaped charge explosives. He appears to have been completely unaware that German airborne troops used them in 1940 when they attacked the Belgian fortress at Eben Emael. If I had read this earlier in the book I would have taken many of the other claims of technical innovation with a far larger grain of salt than I did. The book ranges far and wide for tales of daring- do and amusing anecdote. It ignores the SOE's disasters such as those in the Netherlands and Italy, where their networks were actually run by Axis intelligence agencies for much of the war. This is a good read but perhaps better put on the fiction shelf. I can't be bothered listing all the glaring errors but let's just say Brigadiers are not platoon commanders. And the Second World War in Europe did not end with an armistice.
515. Stand By For Action
by Commander William Donald
This is not so much a memoir of the war at sea 1939 to 1945 as a collection of ward room anecdotes from a career Royal Navy officer. But William Donald is such an engaging honest and humble narrator, with a way with words, that the book works. He certainly comes from the "if you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all" school when it comes to his shipmates. But when you think about it, such a live and let live reflects the attitude needed on a small warship. The biggest part of the book concerns Donald's time escorting crucial merchant convoys along the British east coast, an aspect of the war seldom highlighted but fraught with hazard, but he also manages to turn up at Dunkirk, Norway, Anzio and Normandy.
514. Northern Ireland: An Agony Continued
by Ken Wharton.
Ex-soldier Ken Wharton appears to set himself the task of chronicling every death related to The Troubles in Northern Ireland. This volume covers the four years 1980 to 1983. It is an angry book. The former Royal Green Jacket makes no attempt to hide his contempt for all the terrorists who engaged in murder campaigns in Ireland, the UK and continental Europe. Or for those in the Republic of Ireland and United States who supported the killers. And it is hard not to agree with Wharton's conclusion that many of the deaths would not have happened without the victims' neighbours, supposed friends, and in a least one case family members, fingering them. Wharton draws on mainly on testimony from members of the Security Forces but there are also extracts from media sources and books about the conflict. Wharton is not a natural writer but perhaps his raw style helps enhance this bloody and brutal chronicle.
513. Tug of War
by W Denis Whitaker and Shelagh Whitaker
This book about the battle to open the Scheldt estuary in 1944 from Canadian husband and wife writing team Denis and Shelagh Whitaker got off to a flying, not to say promising, start. But then it somehow got bogged down, much like the Second World War campaign to open up access to the key port of Antwerp via the Scheldt. The Whitakers argue that if the British 11th Armoured Division had just pushed on a few extra miles after reaching Antwerp the campaign in Northwest Europe could have been ended in 1944. Denis Whitaker was a battalion commander during the bitter waterlogged battle to dislodge the German troops from the approaches to Antwerp but this is not a personal memoir. Though focused to some extent on the Canadian experience, the Whitakers cast their net wide to include the recollections of Belgian and Dutch civilians, resistance fighters, the Scots of the 52nd Lowland Division, British commandos and even some Germans. Mistakes were made, many in fact, at all levels and the Whitakers don't shy away from discussing them. The book leans heavily on first hand accounts and it's no surprise that the Whitakers used the same formula in a subsequent series of books about the war in Northwest Europe.
512. Loyal Service
edited by Colonel Bernd Horn and Dr Roch Legault
This a series of essays about French Canadian military leaders. Sadly, it's a mixed bag that ranges from the poor to the somewhat informative and insightful. The poorest entry is a statistical analysis of Quebec militia officers in the late 1700s through to the mid-1800s Possibly the strongest material material is contained in the early chapters which look at how New France dealt with the challenges posed by indigenous warriors and New Englanders. The book often alternates between examining the art of military leadership and the extra challenges Francophones often faced in a military usually dominated by English speakers, both British and Canadian.
511. Nine Lives
by Alan C Deere
Over the years since the Second World War there have been many many RAF fighter pilot memoirs. This one by New Zealander Al Deere is one of the best and most readable. Deere comes over as thoughtful and engagingly modest. The book moves from his childhood in New Zealand through his days with the pre-war RAF to D Day, with the focus on the Battle of Britain. The Nine Lives in the title refers to Deere's many brushes with death as he either crash lands or bails out either due to enemy action or mechanical failure. His score of kills slows down as he is promoted gradually to Wing Commander but his reflections on leadership and courage keep the reader enthralled even as his tally drops. The book was written in 1957 and perhaps benefits from being composed neither to soon or too long after the events discussed; still fresh in the memory but not clouded by time passed.
510. Bonaparte
by Correlli Barnett
This book was not what I expected, though maybe I should have done after the demolition job Correlli Barnett did on Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. Barnett's Napoleon Bonaparte is no military genius. Instead he is an opportunist chancer who had more than his fair share of luck and incompetent opponents. Again and again in this book Napoleon escapes the consequences of his own incompetence. Nor is he much of a politician or social visionary, more often behaving as the spoilt tantrum prone egotist Barnett claims he was from start to finish. Rather than France's greatest leader, he plunged his country into disaster. The one thing Barnett's Napoleon is good at is self promotion. To paraphrase German playwright Bertold Brecht, "Unhappy is the land without heroes, but unhappier still the one that needs them".
509. The Fighter Aces of the R.A.F.
by ECR Baker
This turned out to be a quick zoom through the 41 Royal Air Force pilots credited with destroying 20 or more enemy aircraft during the Second World War. Some of the accounts read like nothing more than a quick rehash of what the pilot in question told their squadron intelligence officer after returning from a successful sortie. Sadly, as the entries are arranged alphabetically this includes the very first account, "Sammy Allard," which proved to be one of the weakest chapters and I came close to putting the book aside and starting something else instead. But I stuck with it and it got better. Though not exactly brimming with insight, the book does give an idea of the variety of experiences, and planes, pilots flying with Fighter Command might encounter. There is even a mention of the most successful night-fighter radar operator. The book was first published in the early 1960s and Baker was able to interview several of the pilots who survived the war.
508. Trafalgar: the men, the battle, the storm
by Tim Clayton and Phil Craig
There have been a lot of books over the centuries about the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. This is one of the better efforts. Where academic Tim Clayton and television producer Phil Craig score highly is in using sources from all three combatant countries, Britain, Spain and France. And in showing sympathy and respect for all three. The battle scenes are well executed and give an excellent taste of what a fleet action must have been like in the early 19th Century. The book is slightly weaker when it comes to giving a feel for the standard of seamanship involved and the challenges faced by the sailors. But this is a minor quibble and perhaps reflects the very high standard set by much of the rest of the book. Clayton and Craig rightly dev
507. Alanbrooke
by David Fraser
This turned out to be a lacklustre biography of the man who headed the British Army from 1941 until 1946, General, later Field Marshal, Sir Alan Brooke. I had high-ish hopes as it was written by another senior British soldier turned military historian, Sir David Fraser. But somehow it just failed to gel for me. I felt Fraser failed to explain the strategic issues which Brook, as Chief of the Imperial General Staff and chairman of the chairman of the tri-service chiefs of staff committee had to wrestle with. As chairman of the chiefs of staff committee Brooke was Winston Churchill's principle, officially anyway, military advisor. His relations with Churchill and the US service chiefs were not always smooth. I think I can see why several authors felt there was more to be said about the complex relationship between Churchill, Brooke, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, George Marshall, and President Franklin Roosevelt and decided to write their own books.
506. June 1944
by HP Willmott
Sandhurst lecturer H.P. Willmott focuses on June 1944 as marking a series of turning points in the Second World War in this insightful and thoughtful book from 1984. As well as the obvious, D Day, Willmott looks at the Soviet offensive which effectively destroyed the Nazi Army Group Centre, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Kohima, and the Capture of Rome. But he also examines the offensive that effectively knocked Finland out of the war and Japan's successful attack on the odious Chinese regime of Chiang Kai Sheck. Willmott justifies his choices well and presents a well argued case. Sadly, I got the American edition. The page design is poor and the standard of typesetting appalling. The decision to reset the text to take on American spellings and terminology regrettably resulted in a very shoddy product.
505. Singapore Burning
by Colin Smith
I came away from this book about the Fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942 feeling "There but for the Grace of God Go I". Journalist Colin Smith does an excellent job of capturing the emotion and frustration surrounding one of the worst disasters in British Military History, with more than 100,000 troops surrendering to a Japanese force greatly inferior in numbers. Courage, cowardice, human nobility, incompetence and venality all feature in this fast paced narrative. Perhaps Smith is too kind to the British commander Lt.-Gen. Arthur Percival, who though technically competent was an uninspiring and uninspired leader. But there can be no denying he was dealt a very poor hand; it's just that he could have played it better. Smith is best when he is dealing with the human factor. He is less good, cavalier even, when it comes to easily checkable facts; for instance the HMS Prince of Wales was not as Smith claims a sister ship of HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson. My copy of this book was ex-library and someone has corrected many Smith's mistakes in pencil. Usually, I find this very annoying but in this case I was glad. I have just noticed the annotator has written on the title page "A Good Account but some glaring errors!" I entirely concur.
504. 1948: A Soldier's Tale
by Uri Avnery
This is actually two books about Israel's fight for survival after its official founding in 1948. Writer Uri Avnery wrote up a series of newspaper dispatches from the front while serving as a soldier and these form the basis of the first part of the book. It is one of the better accounts of modern(ish) war at the sharp end. Avnery said what he wrote was true but it wasn't the whole truth. So, he followed it with a 'fictional" account called "The Other Side of the Coin" with the soldiers identified by nickname. By designating it as fiction, he avoided it going through the censors. The second part of the book has the frontline unit all too frequently murdering and sometimes raping Arab Palestinians who fall into their hands and looting Arab villages. The narrator and his friends soon realise that the people who will do best out of the war also make sure to avoid the fighting or military service all together. In both books death is often messy and squalid. Avnery is correct when he observes that the books compliment each other.
503. Hunter Killers
by Iain Ballantyne
I had doubts that this book would live up to the hype on the cover which promised "the dramatic untold story of the Royal Navy's most secret service", namely its submarine crews. But in the hands of journalist Iain Ballantyne this book proved a treat. And the Cold War exploits of the British submariners were well worth telling. I knew from books about submarine warfare during the Second World War that it is a tricky business and Ballantyne has a very sure touch when it comes to bringing this alive in layman's language. As a former journalist and non-fiction writer myself I recognised some of the tricks of both trades employed in this book but Ballantyne pulls them off with great aplomb. He also has a sure touch when it comes to his sources and getting several highly experienced former skippers to share their secrets. I was left wondering what he and they held back. I was surprised at how many icebergs that British submarines collided with contained the same manganese alloy as the Soviets use in their submarine propellers. Ballantyne also branches off into the field of espionage and surface ship anti-submarine experiences. The last chapter which makes a plea for continued spending on the British submarine service may well explain the cooperation Ballantyne enjoyed from former members. This book is definitely on the short list for the 2020 Book of the Year.
502. Cassino: The Hollow Victory
by John Ellis
There are many books about the 1944 fight for the Italian town of Cassino; this is one of the best. John Ellis, already the author of the classic account of frontline experiences during the Second World War, The Sharp End, again kept the focus on the ordinary men caught up in the fighting. Few of the Allied Generals come out of this book well. New Zealand's top fighting commander Bernard Freyberg looks out of his depth leading a Corps rather than a Division. British Guardsmen Harold Alexander, Army Group commander, and Oliver Leese, who took over the 8th Army from Bernard Montgomery, also fail to impress and both were tragically over-promoted throughout the war. France's Alphonse Juin appears to be the only Allied general Ellis has any time for. The odious American commander of the joint US-British 5th Army, Mark Clark, comes out better than I expected; but I still think he was teflon scum. Clark is infamous for deciding he preferred to be photographed "liberating" Rome rather than cutting off and destroying the German 10th Army as ordered by the feeble Alexander. But Ellis points out that the 5th Army could never have entirely cut off the Germans' retreat anyway, though Clark's thirst for glory at the expense of thousands of Allied lives meant far too many of the 10th Army got through to fight another day. Part of the reason the Germans could escape was the giant traffic jam created when Alexander and Leese tried to funnel too many divisions down the Liri Valley. I'm not sure if this book is in the running for the 2020 Book of the Year. I found the constant, at times seemingly endless, stream of accounts of horrible death in the frontline eventually began to become wearisome. Even in the mid-20th Century there were only so many ways a man could be killed in battle. Someone, not necessarily Ellis, managed to confuse the Cameronians and Cameron Highlanders in both the index and appendix. And the Poles did not field an Airborne Division at Arnhem, it was a brigade.
501. Man of War
by Donald Macintyre and Basil W Bathe
This is a look at the warship from the days of crude almost dug-out canoes on the Nile during the time of the Egyptian pharaohs through to the nuclear aircraft carrier of the early 1970s. It is a book of two parts. The first part, written by academic Basil Bathe, takes the story up until the 1840s when steam finally took over from sail and is less good. Royal Navy veteran and well known naval historian Donald Macintyre produces a smoother read. But even then, this is a bit of specialist, perhaps even "anorak", book which focuses on the technical details. As well as looking at armour and gunnery, the book also takes in propulsion and hull design. Those hoping for an accessible history of naval warfare will be disappointed. But it is well illustrated with input from a large stable of naval experts. I was left wondering if there was a missing chapter about anti-submarine warfare during the First and Second World Wars which was lost when the "new and revised" edition of the book came out in 1974. A worthy read, but not an easy one.
500. The Sound of History: El Alamein 1942
by Richard Doherty
The book's title fooled me. I thought it was going to be built around tapes of interviews with veterans of the North African campaign, perhaps the Imperial War Museum's collection. Instead it proved to be a straightforward, but accessible and readable, account of the climax of the Second World War in the Western Desert. Doherty does not have much time for Bernard Montgomery and is perhaps a little ungenerous. He builds up Montgomery's predecessor Claude Auchinleck as the true architect of victory and perhaps is guilty of over-egging that pudding. We will never know if Auchinleck, and his eminence gris "Chink" Dorman, would have won at Alamein in late 1942. I can't help feeling that any assessment of Dorman should include the fact that in later life he tried to turn his home into a training camp for the IRA. The book is focused firmly on the experiences of the ordinary soldiers involved and Doherty has a good eye for telling details. It clearly illustrates that in war error is the rule and victory often goes to the side that makes the fewest serious mistakes.
499. More Fighting for Canada: Five Battles, 1760-1944
edited by Donald E Graves
This was a follow-up to Fighting for Canada (See Review 165) but instead of seven battles this one only looks at five. The first is the all-too-often forgotten sequel to the 1759 clash on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec City, which the British lost. But luckily for the British the Royal Navy saved the day by driving off the French besiegers before they could recapture the city. The second chapter features Cut Knife Hill in 1885, which could easily have been Canada's own Little Big Horn, before moving to South Africa for the third chapter, probably the strongest, Chapter Four features a clash between an unusual Canadian unit which combined machine gun carrying trucks, traditional cavalry and cyclists against the Germans in the closing days of World War One before the book closes with Canadian tanks taking on the wily and skilful Germans in Italy in 1944. All the chapters were written by serving or former Canadian military men but somehow seem to lack the insights that this should have offered. All are workmanlike and balanced but not gripping. A worthy read for those interested in Canadian military history. As with the first collection, each chapter concludes with a short guide to the battlefield concerned.
498. The Red Knight of Germany
by Floyd Gibbons
I didn't expect much of this book. And the breathless hyperbole it kicked off with led to fears that the prose style would quickly pall and exhaust me. But this book about the First World War German air ace Manfred von Richtofen proved to be a better book than I expected. It was more than a blind peon of praise and hero worship. Author Floyd Gibbons appears to have spent a lot of time in the archives. He also peppers the book with contributions from the Red Baron's comrades and those British pilots he shot down but who survived. I had always understood that Richthofen's total of 80 enemy aircraft downed was mainly made up of pilots he swooped down on out of the blue and quickly shot in the back before vanishing again. But by Gibbon's account he was a highly skilled pilot, witness the aerial duel with the now almost forgotten British ace Lanoe Hawker. Gibbons comes down firmly on the version of Richthofen's death being at the hands of Canadian pilot Roy Brown, rather than Australian machine gunners on the ground. This was a lively read which offered several insights into the war in the air 1914-18.
497. Target Italy
by Roderick Bailey
This book took a while to get around to and was a pleasant surprise when I finally did read it. Academic Roderick Bailey takes a look at British attempts to organise resistance groups in Fascist Italy through the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. The book benefited from the small number of agents actually recruited to fight against their own country as it allowed Bailey to take a very close look at them than he would have been able to do if covering, say, resistance work in France. It also differs from most accounts of the SOE's activities in Europe in that Italy was at war with the British rather than an occupied country such as France or the Netherlands where the seeds of armed resistance were more likely to take root. The British manage to make a bad situation worse through incompetence. Italian Military Intelligence fool the SOE's man in Switzerland into using its agents as organise an imaginary sabotage organisation and also puts them in charge of contacting genuine anti-Fascists, therefore revealing their identities to Mussolini's men. Most of the SOE missions go wrong, with fatal consequences for those involved. A tragic tale well told.
496. A War of Patrols
by William Johnston
This book turns the official version of Canada's part in the Korean War on its head. The official version has it that the first Canadian contingent was made up of misfits who had either failed to adjust to civilian life after army service during the Second World War or of younger men too socially maladjusted to take advantage of the post war economic boom and it was the second, regular army, contingent that put the country's contribution on a professional basis. But Department of National Defence historian shows that the first contingent did a far better job than their successors. The difference comes down to the officers. Many of the first contingent's leaders were experienced WW2 veterans and the peacetime regular army officers who supplemented them were the keeners. The second contingent officers proved in the main to be lacklustre unimaginative careerists. The rank and file in both contingents were basically the same wartime volunteers; way too many of the men of the 1st, regular, battalions found reasons to stay in Canada rather than serve in the second contingent. Johnston appears to have a firm grip on the realities of the war in Korea and of the capacities of the units in the British-led Commonwealth Division. He counts the 25th Canadian Brigade as fortunate to serve with the division rather than one of the more wasteful of human life US formations. This could be the first Canadian book to win Book of the Year.
495. Warriors
by Max Hastings
I was in no rush to read this after wading my way through Max Hastings's uninspiring Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes (Review 480). Mistake. It turns out from reading this book that former war correspondent Hastings does have a sense of humour and some insight into matters military. That might come over as patronising in view of his large canon of books on military history but the Oxford book was truly awful. Hastings has been highly discerning in his choice of 14 "Warriors" to profile. Each illustrates a different facet of the military life. I would not say that Hastings has an agenda but he definitely has some deeply held beliefs. The book starts with the Napoleonic Wars, with a French cavalryman who could well have been the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard, and goes through to an Israeli tank man in 1973. Not all of those portrayed are good role models, or honest, or competent, or likeable, or even successful as soldiers. I feared the number of Americans featured was a cynical decision aimed to courting sales in the USA but with one exception all were justified on the basis of the aspects of the fighting man's trade tthat hey highlighted. The only exception appeared to be a vehicle for Hastings's ponderings on the Vietnam War. Not Book of the Year material but I'm glad I did finally pull it from the to-read pile.
494. Daggers Drawn: Real Heroes of the SAS & SBS
by Mike Morgan
I once said to someone in the book business that such was the interest in the SAS that a book called "The SAS Embroidery Handbook" would be a best seller. Sadly, this one by evening newspaper journalist Mike has to be included in this category. I had hoped for some new and fresh stories drawn mainly from the rank and file who served with the Special Air Service during the Second World War. Instead, this was basically a sanitised retread of all the old stories. Though it mentions that many of the men in 1st SAS were scared of the legendary Irishman Paddy Mayne when he was on a drinking binge, it doesn't really go into the vicious cowardly physical attacks on the people involved in all too many of them. Roy Farran beat a Jewish teenager to death while stationed in Palestine after the war and there are questions about the fate some of the enemy soldiers who fell into his hands during the World War Two. But Farran provides this book's Forward. I'm disappointed that Morgan didn't query the veteran who claimed to have seen Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt coming to Luneburg Heath on May 4th 1945 to surrender to Montgomery as the German commander was captured by the Americans on May 1st 1945. And there was no Guards Division fighting in Italy, though the Guards Armoured Division did take part in the campaign in Northwest Europe. And I'm not clear if it was Morgan or SAS founder David Stirling that thought the US 1st Army fought in North Africa. All this was easily checked and the mistakes make me wonder what else Morgan got wrong.
493.Battleship
by Martin Middlebrook and Patrick Mahoney
An excellently executed look at the sinking of the battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse off the coast of Malaya in December 1941. The careful selection of firsthand accounts from the sailors and officers brings life and death during the war at sea on a large warship vividly alive. Until 10th December 1941 Britain had never lost two capital ships in a single day since Jutland in 1916. And sadly the admiral in charge, Tom Phillips, did not believe Japanese aircraft, either bombers or torpedo carrying, were capable of sinking his ships. But neither the Prince of Wales, one of Britain's most modern battleships but widely regarded as an unlucky vessel, and the 1916 built battlecruiser Repulse, were a match for the skilled torpedo plane pilots from Japan. Middlebrook, usually a good read, and Mahoney delved into official records, memoirs, personal testimony from both sides and into expert opinion to recreate the Royal Navy's worst day during the Second World War ,when the battleship era was conclusively shown to be over. 492.
Wellington's Peninsular Victories
by Michael Glover
This slim book was first published in 1963 and my copy was part of the Pan British Battles Series. Well known Napoleonic Wars historian Michael Glover knows his stuff and this is an excellent introduction to Wellington's campaigns in Portugal and Spain. Although it focuses on four battles, Busaco, Salamanca and Vitoria, about half the book is about campaigning in between. Glover, using numerous memoirs from the time, does a good job of giving an idea of what early 19th Century battles were like. But he faces the same problem as Wellington himself highlighted, it is as difficult to describe a battle as it would be a to describe a fancy ball. Sometimes I found myself a little lost by the descriptions of the battlefield manoeuvres.
491. The Burma Campaign
by Frank McLynn
At first, I thought this account of the fighting in and around Burma during the Second World War was in the running for the 2020 Book of the Year. But it proved to be seriously flawed, so flawed in fact that someone should be fired. Historian Frank McLynn has case his net wide over the years tackling a very wide range of subjects. I hope, despite the claims in the blurbs on the back of the book, this is not one of the best he has written. McLynn chose to use the experiences of four of the main players in the Burma campaign to hang his narrative upon - General William Slim, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Orde Wingate and US General "Vinegar" Joe Stillwell. I liked his attitude. Wingate comes over as mad as a hatter and the Royal Family's Mountbatten as an over-promoted military dilettante. Slim comes out very well. I came away with a better understanding of Stillwell but still think his anti-British streak did a lot of harm and even got a lot of brave men killed. Chinese fascist leader Chiang Kai-sheck comes out badly, as does British General Archie Wavell. McLynn also has little time for General Harold Alexander and he's right there too. Where the book collapses is that on several occasions McLynn doesn't know who he is talking about. This is not just a few typos, the mistakes actually take some effort. The 2nd and 3rd Burma Rifles he refers to is actually the 2/3 Gurkha Rifles. He appears to confuse Generals Giffard and Pownall at least twice; a direct quote from William Slim has him referring to "Slim" when obviously it should be Stillwell; Japanese General Kimura allegedly orders opposing Chinese troops to withdraw and the Americans, not New Zealand's General Freyberg, supposedly requested the bombing of Monte Cassino in Italy. And RAF's Keith Park an "unknown" at the time of his appointment to the Far East? Not to anyone who knows anything about the Battle of Britain or lived through it. I got fed up trying to untangle the carelessness and was left wondering what to believe and what not to believe.
490. Two Men in a Trench
by Tony Pollard and Neil Oliver
This is one of those books which goes with a television series. In this case the series was a venture into something called Battlefield Archaeology. But despite the claim on the book cover that Glasgow based Tony Pollard and Neil Oliver carried out "a full archaeological investigation" of six scenes of British conflict, it was after all only television and the digging was actually very limited and surprisingly little in the way of artefacts was found. One of the big surprises proved to be the failure to find any mass graves on any of the battlefields. Each of the six chapters gives a decent summary of historical events, information of about what might be found and tackles an aspect of the archaeological process. It is written in a chatty and accessible style, which may owe something to the fact that Oliver was a journalist on several of Scotland's leading newspapers before becoming a well known TV historian. The six sites are - Shrewsbury, Barnet, Flodden, Newark, Culloden and the Rosyth's defences in the Firth of Forth
489. The Royal Canadian Armoured Corps - An Illustrated History
by John Marteinson and Michael R McNorgan
This book came out in 2000 to mark the 60th anniversary of the formation of the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps in the opening years of the Second World War. But the authors, who both served with Canadian armoured regiments, take the story back to the earliest French-Canadian cavalry regiment formed in 1759 to fight the British. The book follows the fortunes of the Canadian cavalry regiments through the War of 1812, the 1885 North-West Rebellion, the Second Boer War and the First World War. By far the biggest part of the book focuses on the Second World War. I suspect that one author tackled the Italian Campaign while the other looked at the fighting in Northwest Europe, and it shows. The illustrations and maps have been well chosen. The book then charts the story of Canadian armour, both regular and reserve unit, up until 2000. It is not an entirely happy story, an armoured corps often without decent tanks, and at times the book reads like a special pleading from the RCAC Association, who commissioned it.
488. Below the Belt
by John Winton
This may be a slim book but it's not a bad read. Naval historian and retired Royal Navy officer John Winton takes a look at some of the more unorthodox aspects of war at sea. He doesn't feel a need to pad his text for length as he steams through a world of fire-ships, midget, submarines, explosive motor-boats, aircraft carriers made of ice and of human torpedoes. But he let's himself down when it comes to some easily checked facts and this casts a shadow of suspicion on his accuracy. There is no Burra Forth in Shetland, it's Burra Firth, and the town in the Canadian Rockies is Jasper, not Jaspar. Some of the vessels and exports in this book are well known but there is enough new material to keep it interesting.
487. The World Atlas of Warfare
edited by Richard Holmes
Although there are some maps, I don't there are enough to justify this book being described as an "atlas". What it is is a look at the history of warfare up until the mid-1980s. The contributors were mainly academics associated with the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, with Richard Holmes writing eight of the 20 chapters. Some chapters are more readable and insightful than others. The book is well illustrated with photographs, artwork and diagrams. A 15 year old boy interested in military history would be delighted to get this as a Christmas present.
486. Patton: A Genius for War
by Carlo D'Este
It took me a while to get through this 800 page doorstep of a book by respected American military historian and retired lieutenant colonel Carlo D'Este. I had hoped that by the time I finished it, I might like the legendary US commander George Patton. Instead, I found him a paranoid mentally unbalanced snobbish suck-up whom some might feel prostituted his sister to gain promotion. Oh, and he was an adulterer too. But none of this might matter if he was indeed a military genius. However, I was unconvinced by D'Este's pleadings. He was good when the Germans were on the run at keeping them on the run but when they turned to fight, his battles turned into bloody slogging matches. At times D'Este seemed to skate over the less savoury aspects of Patton's behaviour. I pretty sure at least one of the "shirkers" attacked by Patton in a military hospital was actually sick, too sick to explain himself properly to a hysterical General. The book is almost half over before the Second World War starts. And D'Este hurts his own arguments by such gaffes as declaring that the Japanese over-ran Hong Kong in the summer of 1941, whereas it did not fall until late December of that year.
485. Easter Rising 1916 - The Birth of The Irish Republic
by Michael McNally and Peter Dennis
This is another of Osprey's Campaign series. So, it's no surprise that it is well illustrated, with helpful maps. It is generally fair and balanced, though there is a tendency to view events from the revolutionaries' point of view. The bulk of the fighters on both sides were poorly trained and inexperienced. The British should have had the advantage when it came to the quality of the officers but many performed poorly - which should have been an omen of events a few months later on the Somme. The worst revolutionary commander turned out to be a former British officer. The book offers a very readable but brief introduction to events which ultimately changed the face of northern Europe.
484. When Britain Saved the West - The Story of 1940
by Robin Prior
Highly respected Australian historian Robin Prior looks at whether Britain really did save Western Civilization from the Nazis in 1940. Prior, best known for his First World War books co-written with Trevor Wilson, takes a dispassionate look at the facts. I had not realised that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain refused to actually fight the Germans 1939 because he still hoped after their invasion of Poland that he could do a peace deal with Adolf Hitler. He looks at how Winston Churchill wrestled control of the war from Chamberlain and fellow arch-appeaser Lord Halifax, thanks to the support of the Labour Party and in the face of opposition from his fellow Tories. Then there is Dunkirk and the Fall of France, followed by the Battle of Britain and the German bombing campaign against Britain's civilian population. He ends with a look at how the USA effectively bankrupted Britain, failed to keep several key promises, and only came into the war against Germany fully when Hitler declared war on them. Prior keeps a sharp focus on the key facts and argues his case well. Not quite a contender for the 2020 Book of the Year but a good read nonetheless.
483. From Pachino to Ortona 1943
This account of the Canadian 1st Division's war in Italy was part of Department of National Defence's The Canadian Army at War series first published in 1945. It is an easy and informative read, moving smoothly from the Big to Small picture in its 160 pages. The text is backed up by photographs and the work of Canada's official war artists. There are also numerous maps. Pachino is where the Canadians landed in Sicily and Ortona was a seaside port which was bitterly contested with German paratroopers in the closing days of 1943. This is pretty much a model of what a short official campaign history should be.
482. Mutiny and Insurgency in India 1857-58
by T A Heathcote
Dr Tony Heathcote was a student of the matters oriental and brings a sympathy and understanding to the causes of what is commonly known as The Indian Mutiny. Nor does he shy away from the atrocities and war crimes committed by British troops, both white and coloured, during the suppression of the revolt. He also spent his career as a professional historian at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, so he knows his British Army. His approach is fair and balanced and he does not skate over the murders of women, children and male civilians by the insurgents. It was indeed, as the subtitle of the book promises, a very bloody civil war. At times the book reads like a bog-standard account of the fighting but can be regarded as a fine introduction to a complex conflict in which few can take much pride. So, a good primer.
481. A Genius for Deception
by Nicholas Rankin
This book about British deception operations during both the First and Second World Wars was first published as "Churchill's Wizards". Author Nicholas Rankin casts his net wide with a definition of "deception" which includes camouflage, propaganda, double agents, inflatable tanks and fake radio stations. But perhaps he spreads it too wide. His research often lets him down, probably due to the vast array of topics tackled. The French Army did not enter the First World War in 1914 dressed in Horizon Blue; the Irish rebels of 1916 were shot, not hanged; and the British unit which was home to so many of the specialised armoured vehicles in 1944 was the 79th Armoured Division, not the 79th Armoured Brigade. And those were just the glaring errors which leapt out at me. But Rankin has a good eye for a tale and tells a story well. The pace speeds up towards the end and some of the most interesting deceptions get scantier coverage than duller examples cited earlier in the book. Perhaps Rankin realised that he was getting close to his publisher’s set word total. A good read, but not a great one.
480. The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes
edited by Max Hastings
I can't say this book was a disappointment, because I didn't expect much from it. In short, even a casual random dip into it telegraphs a lacklustre and missed opportunity. To me, an anecdote is short amusing story. Many of those in this book prove to be neither. The first 100 of the 384 entries are more military history than anecdote. It might have better not to have started until the 17th Century or at least cut the number of "anecdotes" from before that period back to about twenty. Those who do not understand French are at a disadvantage and those who learned Spanish or German at secondary school will find it does them very little good when it comes to this book. There are many many truly amusing military stories out there. Few are in this book. Does Hastings have no sense of humour? Tellingly, the last anecdote is from Hastings himself and tells of how he was the first man who sailed with the Falklands Task Force in 1982 to get into Port Stanley after the Argentinian surrender. A more interesting tale would have been how a fellow journalist from a more plebeian background, convinced that the better socially-connected Hastings had failed to file other correspondents' reports as agreed and passed their contents off as his own work, was only just stopped from killing him with souvenir Argentinian bayonet in the bar of Stanley's Upland Goose.
479. The Lasting Honour
by Oliver Lindsay
This is a very readable account of The Fall of Hong Kong in December 1941 by a former officer in the Grenadier Guards who was stationed in the then British colony several decades later. Despite his military background Oliver Lindsay draws heavily from civilian sources to weave together this sorry tale of forlorn defence. The inexperienced British, Indian, and Canadian troops, along with Chinese volunteers, never stood a chance against the veteran Japanese 38th Division. There were never enough Empire troops to defend the colony and the Japanese ability to move across country at a far quicker rate than anticpated often stymied British commanders. Lindsay was also stationed in Canada and made good use of his time there to find out more about the two partially trained Canadian battalions who were basically sacrificed on the alter of Imperial solidarity. Lindsay takes the story beyond the Christmas Day surrender to look at the almost four years of captivity which followed. He also examines the fate of the all too few Japanese war criminals involved in the atrocities committed during the fighting and afterwards who were brought to justice after the war. The book is heavily laced with personal accounts and these give the book a nice edge.
478. Change and Challenge 1928-1978: 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards
by General Sir Cecil Blacker and Major General H G Woods
This is a quick canter through 50 years history of a nominally Irish cavalry regiment and written by two of its most distinguished former officers. It has several of the usual drawbacks of a regimental history written primarily for internal consumption. But it also looks at several aspects of the development of the British Army from an insiders' point of view. This includes the transition from horses to armoured vehicles, National Service, the switch to a "professional" army in the 1960s and the retreat from Empire. The Second World War was dealt with more briefly than I expected and I was reminded that many officers regard the advent of peace as a chance to "return to some real soldiering". But as both authors had won the Military Cross, this may be a little harsh. The number of words written about sporting achievements may well exceed those used to recounts events in 1940 and the retreat to Dunkirk. The book is perhaps a little officer-centric and references to the NCOs and rank-and-file members of the regiment seem a tad patronising. But it is an interesting read. The regiment's genuine links to Northern Ireland were pretty much scuppered by The Troubles which started at time when around 60% of the men came from the province.
477. To the Ends of the Air
by G E Livock
This special from the Imperial War Museum is a memoir from one of the pioneers of military seaplane aviation. Gerald Livock joined the Royal Naval Air Service in the early days of the First World War and only narrowly missed out on being in the first 1,000 licensed pilots in the United Kingdom. The possibilities of using aircraft based on ships was already being explored. But aircraft carriers in those days were used to transport seaplanes, which took off from the water. Livock proves an entertaining, and I suspect modest, guide to those days, when many planes resembled powered birdcages. I was a little disappointed, at first, to realise that Livock's First World War, and subsequent Russian Civil War, experiences accounted for only about the first third of the book. But his stories of pioneering seaplane flights in the Far East after the war proved enthralling. He even manages to take part in the suppression of a rebellion in Burma in the 1930s. The book ends in around 1930 but Livock went on to enjoy a distinguished career with Coastal Command before and during the Second World War.
476. Operation Varsity
by Tim Saunders
This is another book that spent too long on the "to-read" pile. It takes a look at the British 6th Airborne Division's drop east of the Rhine in March 1945 and is part of Pen & Sword's battlefield guide series. As usual for this series the book is rich in maps and photographs. But where the book really scores is that the author Tim Saunders spent 30 years in the infantry and retired as a major. As such, he brings a number of insights that other, purely civilian, authors might not be able to offer. The book also looks at the activities of the two Scots infantry divisions which linked up with the paratroopers and glider-borne troops of the Sixth Airborne, the 15th Scottish and 51st Highland, as well as 1 Commando Brigade, who crossed the Rhine in boats and amphibious vehicles. Sanders also peppers the book heavily with first-hand accounts of the fighting from the men who took part and they add much to the narrative. The book ends with recommendations for a short self-guided tour of the drop area and fighting. The one thing the book does not do and I would have been interested in Saunders's opinion is discuss the value of the 6th Airborne's operation. There are those who feel that its contribution to crossing the Rhine did not justify the casualties suffered.
475. It Doesn't Take A Hero
by General H Norman Schwarzkopf with Peter Petre
We have a very early entry for the 2020 Book of Year. This memoir by the commander of the Coalition forces in the First Gulf War was a pleasant surprise. Schwarzkopf has a lot of interesting things to say about soldiering and with the help of magazine writer Peter Petrie says them well. Although he is best known for his role in the war against Iraq, some of the most interesting parts of the book relate to Schwarzkopf's time in Vietnam. Both Schwarzkopf and the US Army learned much from that conflict and put the lessons to good use. Schwarzkopf comes over as a thoughtful and skilled officer and much of the wisdom he shares in this book is still applicable today. The Gulf War material is interesting, if only for the politics, but Schwarzkopf was more of a stage manager ,coming up with a plan and trusting his subordinates to implement it. West Point military academy had a big impact on the young Schwarzkopf and his recollections of his time there, including as an instructor, again make for interesting reading. He is also forthcoming about what life was like with an alcoholic mother and an often-absent soldier father. This is a hefty by very worthwhile book.
474. The Lost Battle: Crete 1941
by Callum MacDonald
This may well be a late entry in the race for the 2019 Book of the Year award. Professor Callum MacDonald takes a look at the first major airborne operation of the Second World War and offers some valuable insights and analysis. The opening of the book focuses on the formation and first deployments of Germany's elite airborne forces under Karl Student. It then moves onto the Pyrrhic victory which resulted in both the capture of Crete in 1941 and the effective destruction of Student's dream. Few reputations, including that of Winston Churchill, survive MacDonald's scrutiny unscathed. Only New Zealand's Bernard Freyberg, the garrison commander, comes out better than in the run of the mill verdicts of military historians. The grim, bloody and savage fighting is well handled. This book sat for too long on the to-read pile.
473. Beaumont Hamel
by Nigel Cave
This is another guide book in the Leo Cooper Battleground Europe series and in this case features one of the most visited sections of the old First World War Western Front; Beaumont Hamel. The Vimy Ridge: Arras guide book, also by Nigel Cave, has already been reviewed (Review 467) and sadly this one does not gel quite so well. The recipe is much the same with the guide material mixed in with a lot of archive material drawn from official sources and personal reminiscence. The fighting at Beaumont Hamel took place mainly during the Battle of Somme when the 29th Division, made up mainly of regular battalions that had already been mauled at Gallipoli, assaulted the German lines on the first day. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment was to the fore and suffered heavily. In November 1916 the 51st Highland Division took up the torch and finally seized the British objectives. Then another division famed for its service at Gallipoli, the Royal Naval Division, entered the fray and also acquitted themselves well. In the Vimy Ridge book Cave highlighted the work of the Royal Engineers tunnelling companies, this time it is the stretcher bearers and Royal Army Medical Corps who enjoy some extra attention. The final section is a self-guided tour of the battlefield and main cemeteries. As I said, though an interesting read this one doesn't quite gel as well as the Vimy version.
472. Taliban
by Ahmed Rashid
This book was rushed into reprint following the Saudi-dominated attack on the World Trade Centre in September 2001. Noted Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid had taken an interest in the Taliban long before they succeeded in seizing control of most of Afghanistan in the mid-1990s and his subject-matter expertise shines from almost every page. A new prologue was slapped on the book after the Al-Qa'ida attack but the final chapter, a look at the possible future for Afghanistan, was written in 1999 and not updated. So, the book is of purely historic value as a look at the rise of the Taliban thanks to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent, the United States of America. No-one comes out of the story well, though even Rashid failed to predict the train wreck that Afghanistan was to become. I understand this book was issued to Canadian troops deploying to that poor benighted country and must have been useful in the early days in a "how did things come to this" way. Rashid's sources were good and his analysis often spot on. Even today this book, though dated and the Taliban has changed in the past 20 years, still has a contribution to make to understanding this ongoing conflict
471. The Weight of Command
by J L Granastein
This is more a collection of notes than an actual proper look at what it was like to be a senior officer in the Canadian Army during the Second World War. Prominent Canadian military historian Jack Granastein wrote an excellent book back in the early 1990s called The Generals and for some reason it was thought it was a good idea to release some of his notes for it in book form. The result is patchy. One of the biggest problems is that Granastein decided to paraphrase what he was told and this makes it harder to judge how seriously to take what was said. Some of the generals were still alive in the early 1990s, though in varying states of health, and their testimony is probably the most interesting. Other contributors include some of the generals' subordinate commanders, staff officers who worked with them and family members. The family members make the least reliable and informed contributors. The verdicts, not surprisingly, vary but some repetitions of opinion begin to suggest when there is more than simple personal like or dislike at work. I now understand better why the technically skilled Guy Simmonds, Monty's favourite Canadian commander, was respected but not much liked. Granastein decided to quote contributors' factual mistakes but to correct the error with a footnote putting the record straight. This is a useful but by no means foolproof way of determining how seriously to take what is said.
470. Commander
by Stephen Taylor
This is a sympathetic look at a Cornish man who rose from deckhand to controversial admiral. Luckily for journalist Stephen Taylor one of Edward Pellew's sons hoped a decent biographer would come along - which he did more than 170 years later - and created an archive of papers associated with the admiral. Taylor's Pellew is both nepotistic and grasping, with perhaps a trace of persecution mania. But he was also perhaps Britain's finest frigate captain during the Napoleonic Wars and sadly underestimated as an admiral. In Taylor's skilful hands the old seadog comes alive and his faults only serve to make him more human. Taylor makes good use of what is left of Pellew's own papers and letters, official documents and log books and what his contemporaries had to say about him, both good and bad. This book is probably in the running for the 2019 Book of the Year.
469. Hitler's Soldiers
by Ben H Shepherd
Two of the great myths of the Second World War are that if Hitler had left it to his generals, the Germans could have won the war, and that the SS were responsible for all the massacres of prisoners and civilians. Glasgow Caledonian University's Ben Shepherd tries hard to puncture the lies told by self-serving German generals after the war. He easily demonstrates that Hitler perhaps got it right, and wrong, as often as his senior officers did. And that the regular German army could be just as vicious and barbarous as the SS. He also has a go at the myth that the Austrians behaved more decently that their German brethren, "go tell that to the Serbs", he says. Shepherd delves back as far as the First World War to look at how the German officer corps sold out to Hitler in order to restore the Army to what they saw as its rightful place amongst the militaries of Europe. Careerism, opportunism, greed and moral cowardice made them willing accomplices in the atrocities unleashed on occupied Europe and the Soviet Union. But he does admit that the German Army was better trained and led in the early years of the war than their clumsy opponents. One well known German general who attracts particular venom from Shepherd is Hans Guderian, but he was only one of the most blatant examples of a "general type" who reached high positions as Hitler sidelined anyone who didn't agree with him. Shepherd examines the tactics, the strategy, big-picture-little-picture, economics, psychology through the generals' own words, official documents and soldiers' letters. It all makes for a good read.
468. 1914-1918: Voices and Images of the Great War
by Lyn Macdonald
One of the most successful popular historians of the First World War created this scrap book of the First World War and I was worried Lyn MacDonald would just palm the reader off with the material that hadn't been good enough for her previous books. Instead I was delighted to find a skilful and imaginative take on the War to End All Wars in the words of those who lived through the terrible years between August 1914 and November 1918. Actually, the book takes a look at life in the aftermath of the war in what they had been promised would be A Land Fit for Heroes. Diaries, memoirs, transcripts of interviews, letters, newspaper reports, official documents, leaflets, photos, cartoons, poems, doggerel verse and advertisements were all plumbed for this haunting memorial. The selection of material is spot on and even touches on many of the less discussed aspects of the conflict. Most of the material is from British or Empire/Commonwealth sources but there is also a sprinkling of German and American material. It is not all misery and there are even touches of humour and humanity. Collections such as this are seldom in the running for Book of the Year but this one will be. That's how good it is.
467. Vimy Ridge: Arras
by Nigel Cave
This is one of an extensive series of First World War battlefield guides put out by Barnsley-based Pen and Sword through its Leo Cooper imprint. It is perhaps no great surprise that the first one from the series I came across in Canada was set around the iconic 1917 battlefield of Vimy Ridge. But author Nigel Cave spends more space on the battles fought in 1915 by the French and 1916 by the British. The book also spends a lot of time on the fight underground fought by the mining engineers from all sides and their work blowing up enemy trenches. Cave draws heavily on memoirs, unit war diaries and regimental histories to bring the fighting to life for the reader. The last of part of the book is a self-guided tour of the area and never having been there, I can't comment on how useful it is. But this extensively illustrated book is a good little read and would stand alone on the strength of its coverage of the fighting and life in the trenches.
466. The Paper Dragon
by John Selby
I thought this book was only going to be about Britain's wars with China, beginning with the notorious Opium War of 1839. But former gunner and Sandhurst military history lecturer John Selby takes a look at all of China's major wars from 1839 through to the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. I literally left this book on the shelve at one of my favourite second-hand bookshops for years but eventually succumbed. I'm glad I did, The Paper Dragon is an interesting read. The Opium War was, of course, about more than just the right of foreign merchants, many Scottish, to sell Indian opium to the Chinese. Imperial China's incompetence, corruption and arrogance played a large part in most of the conflicts with the British, French, Japanese and home-grown rebels. Nineteenth Century China was an interesting country and not the lame-duck push-over it is often made out to be. Many of the battles in this book are often relegated to footnotes and it was interesting to find out a little more about them.
465. Churchill as War Leader
by Richard Lamb
Churchill said that he intended to be one of the first to write a history of the Second World War and much of what he said in his version has been accepted by generations of historians as pretty close to gospel. The release of government documents tells a different story and Richard Lamb's time at the National Archives was not wasted. Sadly, around the time that the British official campaign histories were being finalised in 1951, it was apparent that Churchill was about to become Prime Minister again and several historians who should have known better balked at publishing material that might have contradicted the great man's version of events. Churchill succeeded in concealing his part in the disastrous Norwegian Campaign; his mis-steps when it came to attacking the French Fleet in North Africa in 1940; dealings with the French Vichy government; failure to realise how weak the defences of Singapore were while goading the Japanese into attacking the USA; failure to capitalise on the Italian surrender and failing to open the door to Japanese capitulation without the use of atomic weapons. I learned a couple of things from this book, including the plan for Canadian troops to invade northern Norway, the disastrous British attack at Castelrizo, just how truly awful Anthony Eden was, how mistaken the British were in supporting Tito in Yugoslavia, and the shortcomings of General Wavell. At the end of the day, Lamb concludes that no-one plays a perfect game and no-one else could have done so well as a British wartime leader as Churchill. The true story is far better than Churchill's version.
464. The Gloster Gladiator
by Francis K Mason
This slim volume about the last bi-plane to go into service with the Royal Air Force was apparently part of the Macdonald Aircraft Monograph series. It stops just short of being what one publisher of my acquaintance would call an "anorak" book. The first half of the book focuses on the development and design which came of the drawing board of HP Folland, the man behind the legendary First World War SE5 fighter. Some of the mysteries of aircraft design make for interesting reading. Then Mason looks at the service history of the Gladiator, both with foreign air forces and the British RAF and Fleet Air Arm. The book ends with some technical details and, perhaps this is a bit "anorak", details of which specific Gladiator was assigned to which specific squadron. The book is filled with photographs. An interesting oddity from 1964.
463. Vimy
by Ted Barris
Canadian radio broadcaster Ted Barris knows a good story when he comes across it and the iconic capture of Vimy Ridge in 1917 provides him with plenty of good material. Barris's approach is very people-centred and the focus of the book is on experience of Canadians capturing a key position where British and French troops had repeatedly failed. He is, fortunately, less jingo-istic than many Canadian writers but it is noticeable that there is next to nothing about the role of the 51st Highland Division in the battle. This is a bit of shame as it would have been interesting to to contrast the British approach to the battle with that of the Canadian Corps. Barris obviously spent a lot of time trawling through letters, diaries, archives and veterans' taped reminiscences but he resists the temptation to weigh his tale down in an effort to impress the reader with the extent of his research. This is more of a "peoples' " history than a military history and though it does a good job of conveying what is must have been like to fight in the battle, it gives a worm's eye view rather than a useful account of the overall course of the fighting. A certain ignorance of matters military sometimes betrays itself, for example, I somehow doubt that an officer would be doing sentry duty in the frontline trenches. A solid but not inspired effort.
462. The Great Gamble
by Gregory Feifer
This book claims to recount the Soviet war in Afghanistan. But sadly, it is more a series of glimpses of that conflict rather than a cohesive look at it. The book is based around several interviews with citizens of the former Soviet Union who might as well have been chosen at random. The author, an American radio reporter often based in Kabul, perhaps intended the book to be a cautionary tale for his fellow countrymen and NATO troops who went into Afghanistan after 2001. But it is too vague when it comes to lessons to be learned - apart from it not being a good idea to rob and murder Afghans. This is not a terrible book but it did strike me as a missed opportunity to say something of real value. Feifer seems to think that Winston Churchill fought in Afghanistan and other examples of his knowledge of history are either poor or, perhaps, over-simplified. A disappointment.
461. The Chindit War
by Shelford Bidwell
The Chindits were both mythical Burmese creatures and mystical British soldiers. This book does much to draw aside the curtain so far as the latter incarnation is concerned. Artilleryman and military commentator Shelford Bidwell cuts through much of the nonsense surrounding the soldiers who went behind Japanese lines during the Burma campaign in 1944. An earlier excursion behind Japanese lines in 1943 gets little attention. The reputations of very few senior officers avoid withering under Bidwell's merciless but professional scrutiny. But even Bidwell is unable to speculate on what would have happened if visionary Chindit founder Orde Wingate had not been killed in a plane crash early in the campaign. The man who took over command, Joe Lentaigne, fails to meet Bidwell's high standards and must, according to him, take some of the blame for the Chindits failing to meet their full potential. Bidwell fought in the Second World War and this gives him an insight that many who have written about the Chindits often lack. Most books either eulogise Wingate and the Chindits or dismiss him as a crank and them as a waste of valuable resources. Bidwell's verdict is more nuanced. If there is a villain in this book it must be the "Limey" hating American general Slippery Joe Stillwell. Yet another example of British troops being squandered when they come under direct American command, another being the British component of the United States Fifth Army in Italy under Mark Clark.
460. Lawrence of Arabia's War
by Neil Faulkner
I was actually relieved that this book was less about T E Lawrence than the title suggested. Only about 25% of the content, if not less, is about Lawrence and what the book has to say about him is a balanced and fair assessment of his role in the Middle East during the First World War. The book is more about the activities of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force and its long drive from the Suez Canal to to Damascus. It shows a high degree of compassion for all involved; British, Anzac, Egyptian, Turkish, German, Austrian and the Arabs who fought on both sides. Archaeologist and Marxist historian Neil Faulkner brings a refreshing, even-handed and insightful approach to the conflict which has shaped the Middle East to this day. But it is more of a military history than a political one. Faulkner has done an excellent job of capturing the feel of the fighting in what was the British Empire's last big cavalry campaign. He also has a firm grip of the bigger picture. Too often the British and French role in the Middle East is simplistically branded a wholesale betrayal of the Arabs. Faulkner shows that the real story is more nuanced and complicated. This is a definite contender for the 2019 Book of the Year.
459. Jacobites
by Jacqueline Riding
I found this an interesting addition to the canon of books about one of the most romanticized episodes in Scottish history. Sadly, either because author Jacqueline Riding got bored or was too close to her quota of words, the book seems a little rushed and superficial towards the end. The book basically tells the story of the 1745-46 Jacobite Rising through the words of the participants. The fluid spelling in 18th Century diaries, letters and memoirs can be a little challenging at first but proves well worth the effort. Riding does her best to be even-handed but the volume of material from Jacobite sources heavily outweighs that from the Hanoverians. There are heroes and villains on both sides. The lack of active support for the Jacobites in England adds weight to the feeling that the perfidious 1707 Treaty of Union was a major spur to recruiting in Scotland. The accounts of the battles are surprisingly brief and I was left with the feeling that the cycle of atrocity and terror unleashed north of the Highland Line in the aftermath of Culloden was downplayed. I also wish Riding had done more to explore the anti-Scottish feeling which helped spur the rising and the even more vehement backlash which followed its failure. I think Riding also goes a little easier on Charles Edward Stuart and his cousin Cumberland than either deserves.
458. The Norwegian Campaign of 1940
by J L Moulton
The British campaign in Norway in 1940 was a fiasco and this book looks at what went very wrong. Author James Moulton was well qualified to comment because between 1957 and 1961 he was the United Kingdom's Chief of Amphibious Warfare and a decorated commando officer. Moulton dissects the highly flawed British response to the German invasion of Norway with an expert eye. The heaviest burden of blame is placed on the Royal Navy. The Army does not come out particularly well either and is definitely outfought by the better trained and led Germans. The Royal Air Force barely tries. The politicians do not come out well either and their lack of direction, on top of years of less than shoe-string budgeting for defence, only adds to the chaos. Sometimes the book's account of the campaign is difficult to follow but this may actually reflect its muddled piecemeal nature. The Norwegians' failure to mobilise properly also contributed to the defeat but it is hard to disagree with Moulton when he declares the British could have handled the campaign far more ably. I suspect that he was hoping the book would provide a cautionary tale for the British military leadership of the 1960s when it was written. In which case it may be even more relevant reading to the even more dysfunctional leadership of the British forces today.
457. Symbol of Courage
by Max Arthur
This compendium of Victoria Cross winners has its moments but is flawed. The book's promise to look at "the men behind the medal" is seldom honoured. In most cases the book simply paraphrases the official citation for the medal. Disappointingly, sometimes the book quotes exactly the same citation for multiple men who received the medal for the same incident. It also can be cavalier with the facts. One entry says a winner died as result of being transported in a fever impregnated wagon while a page of two later the same man is transported in a litter. And just which French General pronounced that the Charge of the Light Brigade may have been magnificent it was not war - Max Arthur gives two answers. Also he should have known that Montgomery did not establish the defensive line at Alamein but inherited it from Auchinlek. Where the book gets interesting is when Arthur does look take a closer look at the lives of the winners but he does not do this often enough. The book also mentions several campaigns and wars which have long been forgotten by the general public. Perhaps instead of going for a book which listed every one of the 1,355 winners up until 2005, Arthur might have done better to have focused on more detail about, say, 75 winners. Or, if he wanted to create a reliable reference which did include all the winners he should have been less cavalier in his research. I was left scratching my head when it came to the spellings of the home towns of several of the Scottish winners.
456. Knights of the Black Cross
by Bryan Perrett
This proved to be a brief but informative and insightful look at German armoured forces during the Second World War. Perhaps this should have been no surprise because author Bryan Perrett was a tankie in the British Army before becoming an author and military historian. Perrett points out that when the German Army swept through the Low Countries and France in 1940, their tanks were noticeably inferior to their British and French counterparts. Perrett ably demonstrates that it's not what you've got, it's what you do with it. Perrett skilfully blends tactics, strategy, organisation and equipment into a very readable and accessible text. This book could pretty much be a condensed history if the Rise and Fall of the Wehrmacht and its brother SS. Perrett is also pretty much spot on in his assessments of the German commanders and it is noticeable that he shares their doubts about the legendary Erwin Rommel. Regrettably, the book also demonstrates the problems associated with covering events in the Soviet Union after the 1941 German invasion in anything less than a volume of door-stop dimensions. This is a very good primer for those interested in how the Germans revolutionised 20th Century warfare.
455. Our Little Army in the Field
by Brian A Reid
Former Canadian artillery officer Brian Reid takes a look at the Canadian experience in the Second Boer War of 1899-1902. He is not a natural writer and sometimes his prose was a little leaden, at least for my taste. But Reid does not a bad job of taking the reader to the veldt and semi-desert of large swathes of South Africa. The Canadians started out by sending a specially formed infantry battalion made up of a sprinkling from the country's tiny regular force, part-time militia soldiers and civilian volunteers. Some artillery was also send but as the war went on more and more horsemen, in the form of such units the Canadian Mounted Rifles, the Royal Canadian Dragoons and the Lord Strathcona's Horse became the dominant contribution. He does not ignore the looting the Canadians were notorious for, nor the drunken ill-discipline, but neither does he dwell on them. Allegations that Boer prisoners were murdered are looked at but basically dismissed. The book is even-handed when it comes to the mistakes made by both British and Canadian commanders and certainly I cannot remember any of them that Reid considered played a perfect game. This is not a great book but it is a good one.
454. A Thousand Shall Fall
by Murray Peden
It looks as though I've had this Second World War bomber pilot memoir since 1997 and only just got around to reading it. I think that was because I noticed that more than half the book seemed to be taken up by his training experiences. But recently I'd come across several books recommending A Thousand Shall as one of the best of the aircrew memoirs. I was not disappointed. Peden proved to be an attractive and amusing character. The book is full of humorous anecdote and insight. The book is also a litany of the deaths of friends and colleagues. Training proves to be almost as dangerous as taking part in bombing missions. Peden, a Canadian, begins his active service career in the cockpit of a Stirling bomber. He proves to be a great admirer of the aircraft and damns the pre-war RAF command for insisting that Shorts made the wing span only 99 feet so that it could fit through the hanger doors - the few more feet recommended by the Stirling's designers would have enhanced its performance enormously. Then Peden and his crew switch to, of all things, Flying Fortresses. The fascinating exploits of 214 Squadron in the field of electronic counter measures to foil German night-fighter radar is a much too often neglected aspect of the Bomber Command Offensive. I think I agree; this is one of the best bomber aircrew memoirs. And, Air Marshal "Bomber" Harris apparently thought so too.
453. The 1st Cav in Vietnam
by Shelby Stanton
Former US Army paratrooper Shelby Stanton takes an admiring look at those pioneers of helicopter warfare, The 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and their service in the Vietnam War. The book is a potted history of operations and look at the techniques employed. I got the feeling that Stanton felt that if the rest of the US Army had shown the same professionalism, enthusiasm and imagination as the "Skytroopers" and their support arms then perhaps it would not have lost the Vietnam War. The Korean War had hinted at the potential for helicopters to be used as the basis of a fast-moving, hard-hitting, combat force which could employ many of the roles performed by horse cavalry during the American Civil War and Indian Wars which followed. Stanton includes just enough individual combat stories to keep the book moving at a rapid trot. Eventually, the Air Cav are defeated not by the Vietnamese but by an unimaginative US Army bureaucracy.
452. Eighth Army
by Robin Neillands
This book by prolific British military historian Robin Neillands about the iconic 8th Army proved both fair and insightful. Neillands, a former commando, follows the story from North Africa through to the German surrender in Italy in 1945. It is a book of two halves. This might be because the North African campaigns involved a smaller number of troops and the battles were more dramatic than the slog up Italy. Neillands starts his tale long before the 8th Army even officially existed; with the first clashes between the forces of the British Empire and the Italians. When the Germans became involved, the short-comings of the British Army, especially its senior officer corps, became all too evident. Neillands's assessment of the British generals is hard to fault and his assessment of Bernard Montgomery balanced and fair. American military historians, quite rightly, get a hard time in this book for ignorance and bias. I feel Neillands may have been too kind to the odious American general Mark Clark, who decided the personal glory of capturing Rome was more important than destroying a German army. The book is heavily dotted with personal reminiscences and anecdotes from former members of the 8th Army and also with thoughtful analysis of high level strategy. One of Neillands's best books.
451. Hidden Soldier
by Padraig O'Keeffe with Ralph Riegal
When the Irish army turned Padraig O'Keeffe down, he turned to the French Foreign Legion. That must raise questions about recruiting for the army in the Irish Republic because O'Keeffe seems to have taken to soldiering like a duck to water. Former trainee chef O'Keeffe comes over as an engaging but perhaps at times prickly character. He sees service in Cambodia and Bosnia before the changing face of the Legion leads him to leave. Part of the problem seems to have been the same that afflicts to British Special Air Service, namely too many officers are there getting their ticket punched on their way up the career ladder. After eight years of unsatisfactory civilian life back in Ireland, O'Keeffe spends the second half of the book as part of a private security outfit in Iraq. It comes very close to costing him his life. His accounts of frontline service ring true but it's hard to know how much is Irish journalist Ralph Riegal's work. The story is hard to verify but some of the checkable facts are a little bit wobbly - for example, the Chinook helicopter is not from the Sikorsky stable; a bit of an "anorak" quibble but if someone can't get that right, what else did they get wrong? This is an easy but worthwhile read.
450. Marked for Death: The First World War in the Air
by James Hamilton-Paterson
The author of this book about the First World War in the Air, James Hamilton-Paterson, brings a refreshing perspective to a subject that sometimes seems to have been done to death. It is more a look at what it was like to fly in the war than a history of the conflict. Hamilton-Paterson sometimes strays well beyond the years 1914-18, for example when he reveals that only 15% of aircrew from Lancaster bombers during the Second World War succeeded in parachuting from the aircraft whereas US crews had a 50% survival rates, as he harvests fascinating insights about military aviation from its early days through to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It is hard to argue with him when he claims, particularly when it came to British pilot training, that many many young lives were needlessly squandered. Paterson-Hamilton, himself privately educated, is also highly critical of the snobbery and elitism that often made a tough job harder than it needed to be. His discussion of what an unstable and unpleasant place Britain was for many people in the years immediately before 1914 is also insightful. Though his claim that for many working class soldiers that life in the trenches was better than life in the industrial slums may be over-egging the pudding a little. Hamilton-Paterson breaks the chapters down into technology, experiences, medical matters and military history; with just enough history to put the text into context. While the focus is mainly on the British and the Western Front, he also looks at winged warfare in Africa, the Alps, the Balkans, and Middle East. This is a lively well written and insightful addition to the canon. It might even be in the running for the 2019 Book of the Year.
449. Under the Bearskin
by Mark Evans with Andrew Sharples
It took me a me a while to pluck this one from the to-read-pile. Maybe that was because the author endorsements on the cover were from guys who have put out some stinkers of their own - Andy McNab, Damien Lewis and Patrick Hennessey. But my fears that this Brit-book about service in Afghanistan would be a re-run of Hennessey's truly dire Junior Officer's Reading Club were unjustified. Evans proved to be a far more sympathetic character than the odious Hennessey and able, with help from his former-Guards-officer-turned-writer mate Andy Sharples, to tell his tale well. The story centres around Evans's role as a liaison/trainer with the Afghan National Army during a hard fought siege in Helmand Province. That tale is interspersed with accounts of his mental health problems on his return to the UK as his life spirals downwards due to PTSD. His mentoring team is almost destroyed by an Apache helicopter attack. Evans is tortured from then on by questions about his own conduct. His relations with the commander a detachment from the old 5th Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, once the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, also lead to interesting reading and cause further doubts in Evans's mind about his own competence. But it's noticeable that he only ever identifies fellow officers by name, with one exception; Sgt Chantelle Taylor, the head medic at the base. She wrote her own account of the siege and I wish I could remember what she had to say about Evans, the Argylls' officers and the Afghans. It is also noticeable that Evans and Sharples do not say what happened to the rest of the mentoring team, especially the ones injured in the Apache attack. It turns out that Evans had BUPA health insurance, so his experiences of PTSD treatment are not typical for a British soldier. This is one of the better books to have come out of the British experience in Afghanistan. He does not shy away from the uncomfortable truth that the British, as with the other NATO and US contingents, were in Afghanistan on sufferance from the locals and to many Afghans they were deeply unwelcome. I suspect Evans's therapy sessions may have made him more self-aware and honest about himself than the general run of British officers and the reader benefits from his candour.
448. Out of Step
by Michael Carver
I was quite pleased to get hold of this autobiography of Field Marshal Lord Carver, a former head of the British armed forces. A lot of this was down to his enjoyable and well informed books about the Second World War in the Western Desert, Tobruk and Alamein, and his Imperial War Museum Book of the War in Italy. This book went well until the last four or five chapters, which quite frankly were a chore. The decline sets in around the time he became the professional head of the British Army, Chief of the General Staff, in 1973. Up until this period Carver could be brutally honest about some of his fellow officers and political masters, both on the UK and USA, but discretion and state secrets now began to hamper the tale. The story of his time as Chief of the Defence Staff reads like a self-exculpatory plea in mitigation; though it does give a hint of how deliberately dysfunctional the way very senior command in the British armed forces is permitted to work. The tale of his involvement in the attempted elimination of white minority rule in Rhodesia is long winded and quite probably incomplete. But hindsight and knowledge of what happened in what is now called Zimbabwe since the book was published in 1989 may have coloured my disappointment in this section. Carver was obviously groomed from an early stage of his career for a top job and few I suspect would describe him as a maverick, despite the title of the book. Possibly the most interesting parts are his days in the desert, much of it as a staff officer, and later in Northwest Europe as one of the, if not the, youngest Brigadiers in the British Army. Peacekeeping in Cyprus and the British withdrawal from the Far East make interesting reading but what he has to say about the campaigns Northern Ireland and Kenya now read as coming far too close to simply toeing the official line. He does hint at being disturbed by the conduct of some of the paratroopers during the events of Bloody Sunday, but just the same quotes approvingly from the now discredited Widgery Report. Our US "allies" do not always come over particularly well; for example, I didn't know that they wanted to use tanks to break the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1947. So, an interesting read but nowhere a contender for the 2019 Book of the Year.
447. Military Blunders
by Saul David
The subtitle of this book is "The how and why of military failure". But in truth Saul David fails to deliver much insight or analysis in this 1997 book. As a summary of some of history's military fiascos, the book works well enough. Perhaps David spread his net too wide and might have been better to focus on fewer battles or campaigns than the 30 covered in this book. In several cases the coverage is too superficial and lightweight. Most reputable historians these days are agreed that 1915 Gallipoli Campaign never had a snowball's hope in Hell of succeeding and Sir Frederick Stopford's incompetence at Suvla was not a key factor. David made his name with a book claiming that the 51st Highland Division was deliberately sacrificed by Churchill in 1940. He rewarms the same fare in this book but even by his own account the loss of the bulk of the division could just as easily be explained by incompetence as a misplaced sense of political expediency aimed at keeping France in the war. The use of the word "infer" is a red flag. David breaks the book down into chapters which look at different reasons for failure, i.e., over-confidence, poor planning, incompetence, or poor troop performance. I wasn't always convinced by his arguments. But it's hard to disagree with his characterisation of Lord Louis Mountbatten as "dashing but incompetent". Until Dieppe in 1942, the Mountbatten's victims were restricted to the poor sods who made up the crews of his three ships. I'm not sure David was aware in 1997 that the word "squaw" was offensive.
446. Somme 1914-18: Lessons in War
by Martin Marix Evans
I can imagine the pitch to the publisher - let's look at the evolution of the First World War on the Western Front by examining all the battles fought at a certain location. And it wouldn't have hurt that the battlefield chosen was the Somme. Sadly, Martin Marix Evans delivered a bog-standard history which offered very little new insight and was forced to expand the geographic area beyond the Somme to garner enough material. The book plucks first-hand accounts from a wider range than many similar efforts; there is a bigger French contribution than is usually seen and perhaps more input from the United States of America than can be justified. The premise of the book was promising as the Somme area was fought over several times over the war. But I was wary of Evans after reading the error-riddled book he co-authored with that doyen of British military historians Richard Holmes; Battlefield. I wondered at the time, due to the book being so far below Holmes's usual standard, just how much of it was Evans's work. This book went a long way to confirming my suspicions. A couple of the spelling errors had me wondering if it had been badly transcribed from a taped dictation. And someone really have picked up that one notorious British general did not spell his name Hague.
445. The Oxford History of Modern War
edited by Charles Townsend
This is a collection of academic orientated essays looking at warfare since nation states became the norm in the 17th Century and the establishment of standing armies. So, the reader has to do some thinking but in the case of most chapters the effort is well worthwhile. The essays range across a variety of topics including the politics, the technology, the philosophy, women, various levels of conflict, peace movements and history. The quality, both of the discussion and the writing, varies but the standard is generally good. The only chapter I found disappointing was the look at sea warfare which I felt allowed itself to become too narrowly concerned with legal niceties. Most of the authors were based at English or American universities and were among the leading authorities on their subject matter at the time; the edition I read came out in 2004. A rewarding read.
444. The Dark Defile
by Diana Preston
This 2012 account of the disastrous first British invasion and occupation of Afghanistan somehow just falls short. Writer Diana Preston appears to have spent a lot of time going through letters and memoirs looking for first-hand accounts of the 1838 invasion, the occupation of Kabul and then the destruction of the British-Indian army involved in the misconceived and badly mishandled military adventure. But somehow she fails to bring events alive and ended up producing a rather insipid and lacklustre account. The book is not a terrible read but it is not memorable either. A C+, maybe a B-, of a book.
443. In Great Waters
by Spencer Dunmore
A look at the Battle of the Atlantic during the Second World War through a slightly Canadian lens. Spencer Dunmore had already made his name as a Canadian military historian through his books about air warfare. And in truth he seems rather more comfortable writing about the aviation aspects of the Allies’ desperate battle to prevent German submarines strangling the British war effort. Dunmore also looks at the activities of the German surface ships. The US Navy’s top admiral Ernest King did what he could to make the Germans’ job easier but then few of the participants played a perfect game. It is safe to say that King was not the brightest bulb on the nautical Christmas tree. Putting officers with no experience of aircraft in charge of British escort aircraft carriers was not always the best of ideas either. There was little new in this book when it came to the Big Picture but where Dunmore scores is in his selection of the personal experiences of the participants to illustrate the various facets of the war in the Atlantic. Dunmore is a smooth writer and this was an easy read.
