Busy reading month (mind I was off sick for 3 days this week with nada to do)
Finished No Holding Back: Operation Totalize August 1944
For those unfamiliar with it Brian Reid a retired RCA Colonel and (member here) gives a good detailed account of the armoured thrust south from Caen to Falaise and pulls no punches on what went wrong, and why. He also disposes some myths on the battle pointing out it did achieve almost all its objectives, although there were many Command and Control issues due to the relative inexperience of some key Canadian commanders. Reid writes as a soldier and it’s easy to follow along for other soldiers. Also well illustrated with tactical maps and unit TO&E diagrams.
He also analyzes the death of German Panzer Ace Michael Whitman looking at all the evidence and comes up with new conclusions on how he died and who most likely killed him that will upset the accepted story of the last 60 years.
Also finished Generation Kill by Evan Wright I’ve watched the HBO series and the book is just as good. Naturally more detail including for those who say the series why some of the higher ups (Encino Man, Captain America) were such retards. Wright also has a post script on what happened to the major characters including who went back to Iraq.
Third down range was
Alternate Decisions of World War II Third Reich Victorious Ten Dynamic Scenarios in Which Hitler Wins the War Edited by Peter Tsouras. 10 military historians have offered what if scenarios that change the war. Surprisingly well done.
Scenarios include BEF not being evacuated at Dunkirk and Sea Lion being successful enough that PM Halifax (?) sues for peace. Germans win the Battle of Britain and terror bomb London enough that again the PM surrenders.
Others include the Germans jet aircraft defeating the bomber offensive, Turkey entering the war against the Soviets, and three with Rommel. Two of them with him on the Ost Front in 1941 and then in 1944 (after winning in Normandy). The third is him winning against the 8th Army and driving all the way to Basra.
The most interesting one though suggests that in WW 1 a young Adolf Hitler is convinced to join the German Navy and not the Army. He is wounded at Jutland and develops a pathological hatred of England and the RN that suppresses his anti Semitism. He also develops a friendship with a couple of junior officers Raeder and Doenitiz.
After the war everything else goes the same Weimer Republic, depression and Hitlers rise to power etc. However he concentrates on building a naval force including more U-Boats and 4 small carriers. Sept 1939 4 German carriers launch a Pearl Harbour type attack on Scapa Flow and U-Boat packs finish off most of the RN in UK waters. No RN and Sea Lion succeeds. A German scientist named Albert Einstein then offers the Kreigsmarine a new weapon and soon no more Russia.
This one ends with a Cold War between a German occupied Europe and the US and the rest of the British Empire in Exile based in Canada including a British Honduras (Belize) Missile Crisis in the 1960’s
I also have to confess I picked up and read Andy McNabb’s latest Nick Stone book to kill time on a train trip, about par for the series but better than staring out the window for 4 hours….almost.
Two new ones on the go now. Dave Grossman’s On Killing interesting if a bit dry initially and well covered here elsewhere. I also pulled off the shelf Herman Wouks two parter Winds of War (finished it last night) and War and Remembrance to tide me over until my new Amazon shipment gets in.
