RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (Full Version)

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warspite1 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (7/30/2017 3:40:10 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: wodin

Can I just reiterate...Helion Publishing is a publisher of quality. I've yet to read a book published by them that has disappointed me in any way what so ever. Infact most of my favourite reads have been published by Helion. SO if you like the look of a book and it's published by Helion I say GET IT!
warspite1

I would say the similar about Seaforth Publishing. Obviously I can't speak for all their books but their titles I've read have oozed class - well written, well researched - what I call serious books.

And for the avoidance of doubt, no I am not on commission or have any connection to them whatsoever.



wodin -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (7/30/2017 3:48:03 PM)

Same goes for me and Helion:)

I will check them out Warspite:)



Aurelian -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (7/30/2017 4:12:01 PM)

The Red Army and the Second World War.



warspite1 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (7/31/2017 4:35:36 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1


quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I've started reading The Naval War in the Baltic 1939-45 (Grooss)

Okay start - the author writes in a clearly understandable and easy to read way, but he's spent the first chapter giving a very potted history of countries that border the Baltic Sea. Not uninteresting in itself, but too little to be really useful and so not really sure that this was needed.

I read on.....
warspite1

Given all the talk of Dunkirk and, having fired up Decisive Campaigns: Warsaw to Paris for the first time, I think I will put this on hold and head back to the Western Front 1940 stylee.

To that end I have just started Dunkirk the Patriotic Myth (Harman).

warspite1

Well it's good to read books from all sides - but its not necessarily a good thing for the old blood pressure.

First couple of chapters down and I have to say the book is well written, not by any means a difficult read. But clearly the author has a particular weed up his behind and falls over himself to get dig after dig in.

As a classic example, he pointedly refers to the fact that the British did not respond to Queen Wilhelmina's request for assistance... but the French did. But having made that point he then fails to provide any context. He singularly fails to explain that French assistance was all part of Gamelin's disastrous Breda Variant that took away the French 7th Army from the reserves (and that would otherwise have been available to aid the defenders of the Meuse). i.e. the French coming to the aid of the Dutch was already in the plan - not some extra assistance that the French conjured out of thin air [8|]

Oh well, I suppose the book helped with his pension planning....



Zorch -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/4/2017 6:46:04 AM)

Two forthcoming books - 'Neglected Skies: The Demise of British Naval Power in the Far East, 1922–42 '.

'Neglected Skies uses a reconsideration of the clash between the British Eastern Fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy’s First Air Fleet in the Indian Ocean in April 1942 to draw a larger conclusion about declining British military power in the era. In this book, Angus Britts explores the end of British naval supremacy from an operational perspective. By primarily analyzing the evolution of British naval aviation during the interwar period, as well as the challenges that the peacetime Royal Navy was forced to confront, a picture emerges of a battle fleet that entered the war in September 1939 unready for combat.
By examining the development of Japan’s first-strike carrier battle group, the Kido Butai, Britts charts both the rise of Japan as a wartime power as well as the demise of the Royal Navy. Japan, by concentrating their six largest aircraft-carriers into a single strike force with state-of-the-art aircraft, had taken a quantum leap forward in warfighting at sea. Simultaneously, British forces found themselves outmatched in this Eastern theatre and Britts makes the case, by looking at a set of key battles, that this is where the global supremacy of Britain’s naval power ended.'


'The Royal Navy's Air Service in the Great War'

'In a few short years after 1914, the Royal Navy practically invented naval air warfare, not only producing the first effective aircraft carriers, but also pioneering most of the techniques and tactics that made naval air power a reality.
Following two previously well-received histories of British naval aviation, David Hobbs turns his attention to the operational and technical achievements of the Royal Naval Air Service, both at sea and ashore, from 1914 to 1918. Detailed explanations of operations, the technology that underpinned them and the people who carried them out bring into sharp focus a revolutionary period of development that changed naval warfare forever.'




warspite1 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/6/2017 5:48:18 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Zorch

Two forthcoming books - 'Neglected Skies: The Demise of British Naval Power in the Far East, 1922–42 '.

