What are you reading at the moment?

Now that our power is back on, I don't have to try and read by candlelight,


Pulled this from the pile to go through.

 

Thank you 14/264 - I did consult a number of titles for my visit. Among them Sheldon's book.

See: What are you reading at the moment?

I was much surprised by the quality of the small (almost antique) German book "Die Tankschlacht bei Cambrai 1917" (Reichsarchiv 1929), which gives the German view of this battle.

Very much liked the overview given buy Bryan Cooper's "The Ironclads of Cambrai, the first great tank battle". His book is a good primer for anyone interested in this operation.

Unfortunately I was unable to locate a copy of the book: "Following the tanks, Cambrai 20 nov - 7 Dec 1917". Even contacted one of the authors Phillip Gorczynski, but to no avail. Book has been out of print for at least 10 years.

 

In the light of current affairs I am re-reading "Britannia The Failed State" Tribal Conflicts and the end of Roman Britain by Stuart Laycock ISBN 978 0 7524 4614 1. History Press 2008
The author was an aid worker in Bosnia and Kosovo which inspired him to make comparisons between this conflict and the disintegration of post Roman Britannia.
Whilst I wouldn't regard it as a masterpiece. It was, I recall quite novel in its approach and the origins of his studies enlightening.
As with Bosnia, there are remarkable parallels with the situations developing in Ukraine today.
I would go as far as to say that a similar scenario applies to the decline of many Imperial powers and the effects upon the populations of their colonies.
For WW2 purists the first photo is of a disabled WW2 tank or tank destroyer.

 

I've got that. It's part of my 'King Arthur' collection, fairly large at aprox 100 books and articles. I should note, that there are some truly awful items in that Dark Age British element of my library.

 

Nick, bit of an aside to the thread
You are taking me back to whence I came, Celtic, Anglo Saxon, Norse. I have given talks, presentations, lectures call them what you will, on subjects from the battle of Catterick to Hastings. Michael Wood, who I met in Lichfield, used to come to Tamworth quite often when the Staffordshire Hoard was in prominence, as did several other prominent scholars.
His opening statement was that people watched The Tudors on television but they had nothing to compare with the Anglo Saxon Dynasties.
My best received talk was on Aethelbald of Mercia who hid from the Penda Dynasty in the fens of East Anglia supported by Guthlac (who later became a saint).
Aethelbald reigned for 41 years, being assassinated by his bodyguards at Seckington, walking distance from where I live.
Perhaps I should have done as intended and written a book about him rather than become involved with the History of the 67th Field Regiment.
However CASN has some pretty heavyweight scholars to compete with.
Have you read this one: The King in the North. It became quite popular a few years ago as it is a lighter read than your average CASN book.
It covers the life of Oswald of Northumbria who was martyred by Penda of Mercia at Oswestry.
Penda being a pagan chopped him up into many pieces. Bad move really, as later Christian Royal families created a cult of St Oswald who used them as relics.
They were later employed by the children of Alfred the Great to rally their troops against the Danes.

 

Just finished Finest Hour by Glen St John Barclay. Not my normal read but I found it quite interesting. The basic premise is that Britain ballsed up pretty much every situation prior to the American entry into the war. The Greek expedition is the centre piece really as an example of something that had no hope of a positive outcome. Churchill, Smuts, Wavell, Eden and Dill get a thorough battering with Cunningham pretty much the only character to be praised.

 

I just met the author of Eagles over Husky (Alex Fitzgerald-Black) and bought a copy of his book, which is about the air war over Sicily. About an hour into it on the train home and I've read a fascinating account of the planning for Husky, regarding alternate plans and pressures from different sides about where to land - take ports first? Airbases? etc.

 

I’ve recently been on another aircraft book binge. First up was David Wragg’s ‘Stringbag- The Fairey Swordfish at War ’, that I quite enjoyed. It is an operational history, not a technical history, however, it is written in a straightforward manner and I gained the impression that the author knew his stuff. It draws heavily upon the famous Swordfish memoirs by Woods, Lamb and Godley, accordingly it is possibly a good starting point for anyone interested in the Swordfish.

Michael Veitch’s ‘The Battle of The Bismarck Sea’ followed. Veitch is writing a series of these books about the RAAF operations in the Pacific and seems to have hit his stride very well. Ignore the publishers blurb about the ‘forgotten battle that saved the Pacific’ and enjoy a well written account of the battle and the lead up to it. Veitch looks in depth at the personalities and the state of the US and Australian air forces prior to the attack on the convoy. The Americans in particular were at the bottom of a very steep learning curve, with Veitch describing well how General Kenny and his Australian counterpart ‘Bull’ Garing worked at developing the aircraft and tactics to be used for the attack. I learnt a lot from this book and really felt for the aircrews who after decimating the convoy on the day of the attack were ordered to return the next day and destroy any Japanese survivors they found afloat. War is war tough and there were valid reasons. A good read.

The final book I read was Ivan Southall’s ‘Fly West’, which is a memoir of his experiences as a young pilot flying Sunderlands in the Bay of Biscay with 461 Squadron RAAF. Southall was best known here as a writer for ‘younger readers’, whatever that means. I take it to be that he wrote for early to mid-teenagers and this book has been written for that audience in the form of a collection of short stories. They appear to follow a linear time line and Southall goes into a lot of detail about what patrolling in a Sunderland entailed and didn’t spare many details.

He opens and closes the book talking about ghosts in a man’s past and how at times they visited him. The stories of his ghosts are at times sad and I had thought that he may have changed the crew’s names for the book, however, this is not so. There is a particularly sad story titled ‘The Luck of War’ which looks at the life and loss of a pilot named Bill Dodds that really highlighted the dangers of flying and attempting to land Sunderlands in the ocean for me. Worth finding if you are at all interested in the hunting of U-boats and the search for downed aircrew in the Bay of Biscay.

