Latest on my shelf is Vincent Orange's bio of MRAF Slessor. A good book so far. Orange is still a bit entrenched in his opinion and it does not help that Slessor did not get on with Park whom Orange view as hard done by this animosity.

Ross

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Thoughts on Military History
Cornish Scale Modellers
Ross' Military Modelling and Art

Lodieu is the leading French WWII historian and a Normandy specialist - "La Massue" (the Mace) is one of his best works...to date though only his III. PZ. Kp (at Kursk) has been translated into English (indifferently I might add...)

..his publisher YSEC is apparently no longer interested in doing an English language edition... pity.. since the Poles fought like tigers on Mont Ormel trying to close the Falaise gap and their achievements should be more widely known IMHO..

Thanks to FalkeEins' ongoing recommendations ( ! ) bought a copy of Lodieu's book about 9th Panzer Division -also from the Mont Ormel museum last week....at least, my schoolboy French can struggle through the captions to the many excellent photos......

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

oops I feel guilty now, I haven't heard of this book yet. I'll put it on my Christmas list I think..

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I am reading a book called "Lost Victories" from Feldmarschall Manstein. It is a great book; have any of you guys read it?
If I may quote something from this book that I think is worth quoting:
"The first was the mistake committed by Hitler, if by no one else, of underrating the resources of the Soviet Union and the fighting qualities of the Red Army. In consequence he based everything on the assumption that the Soviet Union could be overthrown by military means in one campaign. Had this even been possible, it could have been achieved only by bringing about the Soviet Union’s simultaneous collapse from within. Yet the policies which Hitler-in complete negation of the efforts of the military authorities-pursued through his Reich Commissioners and Security Service in the occupied territories of the east were bound to achieve the very opposite effect. In other words, while his strategic policy was to demolish the Soviet system with the utmost dispatch, his political actions were diametrically opposed to this. Differences between the aims of the political and military leaders have arisen in other wars. In this case, with the military and political leadership united in Hitler's hands, the result was that his political measures in the east ran entirely counter to the requirements of his strategy, depriving it of whatever chance it may have had of a speedy victory.
The second factor was the failure to achieve a uniform strategic policy at the summit-i.e. between Hitler and O.K.H. This applied both to the planning of the overall operation and to its execution in the campaign of 1941.
Hitler's strategic aims were based primarily on political and economic considerations. These were: (a) the capture of Leningrad, by which he proposed to join up with the Finns and dominate the Baltic, and (b) possession of the raw material regions of the Ukraine, the armaments centres of the Donetz Basin, and later the Caucasus oilfields. By seizing these territories he hoped to cripple the Soviet war economy completely.
O.K.H., on the other hand, rightly contended that the conquest and retention of these undoubtedly important strategic areas depended on first defeating the Red Army. The main body of the latter, they argued, would be met on the road to Moscow, since that city, as the focal point of Soviet power, was one whose loss the regime dares not risk. There were three reasons for this. One was that-in contrast to 1812-Moscow really did form the political centre of Russia; another was that the loss of the armaments areas around and east of Moscow would at least inflict extensive damage on the Soviet war economy. The third and possibly most important reason from the strategic point of view was Moscow's position as the nodal point of European Russia's traffic network. Its loss would slit the Russian defense in two and prevent the Soviet command from ever mounting a single, co-ordinated operation.
Viewed strategically, the divergence of views between Hitler and O.K.H. amounted to this: Hitler wanted to seek the issue on both wings(a solution for which, in view of the relative strengths involved and the vastness of the theatre of operations, Germany did not possess adequate force), whereas O.K.H. sought it in the centre of the front."

..BTW the author's web site is here ..he's very approachable and speaks English

http://didierlodieu.site.voila.fr/

go to 'catalogue' for details of all his books

since recommending the above he's published his latest 'Mourir pour St. Lo' (Dying for St. Lo - the battle for the hedgerows, July 1944)

I tried to read it 10-12 years ago and quit about halfway through it, I just didn't enjoy it. It was a difficult read to me and wonder if it was because of the translation. It read like a bad text book and he seemed, to me, to be always saying that he really wasn't a Nazi and that he hated Hitler, all of which may have been true, but I just grew weary of it.

Let me know if you finish it, I give it another try.

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Best Regards,
JW

I haven't finished it yet. I really think you should give it another try, it is a good book with alot of truth in it.

Just made an order for some Stalingrad books...

Amazon.com: An Infantryman In Stalingrad From 24 September 1942 to 2 February 1943: Books: Adelbert Holl

An Artilleryman in Stalingrad - Signed/Numbered - Rare Books, Signed Books - World War Two Books – Military History Books online - Ceredigion - Wales UK

Amazon.com: Island of Fire: The Battle for the Barrikady Gun Factory in Stalingrad: Books: Jason Mark

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wow what a crack up, just received via post Ken Rusts classic 1968

The Slybird Group - the 353rd fighter group.

picked this up for a song.........this little book is a hardback and for age and where it was from is in amazing clean condition

Just finished old The Brotherhood of War novels by W.E.B. Griffin. Now I'll have to dig up my old WWII history books to review the Eastern Front. I've never really looked it up. Thanks to this forum, I learned that I have a lot more to learn about the Eastern Front.

The one book I like to read over and over again is the autobiography of Saburo Sakai.

..read this a few times myself ! here's one of the five star reviews from amazon..

"....This book is of the highest quality, from its hard cover, to its glossy pages, to the photographs and historical records. This is the most detailed account of urban warfare in Stalingrad I have ever read. The book is fast-paced, easy to follow, thoroughly researched, and extremely informative. I could not put this book down and learned more about the streetfighting in Stalingrad than from all the other books I have read combined. If you want to learn about the horrific fighting in Stalingrad from a first-person perspective, this is the highest quality work I have encountered. I recommend it to anyone with an interest on the subject and can assure you that you will not be disappointed. A first class historical work all the way. Impressive! .."

Reading "Tigers in Combat I". Ordered " 'Ruckmarsch - The German Retreat From Normandy : Then & Now' by Jean-Paul Pallud" and '"Sledgehammers" yesterday from Amazon.

much of the data used in 'Sledgehammers' is drawn directly from the Schneider work..'Sledgehammers' is a useful work of synthesis I guess..

Not a bad trio of books, FramerT - especially 'Ruckmarsch'. I quite enjoyed reading 'Sledgehammers' ; nothing startling, but a good round-up of 'Tiger' research with some useful pointers to further reading....

The Stalingrad book does indeed sound interesting - there's something familiar about the translators.....I'll have to go away and think about it !

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Moved on from WW2 but directly caused by it.

Twelve Days Revolution 1956 how the Hungarians tried to topple their Soviet masters. Victor Sebestyen.

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Thanks. "Tigers in Combat I" has some great pictures and some things I never knew about Tigers. Never knew or read about barbed wire being strung around the tank to keep Russian
sappers from climbing on.

just finished this

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Members of the Dutch Resistance with 101st AB, Eindhoven. Operation Market Garden.

Scott

For the... *counts fingers... counts toes... counts sheep...*

Who knows, but I'm reading it again...

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.. being a modest sort of chap I'm not saying anything ......but this one I'm quite proud of...