'Neglected Skies uses a reconsideration of the clash between the British Eastern Fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy’s First Air Fleet in the Indian Ocean in April 1942 to draw a larger conclusion about declining British military power in the era. In this book, Angus Britts explores the end of British naval supremacy from an operational perspective. By primarily analyzing the evolution of British naval aviation during the interwar period, as well as the challenges that the peacetime Royal Navy was forced to confront, a picture emerges of a battle fleet that entered the war in September 1939 unready for combat.
By examining the development of Japan’s first-strike carrier battle group, the Kido Butai, Britts charts both the rise of Japan as a wartime power as well as the demise of the Royal Navy. Japan, by concentrating their six largest aircraft-carriers into a single strike force with state-of-the-art aircraft, had taken a quantum leap forward in warfighting at sea. Simultaneously, British forces found themselves outmatched in this Eastern theatre and Britts makes the case, by looking at a set of key battles, that this is where the global supremacy of Britain’s naval power ended.'

warspite1

This might be an interesting book. I wonder what ‘set of key battles’ the author is going to look at? But I am not confident that this is going to be looked at in the right way (I hope I'm wrong).

quote:

'Eastern Theatre …that is where the Global Supremacy of Britain’s naval power ended'


Well no, not really. Britain’s naval supremacy ended with Washington (and was going to end even without the WNT). The UK stole a march on everyone with the Industrial revolution. As such she was able to punch above her weight for so long. But by the start of the 20th Century that was long since a thing of the past, and everyone was catching up – or had gone past the UK. Countries were right-sizing. That the UK should maintain naval supremacy forever was not even remotely possible.

quote:

By primarily analyzing the evolution of British naval aviation during the interwar period,


If the evolution of naval aviation is the primary analysis then it’s not clear what this book would add over and above the likes of Friedman’s Fighters over the Fleet and British Carrier Aviation or Hobbs’ British Aircraft Carriers.

quote:

as well as the challenges that the peacetime Royal Navy was forced to confront, a picture emerges of a battle fleet that entered the war in September 1939 unready for combat.


He says battlefleet, but as we know from what happened, we are essentially talking about air power here. Well the Japanese didn’t go to war for more than 2 years after 1939 and I think it’s interesting to look at the World’s navies at that time i.e. not compare the RN 1939 to the IJN 1941. It’s then important to look at things on a level playing field. Doing things that way doesn't alter the outcome - but at least tells the whole story.

Of course it’s true that the RN had been hampered by the Government decision to allow the RAF to control naval aviation. That decision had only recently been reversed when war broke out. The Fleet Air Arm was small in size and with outdated bi-plane aircraft. But what aircraft did the Japanese have aboard their aircraft carriers in 1939? Indeed how many carriers did they have in 1939 (Hiryu had only just been completed when war broke out)? The blurb for the book mentioned the Japanese put their six carriers together (the British were performing multi-carrier exercises long before the Japanese), but the British development in that two year period was somewhat hampered by having three fleet carriers lost and two new armoured carriers put out of action.

The Japanese navy meanwhile were free to develop some excellent naval aircraft over the coming years – while the British were fighting for survival and much effort and resource that would have gone to the FAA was necessarily diverted to the Battle of Britain and elsewhere.

There is also the point that the British and Japanese navies had different needs.

One other point of course. Naval supremacy isn’t just about shiny battleships and sexy aircraft carriers. For an island nation, protection of sea lanes is pretty much top priority. The Japanese maybe should have spent a little bit more time, effort and resource on anti-submarine warfare…..

So yes, the Royal Navy had lost naval supremacy – as a function of the size and economic strength of the UK. But I hope this book attempts to properly explain that there is a whole lot more to the story than that. There was also something of a perfect storm that brewed up. By 1939 the British had at last got around to bringing the RN aircraft carrier fleet up to date with six armoured carriers on order and the RN had taken control of its own aircraft (although the aircraft would take time to develop - and planned stop gap purchases from the US did not come through on time). But the war - a war that was to show the critical importance of dominance of the skies - came about before the inter-war problems could be rectified. While the Japanese had time to develop her carrier fleet, the British were having to crisis manage everything in a bid to stay alive.





Orm -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/6/2017 8:19:32 AM)

I am currently reading Swastika and the Crescent - Nazis in the Middle East

The book, as far as I know, is only available in the Swedish language. After the end of WWII some Germans ended up in the Middle East, and some of them were wanted for war crimes. They had many roles there. Including military advisors, propaganda specialists, and advisors to the secret police. To spice things up the cold war logic had begun by then so several seems to have been recruited as agents and therefore had some protection.



Zorch -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/6/2017 8:50:02 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1


quote:

ORIGINAL: Zorch

Two forthcoming books - 'Neglected Skies: The Demise of British Naval Power in the Far East, 1922–42 '.

'Neglected Skies uses a reconsideration of the clash between the British Eastern Fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy’s First Air Fleet in the Indian Ocean in April 1942 to draw a larger conclusion about declining British military power in the era. In this book, Angus Britts explores the end of British naval supremacy from an operational perspective. By primarily analyzing the evolution of British naval aviation during the interwar period, as well as the challenges that the peacetime Royal Navy was forced to confront, a picture emerges of a battle fleet that entered the war in September 1939 unready for combat.
By examining the development of Japan’s first-strike carrier battle group, the Kido Butai, Britts charts both the rise of Japan as a wartime power as well as the demise of the Royal Navy. Japan, by concentrating their six largest aircraft-carriers into a single strike force with state-of-the-art aircraft, had taken a quantum leap forward in warfighting at sea. Simultaneously, British forces found themselves outmatched in this Eastern theatre and Britts makes the case, by looking at a set of key battles, that this is where the global supremacy of Britain’s naval power ended.'

warspite1

This might be an interesting book. I wonder what ‘set of key battles’ the author is going to look at? But I am not confident that this is going to be looked at in the right way (I hope I'm wrong).

quote:

'Eastern Theatre …that is where the Global Supremacy of Britain’s naval power ended'


Well no, not really. Britain’s naval supremacy ended with Washington (and was going to end even without the WNT). The UK stole a march on everyone with the Industrial revolution. As such she was able to punch above her weight for so long. But by the start of the 20th Century that was long since a thing of the past, and everyone was catching up – or had gone past the UK. Countries were right-sizing. That the UK should maintain naval supremacy forever was not even remotely possible.

quote:

By primarily analyzing the evolution of British naval aviation during the interwar period,


If the evolution of naval aviation is the primary analysis then it’s not clear what this book would add over and above the likes of Friedman’s Fighters over the Fleet and British Carrier Aviation or Hobbs’ British Aircraft Carriers.

quote:

as well as the challenges that the peacetime Royal Navy was forced to confront, a picture emerges of a battle fleet that entered the war in September 1939 unready for combat.


He says battlefleet, but as we know from what happened, we are essentially talking about air power here. Well the Japanese didn’t go to war for more than 2 years after 1939 and I think it’s interesting to look at the World’s navies at that time i.e. not compare the RN 1939 to the IJN 1941. It’s then important to look at things on a level playing field. Doing things that way doesn't alter the outcome - but at least tells the whole story.

Of course it’s true that the RN had been hampered by the Government decision to allow the RAF to control naval aviation. That decision had only recently been reversed when war broke out. The Fleet Air Arm was small in size and with outdated bi-plane aircraft. But what aircraft did the Japanese have aboard their aircraft carriers in 1939? Indeed how many carriers did they have in 1939 (Hiryu had only just been completed when war broke out)? The blurb for the book mentioned the Japanese put their six carriers together (the British were performing multi-carrier exercises long before the Japanese), but the British development in that two year period was somewhat hampered by having three fleet carriers lost and two new armoured carriers put out of action.

The Japanese navy meanwhile were free to develop some excellent naval aircraft over the coming years – while the British were fighting for survival and much effort and resource that would have gone to the FAA was necessarily diverted to the Battle of Britain and elsewhere.

There is also the point that the British and Japanese navies had different needs.

One other point of course. Naval supremacy isn’t just about shiny battleships and sexy aircraft carriers. For an island nation, protection of sea lanes is pretty much top priority. The Japanese maybe should have spent a little bit more time, effort and resource on anti-submarine warfare…..

So yes, the Royal Navy had lost naval supremacy – as a function of the size and economic strength of the UK. But I hope this book attempts to properly explain that there is a whole lot more to the story than that. There was also something of a perfect storm that brewed up. By 1939 the British had at last got around to bringing the RN aircraft carrier fleet up to date with six armoured carriers on order and the RN had taken control of its own aircraft (although the aircraft would take time to develop - and planned stop gap purchases from the US did not come through on time). But the war - a war that was to show the critical importance of dominance of the skies - came about before the inter-war problems could be rectified. While the Japanese had time to develop her carrier fleet, the British were having to crisis manage everything in a bid to stay alive.