442. War Against the Taliban
by Sandy Gall
I thought veteran TV newsman Sandy Gall retired years and years ago. But certainly, in 2011 when this book came out, he was still very much on his game. What struck me in this look at why the Afghan campaign was faltering in 2011 was the extent to which the West was actually financing the war against itself. The question is how much the picture has changed in the almost a decade since this book was written. One of the main sources of funding and support for the Taliban back in 2011, and I suspect still is today, is the Pakistani government through its Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate. The Americans sub-contracted the war against the Soviets to the ISI back in the 1980s and even after the Taliban were driven from government in 2001 the US cash was still pouring into the Pakistanis' purse. Pakistan shamelessly used the American money to further its own regional interests and that included funding and supporting the Taliban. Oddly, unbelievably even, the Americans only really woke up to this when Osama Bin Laden was found to be living in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad. Another source of cash for the Taliban, according to Gall, was basically protection money paid by both some of the NATO contingents, their civilian transport contractors and numerous international aid projects to the Taliban. Complaints about endemic national corruption in Afghanistan were greeted by locals pointing at the equally wide-spread corruption involving US contractors. Britain does not come out well either. Poor military leadership at the top was only matched be even feebler support for aid projects from the civil service. The dysfunctionality now gripping the UK as result of the Brexit Crisis was only too evident in the Afghan intervention. Confused military command structures in Afghanistan only compounded the inadequate resourcing of the British contribution. And top of the list of reasons for failure in Afghanistan must be the ill-advised and basically stupid 2003 US intervention, aided and abetted by the British, in Iraq. What disappoints me is that much of what Gall highlighted in 2011 was obvious to those on the ground in Afghanistan in 2002. A lot of people who took home a substantial pay packet as servants of the Crown did not do their jobs and the price was paid in dead and maimed squaddies.
441. Too Important for the Generals
by Allan Mallinson
To put it mildly, soldier-turned-novelist Allan Mallinson is no fan of Field Marshal Douglas Haig's conduct of the First World War. In fact, his condemnation of how the war was fought includes most of the senior officers of all the participants. Anyone who hadn't taken the hint from the main title, would almost certainly have a further clue from the sub-heading "Losing and Winning the First World War". While many historians these days labour to rehabilitate Haig's reputation, Mallinson believes the Field Marshal's place in British public consciousness as an unimaginative butcher is close to the mark. As a former British Army officer he has no little insight into the problems of command and he is scathing about the commanders he believes wasted too many lives in obviously futile attempts to break the deadlock on the Western Front. He argues that instead of being rushed into action in 1914 the tiny British Army should have been used to as trainers to create a bigger an army fit for purpose. As it was the vastly expanded army took until late 1917 or early 1918 to become an effective force on the Western Front. But this was after squandering the flower of British manpower in 1915, 1916 and early 1917. He argues that its part in halting the German 1914 offensive could easily have been undertaken by the French and this would have avoided Britain's professional army being pretty much destroyed. He is also a great enthusiast for alternative theatres for offensive operations instead of unimaginative frontal assaults on a German Army which held all the aces on the Western Front. Mallinson is one of the few modern writers I've come across who believes the Dardenelles campaign had the faintest hope of succeeding.
440. Corps Commanders
by Douglas E Delaney
Corps commanders are often the forgotten generals. Canadian military academic Douglas Delaney, the chair of War Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada when he wrote this book, takes a look at these all important middlemen in the chain of military command. He also looks at how and why these men succeeded, and failed, on the battlefields of the Second World War. The corps commanders plan and manage the battles fought by the divisions and take their orders from the Army Commanders, often in the case of these the subjects of this book, Bernard Montgomery. Delaney cast his net wide in his selection of two British and three Canadian corps commanders. They range from the charismatic, such as Brit Brian Horrocks, to the competent but uninspiring Canadian Tommy Burns. There is also the incompetent but politically adept Canadian Charles Foulkes, who was smart enough to leave the real fighting to his talented subordinates in the latter stages of the Second World War but came close to being fired when supported by less able men immediately after the D-Day landings. Few now remember Brit John Crocker but Delaney makes a good case for him. And then there's Canadian Guy Simmonds, innovative and talented but whose people skills let him down and eventually allowed Foulkes leap-frog him in the promotion stakes. This is the best book I've read in 2019 but I'm not sure it will make the shortlist for Book of the Year.
439. Waterloo: New Perspectives
by David Hamilton-Williams
This book generated a lot of controversy when it first came out in 1995. And I'm baffled as to why - though I'm no expert on the 1815 Battle of Waterloo. To me, it is as coherent and plausible account of this much examined battle as most others. It differs from many in arguing that Napoleon did not have an off-day but in fact handled the battle rather well. It is also less eulogistic when it comes to the Duke of Wellington's performance on the 18th June and the days leading up to it. Hamilton-Williams also gave more space, and credit, to the non-British components of Wellington's army than in many accounts I've seen. As Wellington said himself, and I'm paraphrasing, it is as hard to give a coherent account of a battle as of a formal ball. I got the impression that Hamilton-Williams was more comfortable discussing the politics of Napoleon's restoration and the 100 Days than he was on the battlefield. The book squeezes the latter events of the battle, including the Prussian offensive at Plancenoit and the French Guard attack on Wellington's centre, into a surprisingly small number of pages and I was left wondering if he suddenly realised he was reaching the total number of words agreed with his publisher and condensed his account of the battle accordingly.
438. Battle for the Falklands (2): Naval Forces
by Adrian English with Anthony Watts
This Osprey Men at Arms Special was rushed out, along with two similar titles discussing the Air and Land campaigns in the aftermath of the 1982 Falklands War. Considering the quick turnaround and that the dust had not yet settled, much what appears in the book has stood the test of time. But then, it was, necessarily, a very bare-bones recitation of events. It also stresses what a near-run thing the Falklands War was. And that if the Argentinians had just been a little more patient, the British would a year or so later have run down its fleet to the extent that it would have been unable to recapture the islands. Nor do authors English and Watts shy away from discussing the inadequacies of many of the Royal Navy's vessels and their equipment. As is usual with an Osprey title, the book is heavily illustrated. But instead of the usual artists' renditions of uniforms and equipment in the centre section, there are colour photographs.
437. No Moon Tonight
by Don Charlwood
While not what I would class as a “classic” of life with RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War, No Moon Tonight is well worth reading. Australian navigator Don Charlwood proves to be a sensitive and thoughtful observer of life and death, a lot of death, among the bomber crews of the RAF in about 1942. He flew in Wellingtons, Manchesters and Lancasters and was lucky enough to be part of one of the very few crews from that era to complete the mandated 30 missions. He touchingly admits to not always being the best of navigators. More of the book takes place on the ground than in the air, but this is perhaps understandable when so many of the missions involved sitting at a map table cocooned in the fuselage of a bomber and must have been very much alike from his point of view. He also gives voice to his doubts about the morality of area bombing and its value to the war effort. This is an interesting glimpse behind the navigators’ curtain.
436. Gallipoli
by Jenny Macleod
Only about a third of this short book tells the story of the disastrous British invasion of Turkey in 1915. The rest is devoted to discussing how the campaign is commemorated, with chapters looking at Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Ireland and, finally at Turkey. The focus is very much on the politics of remembrance and very interesting they are. The discussions of commemorations in Ireland, where for a long time the hard-core Republican regime pretended that no decent Irishman fought anyone apart from the British during the First World War; Australia, where Anzac became the focus of growing national awareness; and Turkey, where it was tied up with the almost deification of Kemal Attaturk, regarded as the Turkish republic's founding father; were particularly interesting. So far the fighting is concerned, Macleod has little to say that is new. Personally, I was disappointed that the battle in which my great grandfather died was dismissed in one sentence covering five days of fighting. But in summary, the whole concept of the campaign was misguided and mismanaged, and the Turks were better led and in many cases better soldiers than the British, French, Anzacs, Indian Army men and the other Allied troops they faced.
435. Taking Command
by General David Richards
I paid full price for this, which trust me is unusual for me these days. But General Richards’s name had come up as the commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan and I was interested to see what he had to say for himself. The autobiography received mixed reviews when it came out and some accused Richards of using the word “I” too much. Well, it is an autobiography. Anyway, at the end of it, I didn’t want my money back. David Richards proved to be a better writer than many of the reviewers made out and it was an easy and engaging read. It was a little more lightweight than I would have hoped but I knew better than to expect much washing of dirty linen in public. What did come over is that the decision making process at the top of the British military is dysfunctional; but that is how the politicians like it – playing the top sailors, airmen and soldiers off against each other. The senior civil servants probably like it too – it’s only really the rank and file who pay the price after all. And maybe, some day, all of us will come to rue this institutional dysfunction. Interestingly, much of what Richards had to say back in 2013/14 about Afghanistan and Libya still holds true. So, the accusations of arrogance and self-importance levelled by some reviewers could be more than a tad harsh. Though I have to question his judgement in including in the book a photo of himself and the odious Aung San Suu Ky.
434. The Savage War
by Murray Brewster
This book was a disappointment, a big disappointment. The clue should have been in the subtitle - "The Untold Battles of Afghanistan". I should have thought that one through. The author Murray Brewster is a journalist. If the battles were really untold, then what was he doing during his day job? But while the subtitle may be the publisher's responsibility, the poor writing is Brewster's. There are two threads running through the book. One is Brewster's experiences as a newspaper reporter in Afghanistan. Other reviewers have accused Brewster of grafting whole passages of the Vietnam classic Dispatches into his text. I don't know about that, but I know I didn't recognise his description of Kabul airport. His account is a better read than I could written based on what I actually saw. His description of an incident in which an American pilot killed four Canadian soldiers and maimed several others as the "mistaken" dropping of a 250kg bomb got my back up. Major "Psycho" Schmidt deliberately dropped the bomb, ignoring instructions from the ground; it was not a mistake. The problem was that he didn't know who he was bombing and after finding out the guys on the ground were not Americans, perhaps he didn't really care. Brewster is at his best in this book when he pores over documents released under the Canadian Freedom of Information Act and discusses the conflicts in the corridors of power. But there's not enough good stuff. And there is too much poor editing. ".. out of fifty soldiers that made the crossing that morning, there were more than twenty casualties, including dead and wounded". Who else is Brewster including in the casualty list? A visit to a "girl's school". Just one pupil? Did Canadian soldiers really believe in the "invisibility" of their armoured vehicles? A bridge wired with "ninety mortars"? What should have been a very interesting book was a chore to finish. The one good thing I can say is that unlike many Canadian journalist's books about Afghanistan it is not a love letter to the Canadian Military.