Currently having a break from aircraft books and am reading Ray Bradbury’s dystopian sci-fi classic from 1953 Fahrenheit 451.

Scott

 

Finishing this off. Hope to see a similar title on the County and Colony (Fiji) Class.

 

Just finished this.





I didn't know too much about British submarines, particularly in the early part of the war, so it was quite an eye opener. The majority of operations described were in the Skaggerak and the Norwegian coast during the German invasion, hazardous as the Germans had an extensive, although not always very efficient anti-submarine presence there. Written in a very readable style. An excellent book. I also have 'The Gathering Storm - Naval Warfare in Northern Europe, September 1939 - April 1940' by Mr Haarr, which promises to be as good.

 

Books arrived! Ordered the complete 1918 set of the Official History of the Great War (Imperial War Museum / Battery Press reprints 1993) at a very decent price from a bookshop in New Zealand. Partly unread and still packed in plastic. Five text volumes, one volume with appendices and two boxes with fold-out maps.'

• Volume I: The German March Offensive and its Preliminaries, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1935
• Volume II: March-April: Continuation of the German Offensives, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1937
• Volume III: May-July: The German Diversion Offensives and the First Allied Counter-Offensive, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1939
• Volume IV: 8 August-26 September: The Franco-British Offensive, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1947
• Volume V: 26 September-11 November: The Advance to Victory, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds and Lieutenant-Colonel R. Maxwell-Hyslop, 1947

Now delving into the 1918 battles of the Great War: Kaiserschlacht & Hundred Days' Campaign. 'The nursery of modern Combined Arms Warfare'.

Started with Amiens to the Armistice (J.P. Harris) as a 'primer'.

 

About 1/3 of the way through this. Interesting both as history and for the commentary about the woeful attempts to conduct strategy. Rather than considerations of 'ends, ways and means' British decisions appear to have been driven much more by 'something must be done'. The whiff of Gallipoli is very strong! Interestingly, the author is. if anything, most disparaging about the senior military officers for, essentially, not having the moral courage to point out the excessive risks that were being taken. Most of the politicians were sensible enough (with one obvious exception) to know that they were completely ignorant of military realities.

A book that deserves to be read (and absorbed!!) by all in senior military and political positions, IMHO.

Regards

Tom

 

Arrived today. Will begin reading tomorrow at work if it gets too warm. I actually contributed to this project a few years back with the Chindit 1 casualty, John Stanley Fuller (image below) of 142 Commando attached to No. 5 Column.

 

Finished this. I would say it was first rate.

Now on to the Rolls Royce Meteor book (The Rolls-Royce Meteor - Cromwell and other applications).

 

I had to leave my half-finished books at home for a trip back to see my parents. So I read The Long Range Desert Group: History & Legacy from Helion - just finished it - and had enough thoughts about it to write a micro-review. Book Review - Micro Book Reviews

 

Keep the Memory Green - The Story of Dunkirk - Butler/Bradford (1950)

Still clearing my shelves of my Dunkirk haul from a couple of years ago. Odd one this, in that it says Dunkirk but very little is actually about that event, the main being about the Battle of France. The two authors were veterans, but this book aims to give an impression of events. It starts with fictional descriptions of the phoney war which are amalgamations of experiences no doubt, then we get some specifics about regiments and a running theme about how the RAF have not been recognised fully for their efforts, which I didn't expect from an army account. It then meanders about with vague descriptions of personal accounts with no names given and a chapter on an elderly 'little boat' owner.
Very readable but I'm not sure it'd interest the more scholarly of chaps on this site.

 

Just finishing John Harris’s 1980 book Dunkirk- The Storms of War, which Markyboy commented upon a few weeks ago. It’s not a bad book but very much of its time. At 137 pages it is brief and a look through the bibliography shows that Harris drew heavily on the usual memoirs. Saying that, he puts together a very coherent account, although at times the sheer number of veterans he followed through the retreat had me lost occasionally. Overall I enjoyed it.

One of the accounts he draws upon is good old Gun Buster, who he describes as an officer in the 92nd Field Regiment Royal Artillery. I’m just curious if there ever was a time when authors quoting Gun Buster researched who he actually was?

Has anyone read any of John Harris’s WW2 fictional books that he wrote under the pseudonym Max Hennessy? I am aware of his Great War novel Covenant with Death that seems to be held in high regard.

Scott

 

Hi Scott, there are some threads on here about Gun Buster. I did a quick search and couldn't find the one I wanted, but there's a few to trawl through. Wikipedia has him as Captain Richard Campion Austin, with help from his father for the actual book writing.

 

Hi Markyboy,

I probably should have written that more clearly. I just find it surprising that an author at the time wouldn't look into his identity and publish it within the text. It seems like GunBuster's identity was known but was kept secret. I can't see that happening now in a contemporary book.

Scott

 

4 of my great-grandparents lived in Belgium during WW2. They lived in the coastal towns of Blankenberge and Knokke. When the pandemic started, my grandfather showed my brother and I a whole bunch of letters and documents from our ancestors. We took some of the documents written by my great-grandfather and worked with our grandfather to write a historical fiction book. It was a great way to learn more about our ancestors and spend time over Zoom with our grandfather even though we couldn't visit him.

If you'd like to read our book, it's available on Amazon and at other bookstores. It's called "Running from the Gestapo". The ISBN is 978-1-4116-1286-0. Here is a link: https://www.amazon.com/RUNNING-GESTAPO-Miles-over-Land/dp/1411612868
We'd love to get your feedback on our book.