Just so we open the book with an open mind. [&o]



zakblood -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/10/2017 2:39:19 PM)

well not posted in here much tbh,

but i read more when away than at home,

so i'll list my favorite writers first and progress on how many of there books i've read so far

Christopher Paolini - Inheritance Trilogy 4 books read this year

David Gemmel - Troy book one and 2 (lords of the silver bow and shield of thunder)

David Eddings - so far 6 books, but working my way through them all, in order

J.R.R. Tolkien - all read

Katherine Kerr - (excellent books and series, same as all of these tbh) Deverry 1 to 4 and a few others

L. E. Modesitt - Spellsong 1 to 3

Raymond E. Feist - only the first 10 books, epic to say the least

and a selected few others, mainly given to me or picked up somewhere where i sat, or in hotel etc






loki100 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/12/2017 3:14:35 PM)

limited book buying recently due to a number of very slow payers ... incl one well known British ex-politician who would like to pretend he despises that sort of behaviour.

Anyway, some money arrived so treated myself to Svetlana Alexievich's The Unwomanly Face of War. It was originally published in the mid-1980s (heavily censored within the USSR). Basically a superb series of interviews with female members of the Red Army and the Soviet partisan movement. Its an excellent handling on this type of material - I'd put it on a par with Lynn Macdonald's books on the Great War.



warspite1 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/13/2017 5:06:23 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1


quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1


quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I've started reading The Naval War in the Baltic 1939-45 (Grooss)

Okay start - the author writes in a clearly understandable and easy to read way, but he's spent the first chapter giving a very potted history of countries that border the Baltic Sea. Not uninteresting in itself, but too little to be really useful and so not really sure that this was needed.

I read on.....
warspite1

Given all the talk of Dunkirk and, having fired up Decisive Campaigns: Warsaw to Paris for the first time, I think I will put this on hold and head back to the Western Front 1940 stylee.

To that end I have just started Dunkirk the Patriotic Myth (Harman).

warspite1

Well it's good to read books from all sides - but its not necessarily a good thing for the old blood pressure.

First couple of chapters down and I have to say the book is well written, not by any means a difficult read. But clearly the author has a particular weed up his behind and falls over himself to get dig after dig in.

As a classic example, he pointedly refers to the fact that the British did not respond to Queen Wilhelmina's request for assistance... but the French did. But having made that point he then fails to provide any context. He singularly fails to explain that French assistance was all part of Gamelin's disastrous Breda Variant that took away the French 7th Army from the reserves (and that would otherwise have been available to aid the defenders of the Meuse). i.e. the French coming to the aid of the Dutch was already in the plan - not some extra assistance that the French conjured out of thin air [8|]

Oh well, I suppose the book helped with his pension planning....

warspite1

Finished this book. Here is my review - but in summary don't rush out to buy this book [:D]

This is a very poor effort.

It avoids one star on the basis that the author writes in a very clear, easy to read style - and he makes the occasional pertinent point. But as a history of the episode, the book is - shall we be kind and say it is fundamentally flawed? Simple, basic facts are wrong - Huntziger's 2nd Army don't appear to have been involved in the defence of the Meuse apparently and there is the rather shameful - if not downright dumb - inference that 400 SS troops were massacred by the Durham Light Infantry. Then there is the contention that the fighter command had 1,400 ultra-modern fighters - which he not only mentions twice but then adds that only 100 were sent to France.....

But then, working largely from secondary sources, the author has nothing new to add and so needs an angle to sell the book. That the British sought to withdraw and in so doing did not inform the French and Belgians, is not new, and as a result the author - no doubt in order to get the book published - needs to be as sensationalist as he can. He ends up simply repeating the same thing - each time in slightly different ways - over and over.

He provides little, if anything, by way of context for decisions that were made. There is a brief chapter in which he concedes the French were responsible for the loss of the Meuse, and he also comments on the brilliance of the evacuation operation, but otherwise there is no attempt to provide any sense of balance to the piece, and the portrayal of Lord Gort does the author no credit. All French and Belgians in and around Dunkirk and beyond were apparently desperate to attack the Germans but the British simply wanted to go home.

To give just one example of what the author misses out in order to make his monotonously repeated point, the author makes great play of the fact that the British supposedly cut and run at Arras for no good reason other than a wish to save their own skins. Gort's superior at that time was General Blanchard, commanding the French First Army Group. Blanchard's aide General Fauvelle had a meeting with Weygand and Reynaud in which Fauvelle confirmed to the French CinC and President that the French 1st Army was "so weak it would be unwise to expect it to ever mount a counter-attack" and that in his opinion he was expecting "a very early capitulation". The author does not mention this meeting - nor does he make any comment on the state of the French forces at the time. Similarly there is no comment on General Billotte's state of mind at the time. Balanced? I don't think so.

Many (most?) French historians today are honest enough to admit that the French were defeated by the time the British began to think of evacuation and if one wants to read properly researched books that tell the true story in a balanced, grown up fashion there are plenty of better books - and documentaries - on the subject.



Chickenboy -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/13/2017 4:19:47 PM)

Just finished Samuel Morrison's History of the United States Naval Operations in the World War II: Volume 3: The Rising Sun in the Pacific: 1931-April 1942. Dark days. [:(]



Chickenboy -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/13/2017 4:21:14 PM)

Moving on to The Most Important Thing (A business / investment book) by Howard Marks. I've seen him interviewed a couple times and he is just riveting. Like Warren Buffett.



IslandInland -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/17/2017 11:58:20 AM)

I've just bought The Bomber Command War Diaries : An Operational Reference Book. The Kindle version is currently 99p on Amazon UK.


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bomber-Command-War-Diaries-Operational-ebook/dp/B00ONZQ8AE/ref=pd_sim_351_51?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3XSXCMN9FVJC6TQPKKYS


I bought it primarily for some background reading and operational insight when playing War In The West.





Yogi the Great -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/17/2017 12:55:13 PM)

I'm reading "What Book Are You Reading at the moment"



Zorch -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/19/2017 10:24:42 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Yogi the Great

I'm reading "What Book Are You Reading at the moment"

[&o]



Zorch -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/19/2017 10:26:19 PM)

I forget if i already said this, but I liked Warships After Washington, about the Treaty's effect on warship design and construction.



warspite1 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/23/2017 7:07:03 PM)

I have just read one of the Osprey Campaign Series. This was on Dieppe 1942. There were a few annoying typos but that aside, these are very good introductory books for any subject.

I always wondered why they say the Allied leadership learned so much from this raid, and now I can see why. It also confirmed - as if any confirmation was necessary - that a D-Day in 1942 [8|] and even 1943 would almost certainly have been a disaster.



fodder -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/23/2017 7:12:05 PM)

Halfway through "Pawns of War" The loss of the USS Langley and the USS Pecos. By Dwight R. Messimer



loki100 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (8/24/2017 6:56:55 PM)

ok, its not a book as such:



[image]local://upfiles/43256/D7AA2EF0136D405AB1EFC0D262C7DE44.jpg[/image]



warspite1 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (9/1/2017 6:26:46 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

ok, its not a book as such:



[image]local://upfiles/43256/D7AA2EF0136D405AB1EFC0D262C7DE44.jpg[/image]
warspite1

How do you read these? Do you climb up a ladder and then sort of perch on the gargoyle?



fodder -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (9/3/2017 3:09:16 PM)

Staying with the early Pacific war and with the same author. (that does not happen often)Next book off of the yet to be read pile is
"In the Hands of Fate" The Story of Patrol Wing Ten 8 December 1941-11 May 1942.



warspite1 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (9/5/2017 9:00:07 PM)

Sadly I am really struggling with The Naval War in the Baltic. Getting through to the end of this is proving to be a bit of a chore.

This is the first Seaforth publication that has disappointed. There is just too much that doesn't relate to the naval war, and what there is is too much of a jumble, too abstract and nowhere near detailed enough. Shame.



Curtis Lemay -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (9/6/2017 12:22:33 AM)

I just got a copy of "The Republic for which it Stands". The latest volume in the Oxford History of the United States:

https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/o/oxford-history-of-the-united-states-ohus/?cc=us&lang=en&

The first volume in this series was published in 1982, which was when I bought that one. It's now 36 years and nine volumes later and there are still three volumes to go. I'm wondering if I'll live to see the last one.

This one covers 1865 - 1896 (Reconstruction & The Gilded Age).



warspite1 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (9/8/2017 3:12:55 PM)

All this talk of who started WWI, I think I'll read The Sleepwalkers (Clark) again. From memory this was quite a slog but ultimately satisfying. The author argues against Fischer's idea (and others) that there was a German plan to start a war and that instead, the politicians of the major powers essentially sleptwalked their way to war...