433. Steel From the Sky
by Roger Ford
I am not sure if this book wasn't a missed opportunity. The book looks at the activities of the, usually, three-man teams, known as Jedburghs, parachuted into France by the Alliesto help train and arm the "French Resistance" after D-Day in June 1944. After a brief introduction and details of the training undertaken by the Jedburghs, Ford spends much of the book detailing each mission one-by-one. These accounts are based on the after-action reports provided by the Jedburghs, which Ford tried to double-check from other sources, including memoirs and the reports of other Jedburghs. The teams show themselves to be heart-touchingly human. Some claim credit for things they shouldn't have, some of the men are even, reading between the lines, obviously not suited to a combat role. The problem with Ford's approach is that many of the reports repeat basically the same experiences; feuding resistance groups, theft of kit by the French, all-too-often mishandled parachute drops (more likely when US aircrews were involved), self-proclaimed resistance groups that behave more like bandits and in the final analysis arriving in France too late to influence events. The result is too fragmented for my taste. I would rather have something that give the Bigger Picture better and used the after-action reports to provide telling illustrations of the matters being discussed. I also found it difficult to remember who was who as Ford switched between real names, noms-de-guerre and code names with baffling frequency. More reminders of which resistance group were Communist or Gaullist or somewhere in between would have come in handy. If Ford wanted the reader to feel some of the frustration felt by the Jedburgh teams in a complicated fast-moving war, then he succeeded. This is an interesting topic, I'm just not sure the approach taken in this book does it justice.
432. Wellington's Rifles
by Ray Cusick
It is hard to know what to say about this book. The author, Ray Cusick, was dying when he wrote it and did not live to see it on the bookshelves. I got the impression that, perhaps, if Cusick had been in better health and lived longer then this might have been a good book. But instead, it comes across as part of an early draft version. I found myself reading some sentences several times in attempt to fathom what was being said. At first I thought Cusick made a mistake when he apparently said there were four Highland regiments in 1800, the 71st, 72nd, 79th and 92nd. But I came to think he meant there were four Highland regiments represented in the ranks of the Experimental Rifle Corps. The selection of battles featured seemed eccentric and I was left wondering if Cusick had originally intended to cast his net considerably wider to illustrate both the Rifle Regiments and Light Infantry battalions in action. Although the 71st Highland regiment converted to Light Infantry in 1809, it gets scant coverage in the book and much of the little mention it gets what is said is in the context of fighting alongside the 52nd Oxfordshire Light Infantry at the Battle of Waterloo. I was unable to make sense of the reference to the "second American war" of 1794. The book also suffers from several unnecessary repetitions. Despite the main title, about a third of the book is about the evolution of the Light Infantry concept in North America and the Caribbean from 1750 onward. It might have been better for Cusick's reputation if a co-author had been brought in to build on and properly finish the work done by Cusick rather than publish a book trying to draw together a partially completed project.
431. Night Raid
by Taylor Downing
This book claims to be about the famous raid in 1942 in which men of the predominately Scottish “C” Company of the Parachute Regiment’s 2nd Battalion helped snatch top secret German radar equipment from a detection station on the north coast of France. But it seemed to me that about the half the book is about British radar research before the Second World War and in its early years. There is certainly more science than bang-bang. I’m afraid I lost faith in Downing when he announced that Inverary was “an old garrison town” in northwest Scotland, on the northern bank of Loch Fyne. How much trust as a researcher and historian can be given to someone who cannot even be bothered to look at a decent map? And I suspect Inverary hadn’t been home to a British garrison since the days of Rob Roy. I can’t be bothered finding out if the Glider Pilot Regiment was ever known simply as the “Glider Regiment” but I know the United States had more than two airborne divisions, the 82nd and 101st, because the 17th was dropped on the east bank of the Rhine in 1945. Once C Company drop in, the book improves but I will be disappointed if there are not other better books about the Bruneval Raid.
430. Turning Points in Military History
by William R Weir
This book isn't so much about, as the title would suggest, major turning points in military history, but rather a gallop through the story of warfare. William R Weir is fine until he gets to the relatively recent past and then his American pre-occupations and biases reveal themselves. The book ends just after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and he makes some good points about how mistaken it was for the invaders to expect themselves to be regarded as "liberators". But up until the First American Civil War, sometimes referred to as the American War of Independence, Weir does a good job of discussing the evolution of war, though much of his focus is on western warfare. It is a brief but thoughtful summary. I wasn't sure about this book, based on his 50 Battles that Changed History but noted in my review of it (See Review 38) that I'd noted that Weir had some interesting insights and ideas. This book lacks the basic ignorance of well established facts that often makes me regret starting a book by an American author. So, kudos to Weir for that at least.
429. Pathfinder
by David Blakeley
Actually, this is another book from the Damien Lewis ghost-writing machine. To put it mildly, the quality of Lewis's work variable. This isn't one of his better efforts. Captain Dave "The Face" Blakeley led an abortive reconnaissance mission into Iraq in 2003. There is too much repetition; too much about Blakeley's extremely expensive watch, sunglasses and his French lawyer paramour; and when the shooting finally starts it swerves too often into war-porn. The feel for dialogue shows a distinct tin earS; well written dialogue doesn't need to label each speaker every time because the reader quickly picks up on the individual speech patterns, in the case of this book the same voice is used for everyone. Cut a long story short, Blakeley and his eight-man team, in three heavily armed landrovers, are supposed to check out and mark airfield deep inside Iraq for a helicopter-borne landing but encounter stronger resistance than expected and have to fight their way back to American lines. It's hard to know how seriously to take a book that claims that the bulk of the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment went into Suez in 1956 in helicopters. Such ignorance of airborne operations and lessons learned from them is woeful in book carrying the name of a Parachute Regiment officer. I guess all those photos of the last British battalion level drop must be fake. On the subject of photos, the picture of Blakeley's landrover after it recrossed the American lines doesn't appear to show even a scratch on the bodywork despite the "malleting" described in the book.
428. Victory at Sea
by Lieutenant Commander P K Kemp
This book was better than I expected. It is one-volume history of Britain's war at sea 1939-45 written by the head of the Royal Navy's Historical Section. According to the introduction, it had been planned to issue an accessible official one-volume history as early as 1948 but it took almost a decade and a private publisher for it to be released. The Royal Navy did issue a hefty three-volume official history written by Captain Stephen Roscoe. I wanted to read this book as soon as possible after I'd digested, and could still remember, Roscoe's Churchill and the Admirals (See Review 422) about wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill's often ill-advised interference with naval strategy. Kemp does not single out Churchill as being to blame for the several miss-steps admitted to in this book when it came to the War at Sea. The big secret not mentioned in this book is that the British could read much of German radio traffic thanks to the decoding of the Enigma code. Sometimes Kemp refers to "naval intelligence" sources but this is the closest he comes to mentioning the role played by the codebreakers in Victory at Sea. The story might have been more interesting and less laudatory of Admiralty skill if Kemp had been allowed to discuss Enigma. But it is still an interesting read. Recounting a war fought in almost every body of water in the world, with the exception of the Antarctic coastline, in a single, affordable, volume is a task which means a lot of brevity. But Kemp manages to give just enough detail to bring the battles at sea, from the battleship duels to the activities of midget submarines, to life. He is also good on the bigger picture and strategy of worldwide naval operations. The early part of the book is taken up by the rundown, almost to the point of impotence, of the Royal Navy between the two world wars. Many of the wartime shortcomings, defeats and near defeats are explained in the context of the decision to give the lion's share of the armament spending to the Royal Air Force. Kemp more hints than spells out the almost war-losing effects of this policy in context of anti-submarine warfare and the lack of essential maritime attack and patrol aircraft due to the RAF's insistence on giving priority to Bomber Command over Coastal Command. The American Navy does not escape criticism either. Admiral Ernest King will need to be added to my list of Americans who came close to messing things up to an irretrievable extent. It's no secret that King did not buy into the plan to defeat Germany first and then deal with Japan. That meant a lot of people died in both the Pacific and the Atlantic to satisfy his, and the US Navy's, greed for glory.
427. The War Correspondents: The Anglo-Zulu War
by Prof. John Laband and Ian Knight
This book proved a pleasant surprise, if only because the book in the series covering he Second Boer War (1899-1902)(See Review 205) was such a disappointment. The Boer War version turned out to have drawn only from reports in The Times. This book spreads its net a little wider, though most of the newspapers quoted were based in what is now South Africa. This gives a slightly different perspective than British readers are used to. And the use of contemporary newspaper accounts, sometimes simply reprints of personal letters, helps give a strong feeling as to how people felt about events as they were happening. Ian Knight is a world authority on the conflict and that shows in the excellent and knowledgeable text linking the newspaper accounts. I don't know much about Professor Laband but on the basis of this book I will keep an eye out for anything else he has written. The twin disasters of Isandlwana and epic defence Rorke's Drift, immortalised in the 1960s film Zulu, both get coverage but do not overwhelm the book. The drudgery, brutality and sheer scale of the war are all excellently captured. This is a worthy addition to the library of anyone interested in Queen Victoria's Little Wars.
426. Behind Enemy Lines
by Sir Tommy Macpherson, with Richard Bath
This tale of wartime resistance/partisan/commando daring-do is engaging told. Macpherson served with the short-lived 11 (Scottish) Commando before being captured, eventually escaping from a German Prisoner of War camp and then parachuting into France to help co-ordinate resistance activity around the time of D-Day. Macpherson apparently made quite the impression by wearing his Cameron Highlander kilt as much as possible. The conquest of France, much of the country was pro-Nazi for much of the war and whose troops Macpherson had fought as commando, meant a transfer to northeast Italy to work with partisan fighters there. On several occasions the feuding between communist and non-communist partisan groups proved more deadly than the fight against the Germans and their collaborators. On the subject of collaborators, Macpherson has little sympathy for the Cossacks repatriated to almost certain death in the Soviet Union by the British after the Second World War. His verdict on Field Marshal Montgomery, along the lines of "nice but lonely", is also interesting. About a third of the book is about the Second World War with the first third about Macpherson's privileged up-bringing and the last part third is about his post-war business career and life, with a lot about sport. His boardroom battles seem as though they might have been as interesting reading as his wartime experiences. But I was left unclear as to whether he was actually proud of his work with the National Coal Board during the British miners' strike of the 1980s. Maybe I should have thought more about the endorsement on the front cover by Jeffrey Archer. But as I say, it's an engaging tale well told.
425. Rebels
by Peter de Rosa
There may be some out there who believe that an armed insurrection at Easter must have involved angels and saints. If you are one of them, then this is the book about the 1916 Rising in Dublin for you; especially if you are also a Catholic mystic. The rebels, according to de Rosa, were all wise, brave and pure of heart. Many of the members of the Crown Forces are murdering thugs. The first clue that there was something wrong with this book was when the King's Own Scottish Borderers were described as kilted. Not only that but the Dublin crowd in 1914 teased them about their kilts. Anyone who has seen a photo of the KOSB around the time when its men opened fire on the a mob hauling smuggled rifles into Dublin can see they are not wearing kilts. The next clue is the amount of dialogue in the book which is surely a figment of de Rosa's imagination. Of course, perhaps the words were recorded in letters or memoirs. But de Rosa's grasp of the facts suggests a chronic lack of proper research. There was no British 178th Division, though men of the 178th Brigade were sent to Dublin in the days following the seizure of several key buildings in Dublin. Colonel Stewart was killed trying to get out of Khartoum in the mid 1880s, not into it. There are numerous other examples. Much the same has to be said for the thoughts ascribed to people in the book. It's unlikely anyone is privy to them. And the words de Rosa puts in the words of his characters in this grotesque eulogy show a tin ear when it comes to dialogue. I've never come across a Belfast man who used the word "bloomin'". The book dwells at almost pornographic length on the executions, and the lead-up to them, of the rebel leaders and in fact ends with the last one. I would actually have been interested in de Rosa's explanation of how the feeling of outrage against the fanatics who fought in the interests of the German Kaiser for their own vision of Home Rule turned into to widespread support for Irish independence. The people of Dublin who shouted abuse at the rebels are in de Rosa's opinion either venal or criminal, often both. I regret picking up this piece of tosh. And I'm disappointed in it because the Easter Rising is a fascinating historical episode with tragic repercussions which have lasted to this day. If I was awarding a prize for the worst book I've read in 2019, this would be without doubt the firm favourite at the moment to win.