What are you reading at the moment?

Jarhead - Anthony Swofford

I had written about the book One Bullet Away, which was a USMC officers view of the second Gulf war and Afghanistan.

This on the other hand, is a view of the first Gulf war from the point of view of a marine grunt - Government Reject Unfit for Normal Training - and is full of details about the training and life of your average marine.

It was turned into a film with some artistic license employed by the script writer! i have it on bootleg DVD!

 

Oh no! Where has Morse1001 gone? He'll have read another 10 books whilst he's off line.

I thought that I was a prolific reader (severely hampered since I've been looking at these sites) but it isn't just the number of books that you all read, it is that they are weighty tomes too!!!

I've been bookmarking sites and writing lists. I'll never live long enough to get through all of these!! Please keep writing the summaries!!!
Thanks
CTNana

 

Two Sides of the Moon! David Scott and Alexi Leonov

This book presents two different views of the space race.

David Scott, became an astronaut in the early sixties and was one member of teh crew of the ill fated Gemini 8 mission which just avoided disaster. He later flew as Commander of Apollo 15 and spent 3 days on the moons surface.

Alexi Leonov was one of the firsr cosmonauts of the Soviet Union, he became famous as being the first man to carryout a space walk.

Both men tell their stories about their early life. Leonov had a hard childhood because his father was convicted of being an "enemy of the state" and he dewscribes his neighibours coming round to ransack the family house, one person even telling the young Leonov to remove his trousers leaving him to freeze in the cold winter of Siberia!

Both became fascinated with flying from an early age and Scott was determined to become a pilot and so entered West Point as a cadet. leonov on the other hand at forst wanted to study to be an artist, however, the 500 rubles a month need to rent a flat at the college put a stop to his dreams, instead he became a pilot.

Leonov was selected to become a cosmonaut after a very close shave with death, it just so happened that the committe which was recruiting had witnessed the incident! Scott on the other hand, wanted to be a test pilot and to fly with Chuck Yeager and after contesting orders sending him as a staff member of the Air Force Academy, he got his wish and was sent to Edwards

Leonov was crewed up to be part of the Voskhod 2 mission and to do the space walk. The mission went well, Leonov climed out the capsule and was soon floating in space! However the problems started when he tried to get back in! The vacumn of space had caused his suit to expand and he had difficulty getting back into the craft! The book contains a photo of leonov before he climbed back in and it is clear that his gloves had balloned up!


Scott had his first flight in Gemini 8 crewed along side Neil Armstrong, but their mission got into difficulties because a hand control got stuck and they were slowing rolling at a alarming rate!

They continue the book with interesting material about life in the space corps of both superpowers and also of both the national and internal politics involved.

Scott and Leonov both achieved high positions in both their countries and have a long and interesting career!

Its a good book to read and is a must for anybody interested in the space race!

 

The Battle for Spain - Antony Beevor

Sub titled The Spainish Civil War 1936 - 1939


Most of us, have at some point read either of Beevor's books on Stalingrad or Berlin, you might even have read both as have I, but I have to admit that this book came as a bit of a surprise to me!

I have to admit that both Spain and its history are somewhat of a blackspot for me. I never really fancied Spain as a holiday destination and never really got past the war of the spainish succession at uni! My only real source on the civil war was from George Orwells Homage to Catalonia. Therefore I had my dounts about reading this book! Mind you I had to have a map of Spain handy to look up the places that he mentions!

However, I was amazed! Beevor is wel known for his through and comprehensive research and the great detail he uses in his writing and this book is no exception!

He covers not only the military aspects of the war but describes in great and interesting detail the political and economic situation from the just before the abdication of the King. All of which proves to be very goos background material for understand the various allancies created during the civil war.

Beevor clears up for me some wrongs facts that I had accumluated over the years, the main one being Franco flying with his troops from Morocco to spain to start the war. Franco in fact was based in gran Canaria and was flown to the mainland by a DH Dragon rapide bought in Britian for the task and the troops of the Army of Africa were intianly flown by JU52s from Moroco.

Beevor also goes into the great detail describing the military aspects of the war. This too was a surprise as I never really was aware of the savagery used by both sides in both the build up to and the war itself. My one and only spainish holiday was in a place call bellamadena near to Malaga and therefore I was interested to read of the nationalist attack on Malaga. Mind you it was hard trying to reconcile the peace and beautiful images of a walk around Malaga with the bloodshed that went on in the city and surrounding area!

As you can imagine the great part of the book is devoted to the war but beevor also includes details of the events at the end of the war and a description of the activites of the exiles at the end off the war.

The book is a mighty and worthwhile read from a master historian!

 

Shadows on the Horizon - W A Haskell

Sub title - the Battle of Convoy HX-233

The author of the book was sailing in the convoy and therefore can add some interesting personal account of the convoy. However, as do many in similar circumstances, Haskell spent many years researching to events of the convoy and presented them in a clear and imformative style. He includes many first hand account form participants which bring some colour to what some wmight think is a dry as dust subject.

This is a book which fills one niche in the long history of the Battle of the Atlantic and presents the view from a american perpective rather than the usual british or german one.

Interestingly, I got this book from Poundland when I was in getting some razorblades!

 

Home Guard Manual 1941

This is a reprint of the war time manual. It is a handy little refence work as it contains details of many of th weapons used by the army at the time. it also contains useful hints and tips for Guards on patrols, communications and tactics.

I do like like one of the tips for when you become a casualty, "do not panic".

 

Winged Dagger - Roy Farran

Subtitled - Adventures on Special Service

First published in 1948, this edition is modern reprint. It is Farrans story from the time he first set foot on North African soil to the end of the war.

He started of his military career as a tankie and spent a lot of time providing tank support for the various early actions in the campaign. AS he was in light tanks, he spent most the time doing reccie work and so had a good view of the ensuring battles.

His unit was moved from north africa to Crete, where he was closly invovled with providing tank support for the Kiwis, of which he has nothing bur fulsome praise. He, was however, seriously wounded when his tank was hit bt anti-tank fire and was captured and taken prisioner. The seriousiness of his wounds meant that he was transfered from Crete to a prison hospital in Greece.

His description of his escape from the hospital is fascinating, as is time on the run. He spent some time in the near vicinity of the hospital, where her linked up with other escappees. They put there heads together and with the aid of the local greek resistance, came up with a plan to escape to Egypt using a fishing boat.

There then follows a tale of absolute endurance, one of the greek helpers stole fuel from the boat which later caused them run out and drift. They also spent the first few days on the boat as if it was a party and so eat and drank too much. About seven days into the voyage, they ran out of fuel, food and water. And, so they drifted, slowly falling into a stupor caused by the lack of water and food. But their luck held and a RN Destroyer picked them and took them to Alexandria.

Once back in North Africa, he heard of a new unit that was being formed and volunteered for the SAS. