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Hotschi -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (2/14/2015 8:15:36 PM)
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Finished Jungle Soldier: The True Story of Freddy Spencer Chapman by Brian Moynahan. Interesting book. Chapman was initially part of one "stay-behind-party" after the surrender of British forces in Malaya. He claims to have blown up 15 bridges, derailed 7 trains, and killed 1,500 Japanese in a two-week period, together with two other Britons... After that, he merely survived in the jungle, training the mainly Chinese guerillas of the MPAJA. The book has a many weak points, especially Moynahan's boasting about abilities "which only the British" possess, or so he claims. At one point, he explains Chapman's ability to navigate in the jungle... with the Royal Navy's navigational skills in the Age of Sails... When substracting all the oddities and boasting, you end up with the story of the survival of one individual - which rather owes more to the fact that he wasn't betrayed to the Japanese, than the author admits. And the irony is that the very men Chapman trained... were the ones which years later turned against the British colonial rulers in the Malayan Emergency - with British weapons.
Then I read Vincent O'Hara's On Seas Contested, which gives a good overview about the different structures, doctrines etc. of the seven largest navies in WW II. Makes appetite for more.
Now reading Siege: Malta 1940-1943 by Ernle Bradford. Am halfway through and I second warspite1's opinion, every chapter is full of the first siege of 1565, as if Bradford is using this title to advertise his own book about the 1565 siege. If you want to know the size of the garrison, or even which Army units were stationed on Malta in WW II, you won't find it here. On the other hand, this book gives a nice introduction into the topic, and into Malta's political as well as social history - but that's not what I expected from a book with this particular title. Have to check whether there's something better available.
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