What value can be placed on veteran's stories ?

Ah yeah, sorry, didn't see the last part.

 

Perhaps. But not always. I have and surely you all have read pieces from 'proper' and 'reputed' historians who have published the most appalling piles of bovine excreta. Due to bad research, selective sourcing, bias, political tendency, personal axes to grind, etc, etc. And yet they sell.

An excellent point Za.
The act of publishing a 'book' seems to automatically confer a level of legitimacy which is not accorded to veteran memoirs.

Those select veterans who later became quality historians and could also add personal context (Blackburn, Whitaker), did produce some fine works.

 

Where do I start (bearing in mind this is a library copy)?

 

Idler

I have few books that look similarly corrected - and I have seen quite a few other library books also suitably inscribed- usually by "ignorant" Vets...

Cheers

 

Where do I start (bearing in mind this is a library copy)?

I wish the scan was bigger so that I could read all of the red ink clearly, but some of that corrector's corrections are wrong. The 2nd Panzer did indeed come into action against 7th Armd Div at Villers Bocage. The disaster in the village was bad, yes, but it was the continued pressure of 2nd Panzer that scared Bucknall (GOC XXX Corps) into ordering the 7th Armd back. The Panzer Lehr was more or less fully absorbed dealing with the 50th around Tilly sur Seulles. At the peak of the fighting for Tilly and Villers Bocage, XXX Corps was facing all of two panzer divisions (2nd and Lehr) and elements of a third (12th SS). I have used Clay's Path of the 50th, and while it shys away from controversial areas it's pretty decent as an outline of operations. Anyway, attributing the whole of the British defeat at Villers Bocage just to one enemy tank is ridiculous. Even after the CLY was driven out of the town, the 7th Armd was still in a good defensive position and could have held on if Bucknall had supported it. (I'm drawing mainly on Carlo d'Este for that.)