What Are You Reading?

Right now:

Into the Rising Sun by Patrick K. O'Donnell, a fantastic account of the Pacific War through the interviews of hundreds of veterans! Amazing!

 

Just started Arnhem 1944 by William J Buckingham. The book is based around this chaps PhD thesis from the University of Glasgow. Quite an interesting read.

 

Bill Buckingham was my modern History tutor in second year at Glasgow, Ross. He knows his stuff.

 

Gordon - teh books is very good on the tactics and the battle itself but I am finding some of his comments with regard to higher strategy and the nature of the british way of warafre a little hard to swallow. For example, he constantly refers to the british using other troops lives in place of their own, an is constant citing world war 1 as his example. This is an old, almost out of date interpretation of the battle of the period that I find a little hard to wsallow. Other than that it is quite a good read.

 

Disappointed to hear that, Ross. He never struck me as revisionist or PC. Good to hear you're enjoying the rest of the book though.

 

Mahross,

You need to spend some time in the Colonies to appreciate his views.

I would accept his quote as more relevant for WW2 than WW1. After the Fall of France the majority of Divisions fighting overseas were Commonwealth units as well as a large part of the Air Force units. Only the return to Europe saw a large number of British units back into combat.

 

Reading: "How far from Austerlitz - Napoleon 1805-1815" by Alistair Horne.

A good and very readable view of Europe in the Napolionic period (I tried Arthur Bryant's Volume, its too hard to read and slightly biased.

Horne gives all sides a fair cover and highlights the problems of fighting as a coalition, which Ike found out 140 years later.

 

Hello gentlemen,

Does anyone know this book;

Feindberuhrung, Erinnerungen 1939-1945.
By Julius Meimberg.

Author was a pilot in JG 2 Richthofen. It's out of print, but available ( and costly !). So I want a little feedback before I spend mucho dollari !. Thanks.

 

Ali - With all due respect, while this was to some extent true, that after the fall of France a lot of Commonwealth units were used, but this does not constitute some 'plan' on the higher command in Britain to use the lives of Commonwealth soldiers, as 'cannon fodder'. In reality the opposite is true, it was just expediency as to were units were based a the combat was taking place. If we take North Africa and the Middle East for example, the major reason a high proportion of Colonials were used was because this was were they were congregating upon transport to the UK in 1940 and when Italy attacked they subsequently are in the area and therefore, used in these campaigns. It would have been stupidity to continue them to the UK when a crisis was brewing and then send units out to that theatre from the UK. This is just military logic. Also if we take some of the colonial units, especially the Indian units, it must be remebered that, for example, in an Indian division, one infantry battalion in three was British and the majority of the artillery and logistical support for these units were British. Not really the case of the British letting them to do the fighting. Also in North Africa, the majority of armoured support was British, and in the Desert Air Force, with the exception of a sizable South African contingent, most units were from the RAF, the same is true of the 3rd Tactical Air Force in South East Asia. Without both of these arms the Colonials would not have been able to fight in modern conditions, and on there own could have not provided the neccessary support for modern operations. I hope this puts to rest that view.

Ross

 

I must confess that I've never heard of it, not have I seen it quoted from in other publications. I'm familiar with Meimberg's name as he flew something like 600 missions and, I believe, was involved in Helmut Wick's last mission. So - cannot advise as to whether it's worth 'serious' money.....

 

Mahross,

No it doesnt, and dont forget a fair number of RAF in the Desert & SE Asia Air & Groundcrew were Commonwealth (As well as FAA crews)

As for the Armour, it took them 1-2 years of letting down the Infantry before they became efficient. The Kiwis were not happy, a number of times, with the performance of the Armour.

When finding a force for the forlorn hope in Greece they could only find an Australian & New Zealand Division, plus British Armoured Bde.

Before Alamein, it was only Selby Force/70 Div, then 50 Div (Plus some Guards Bdes) who represented British Infantry in the Theatre. Yes there was a Briitsh Bn in each Indian Bde, plus the Arty. In this period we had 6,7 & 9 Aus, NZ, 1 & 2 SA, 4,5,8,10 Indian Divs plus some more units in the Far East.

India/Burma was only represented by the Bns in each Bde until 1st Akyab saw the 2 Br Div arrive plus the 70 Br/ 3 Indian/ Chindits move into action (Plus 36 British/Indian Div)

Without the efforts of the Commonwealth the British would have been forced to divert forces from the defense of the UK and severly cramped their ability to return to Europe in force (Which also required the use of 4 Commonwealth Divs)

 

Ali - You seem to have taken the posting the wrong way. Don't get me wrong the Commonwealth and Empire nations played an invaluable role in the defeat of the Axis powers, but I was trying to put your assumption into perspective. Yes a vast amount of infantry in N. Africa and Burma was not British but that was not the point, and neither was the effectiveness of British armour, the point is they were there, splilling their blood just as much as the soldiers of the Empire/Commonwealth. This was the point I was attempting to make. My criticism of Buckingham's book, the start point of all this, was that he claimed the British just through away sodliers of any nations instead of their. This just blatently isn't true when put into perspective. The British population reached a height of 47.5 Million during the war, and at it's height the military had some 5 Million under arms, this represented about 20% of the population, and as one historian has argued, 'The UK mobilized civilians more fully than any other combatant nation.' This includes the countries of the Commonwealth/Empire. I think this represents a significant contribution, that also included a lot of bloodletting, yes casualties were not as high as WW1, but this was because the Generals, who had fough in that war, did not wish to repeat that again. Also it must be remebered, as I did point out, the vast majority of the logistical back-up which moved these commonwealth forces in battle in North Africa, for example, was British and without this back-up the fighting end of the army would not have been able to fight anyway. Just take a look at the losses of the British merchant marine, which yes did include some non-British, but on the whole was British, to see whether the British Higher Command was willing to sacrifice British lives in order to win the war.

Ross

 

Cornelius Ryan - The Longest Day

 

I found an interesting book at a yard sale entitled "the Race for the Rhine Bridges" by McKee 1971. This book tells the story of the various battles for those vital bridges in 1940, 1944 and 1945. An interesting comparison!

McKee makes several mentions of the state of the troopers of the 82nd Airborne when the British armour roled through. He describes them as very tired and gives a distinct impression that hese men were exhausted and glad to be relieved.

Between this and some of the other 'revisionist' works concerning MG, it seems that "A Bridge Too Far" is 'based on a true story'

 

Ross, the impression in the Western Desert, given the fact that most infantry were colonial and most armour was British and also given that whenever the infantry needed armour support they were let down, is that the British were content to allow the colonial troops die while not taking risks, themselves. This was not the whole story.

Even those British infantry units felt the same way about the armour. Not only that, but the Cavalry regiments looked down on the Tank Corps and the armoured forces considered the use of infantry pointless in the modern mechanised war that the desert presented. Beyond that, the individual regiments didn't get along with one another and the New Zealanders and the South Africans didn't trust one another.

Finally, the average soldier resented the general staff. It was not uncommon for tommies to turn their backs on those staff cars as they drove through at speed.

Montgomery issued a general order before Alamein to the effect that long and hard fighting would be necessary but unnecessary casualties should be avoided. Strange words to the survivors of some almost wiped out regiment when they wondered why their losses were deemed 'necessary', especially if that regiment was colonial.

It is a matter of perception on the ground but it should not be overplayed by an objective historian when writing his book unless the perception resulted in a lowering of morale or fighting ability.

 

SLAUGHTER AT HALBE: HITLER'S NINTH ARMY IN THE SPREEWALD POCKET, APRIL 1945

Author: Le Tissier, T. Stock

The Soviet offensive launched on 16 April 1945 by Marshals Zhukov and Koniev, isolated the German Ninth Army and tens of thousands of refugees in the Spreewald 'pocket', south-east of Berlin. Stalin ordered its encirclement and destruction and his subordinates, eager to win the race to the Reichstag, pushed General Busse's Ninth Army into a tiny area east of the village of Halbe. To escape the Spreewald pocket the remnants of Ninth Army had to pass through Halbe, where barricades constructed by both sides formed formidable obstacles and the converging Soviet forces subjected the area to heavy artillery fire. By the time Ninth Army eventually escaped the Soviet pincers, it had suffered 40,000 killed and 60,000 taken prisoner.

 

Halfway through the book...very interesting..!!

 

And next "Alert in the west" by Willi Heilmann

 

JG 300 volume 1. many interesting first person accounts and some great photos to match the text. going through this very slowly maybe 3-4 pages at a time. Day bye day/eve by eve diary.

 

Not a book, but a classic magazine article I managed to obtain was Temporary Settlements and Transient Populations; the Legacy of Britain's Prisoner of War Camps 1940-48 by J. Anthony Hellen. This originally published in a German geography journal called Erdkunde ( Vol.53(3) [1999]), and is a pretty comprehensive survey on the development of these camps. He goes into great detail about typical layout, typical buildings found, where exactly they were sited and why not everywhere in Britain etc.
A fantastic read.