Orm -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (9/8/2017 3:51:27 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

All this talk of who started WWI, I think I'll read The Sleepwalkers (Clark) again. From memory this was quite a slog but ultimately satisfying. The author argues against Fischer's idea (and others) that there was a German plan to start a war and that instead, the politicians of the major powers essentially sleptwalked their way to war...

Now you shame me into beginning with it. [:D]



Zorch -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (9/8/2017 8:26:54 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

All this talk of who started WWI, I think I'll read The Sleepwalkers (Clark) again. From memory this was quite a slog but ultimately satisfying. The author argues against Fischer's idea (and others) that there was a German plan to start a war and that instead, the politicians of the major powers essentially sleptwalked their way to war...

Certainly the various leaders had a lot of misconceptions...sadly, this could be said about most wars.



Jagdtiger14 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (9/9/2017 9:39:59 PM)

Ok Warspite, what was it you wanted to discuss? I'll let you start. Can we also not use insulting language towards each other please? Thanks!



warspite1 -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (9/9/2017 9:47:55 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jagdtiger14

Ok Warspite, what was it you wanted to discuss? I'll let you start. Can we also not use insulting language towards each other please? Thanks!

warspite1

I will post my review of the book and my questions from the other thread.

This is a very poor effort.

It avoids one star on the basis that the author writes in a very clear, easy to read style - and he makes the occasional pertinent point. But as a history of the episode, the book is - shall we be kind and say it is fundamentally flawed? Simple, basic facts are wrong - Huntziger's 2nd Army don't appear to have been involved in the defence of the Meuse apparently and there is the rather shameful - if not downright dumb - inference that 400 SS troops were massacred by the Durham Light Infantry. Then there is the contention that the fighter command had 1,400 ultra-modern fighters - which he not only mentions twice but then adds that only 100 were sent to France.....

But then, working largely from secondary sources, the author has nothing new to add and so needs an angle to sell the book. That the British sought to withdraw and in so doing did not inform the French and Belgians, is not new, and as a result the author - no doubt in order to get the book published - needs to be as sensationalist as he can. He ends up simply repeating the same thing - each time in slightly different ways - over and over.

He provides little, if anything, by way of context for decisions that were made. There is a brief chapter in which he concedes the French were responsible for the loss of the Meuse, and he also comments on the brilliance of the evacuation operation, but otherwise there is no attempt to provide any sense of balance to the piece, and the portrayal of Lord Gort does the author no credit. All French and Belgians in and around Dunkirk and beyond were apparently desperate to attack the Germans but the British simply wanted to go home.

To give just one example of what the author misses out in order to make his monotonously repeated point; the author makes great play of the fact that the British supposedly cut and run at Arras for no good reason other than a wish to save their own skins. Gort's superior at that time was General Blanchard, commanding the French First Army Group. Blanchard's aide General Fauvelle had a meeting with Weygand and Reynaud in which Fauvelle confirmed to the French CinC and President that the French 1st Army was "so weak it would be unwise to expect it to ever mount a counter-attack" and that in his opinion he was expecting "a very early capitulation". The author does not mention this meeting - nor does he make any comment on the state of the French forces at the time. Similarly there is no comment on General Billotte's state of mind at the time. Balanced? I don't think so.

Many (most?) French historians today are honest enough to admit that the French were defeated by the time the British began to think of evacuation and if one wants to read properly researched books that tell the true story in a balanced, grown up fashion there are plenty of better books - and documentaries - on the subject.

Follow-up comment
Look, suppose I write a book on Barbarossa. I write that Germany invaded the Soviet Union with 7,000 tanks and they were all PZKW IV’s. Regardless of anything else I write, that comment would surely make you believe that the author, and his conclusions, should be treated with extreme caution. What it wouldn’t do – regardless of whatever else was in the book – would make you think that the book qualifies for ‘Awesome’ territory (which you say the Harman book is). Harman states that Fighter Command had 1,400(!) 'ultra-modern' fighters in 1940 - and you don’t see any possible flaws with the book?

I would love the chance to understand why you put it in the 'awesome category' given much of its content is false, and statements are based on half truths or simply statements made with no attempt to try and support or back up what he is stating with any kind of supporting evidence.




aaatoysandmore -> RE: What Book Are You Reading at the moment? (9/10/2017 10:36:16 PM)

"War of the Lance" a novelette. [:D]



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