What are you reading at the moment?

The Death of the Scharnhorst By John Winton.

The book not only covers the final voyage of the Scharnhort but the conditions and politics of both sides of the combat. Where the book has the advantage over earlier attempts to tell the story, is Wintons access to the signal logs of both sides.

The German Navy may have looked good on paper but it was mishandled not only by the leadership of the navy but by Hitler, who admitted that he had no knowledge of sea warfare. Thankfully, it never really used it full potential against the Royal Navy because of attempts to prevent the ship being lost.

He does, as many other authors have done, describe in detail the lack of cooperation between the kriegsmarine and the luftwaffe over air cooperation and support, unlike the british who had joint HQs manned by RN and Coastal Command personnel. Thus valuable signals concerning convoys had to be sent by the aircraft and then transmitted over other means to get to the kriegsmarine.

The final voyage is recorded by eyewitness accounts from both sides and goes into great detail over the manuovers carried out by both sides. On several occassions, the Scharnhorst was in a tacticall advantage but never took up the oppertunity. In the end, it was the better seamanship and gunnery of the RN which won the day, along with a surprising large number of radar units fitted to the ships!

 

Excellent. Thanks for the heads-up Ron. I'd read the first volume "Nazi Germany & the Jews 1: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1933-1939: Years of Persecution", and had been awaiting the second volume for years.

Let us know what you think. I'm sure it will be as good, if not better, than the first volume.

 

I picked up a copy of HAP Arnorlds autobigoraphy today! So, I have some heavy reading to do!

Also, I never knew that he had been taught to fly by the Wright bros!

 

Good score, Morse.

Everytime I think of Hap Arnold, this noseart springs to mind.

http://www.fredonia.edu/faculty/emeritus/edwinlawson/b29/images/miss_hap_of_497thBG.jpg

 

Interesting nose art!

 

No Escape Zone

This was written by Nick Richardson, who was the pilot of the 801 Sqdn Sea Harrier that was lost over Croatia in 1994.

he gives a vivid description of life as FAA pilot of the time and of his family problems, his wife was having difficulties with her latest pregnancy.

He then moves on to the period when 801 was embarked on HMS Ark Royal for a tour providing air support over Bosnia.

This involved an interesting period At Decimommanu in Sardina, the site of the armaments practise camp. The Serbs operated a sqdn of Mig 29s and in order to gain experience and to devise tactics, a pair of Luftwaffe Mig 29s were sent to do some dis-similar combat practise with the Sea Harriers.

The Sea Harriers were called back early and re-embarked and sailed to the Adriatic Ops area. Once the carrier reached the area, 801 was then carrying out sorties in Bosnian air space. it was while on one of these sorties, Richardson received a call from a Forward Air Control Op that was coming under fire from serb forces.

He was asked to bomb two tanks hiding in the woods, he decided to to go down for a better view and it was at this point that the rocket hit the rear of the Sea Harrier and he had to bang out.

Richardson was very lucky because he landed in "friendly" territory and was picked up by muslim forces who moved him to Gorazde where there was a SAS unit located with the UN team. News of his survival was passed to the outside world and 801 sent a signal to the unit which read "Flash is not dead"! it refers to the character Lord Flashheart from the Blackadder goes Forth series

The serb forces ended the siege of Gorazde by storming the town, the towns folk started to get angry with the SAS and with thought to what the serbs would to them if they were captured, it was decided to escape ASAP!

Plans were made for the escape, it was handy that Richardson had been a former Sea King pilot and he could sort out a landing site. One of the SAS officers had been injured and had a steel frame on his arm and was in a weakened condition but choose to escape as well.

They broke out of the town and headed to the LZ, where a prearranged Puma of Special Forces Flight would pick them up. After an eventual journey they reached the LZ and where the Puma picked them up.

Quite and interesting story and well worth the £1.50 paid for it out of a charity shop!


On somewhat of a personal note, here is a picture of II(AC) sqdn at Deci in 1982 and my brother Andy is the big guy sitting on the wing!

 

From Beruit to Jerusalem

This was written by Dr Swee Chai Ang about her time spent helping Palestinians.

I know it is not WW2 related but it covers a period of my life when i was out there at the same time!

 

Surviving the sword - Brian MacArthur

Subtitled - Prisioners of the Japanese 1942 - 45.

This is a harrowing account of the captivity of allied soliders at the hands of the Japanese.

It contains many first hand accounts of survivors of the hellish conditions in the camps and the often brutal treatment handed out by the guards and on the railway, by the engineers.

As Rabbie Burns said, "Mans inhumanity to his fellow man"!

 

Malta Convoys - David A Thomas

A handy little book concerning a major part of the sea war against the Nazis.

Again, it has eye witness reports fromthe men who took part inthe convoys and some interesting photos, mainly of sailor "splicing the mainbrace"! the drunken swines!

 

The Korean War - Brian Catchpole

This can be descriped as sort of a handy book to introduce the subject to a general reader.

Luckily, the author is british and so the efforts of the Commonwealth forces are described and not just left as footnote as happens in so many american histories of the campaign!

 

Any detail about the family breakdowns and the inability of many to assimilate back into society?

 

Sacred Causes - Michael Burleigh

Subtitled Religion and Politcs from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda.

This a book which I have still to read, it goes into my work bag for next week.

But even a cursory glange through the book shows it to be a well written and informative book.

 

The Boys - Martin Gilbert

Subtitled - The Story of 732 Young Concentration Camp Survivors.

Gilbert is a well respect writer on the Holocaust and I have several of his books.

This particular book deals with one aspect of the Holocaust that is often missed by other books and that is life after the war.

For many of the survivor was the fact that they could not return to their homelands but were forced to seek new lifes else where. Some went tried to get to Palestine and many of those ended up in camps in Cyprus before moving on to their new homeland.

But in this case, Britian said that it would take 1000 jewish children but only 732 could be found and of these only eighty were girls.

Gilbert goes into details of the childrens pre war life, their times in the camps and subsequently in Britian.

A very interesting and informative book. A valuable addition to the growing library on the Holocuast. best of all, it records the personal memories of the now grown up children before they are lost for ever.

 

Not really, it just mentions the moment when the prisioners heard that the war was over and their breifly describses their jorney back home.

As a child, there was a system called the Provident Check, were familes could raise loans at cheap rates, it was always knows as a provi check. But the man who ran the local agency was Tom Smith and he had survived three years in a camp. He would speak of his time but hated the japs and would not allow any japanese made item into his house.

Also, when I joined Portobello British Legion, I had someone pointed out to me, his name was Harry and every night he would turn up buy a pint of heavy and sit in a corner playing patience.

I was told to try and look at his hands, because he had been cruxified by the japs in a camp and left up for about twenty four hours. His hands did bear the scars!

 

Changing Enemies - Noel Annan

Subtitled - The Defeat and Regeneration of Germany.

Annan spent his war time involved with Intelligence and provides an interesting insight to that side of the war.

He later, was posted to the British Occupation forces and was involved in the recovery of West Germany. Here to, he gives an insight to the events and some fascinating pen pictures of the various german politicans.

 

Invasion 1940 - SS General Schellenberg

It has an introduction by the late John Erickson, which goes into detail about the writing of the book.

Basically, it was the handbook issued to the troops for Operation Sealion. It contains a Nazi eyeview of the people, armed forces and government of the British Isles.

It covers many aspects of british life and culture, with details about the size of the countries, their topography and languages.

Mind you, it only uses two pages to cover the armed forces, and in its section onthe RAF, it gives wrong details!

As one would imagine, it does go into some detail about the Jewish community in Britian at the time, but mainly with details of the those living in England. it also lists the jewish organisations in the coutry at the time.

There is also, a list of "wanted" people who were to be arrested on sight, these included Churchill, Eden and other politicans but also Noel Coward and Vivene Westwood!


The book is a useful reference work because of the nature of the contents of the book

 

Assault on Sicily - Ken Ford

Subtitled - Monty and Patton at War

The subtitle can be taken two ways! One being the activites of the allied forces as they made their way up the island. The other was the behind the scenes escapades of both generals in their attempts to further their national causes!

I would be the first to admit of my ignorance of the details of Operation Husky and so I was glad that the book was well written and researched.

i was surprised to read of the debacle surrounding the use of paratroopers during the campaign, And of the defence of the island by the germans. Also the well organised and caried out retreat of the germand back to the main land.

I now intend digging out both Montys and Pattons account of the invasion.

 

The Birth of Time - John Gribbin

Again, not a WW2 related book but one which involves one of my interests away from the forum!

It deals with the way that scientists over the years have been trying to seek out the age of the universe.

 

I've just started reading 'Surviving the Sword' by Brian MacArthur about the prisoners of war in the far east. Lots of first hand accoounts including some from Lt Col Philip Toosey, who was the officer in charge of the building of the Bridge over the river Kwai. Only on chapter 4 at the moment but its awesome reading. Will continue to read it on the flight to Canada so should have it finished by the time we get there. Also some very good photos which were quite rare.
Take care all
Mike (Sniper)

 

There was a TV programme about Toosey a few years back. Quite an interesting chap and nothing like the character played by Alex Guinness.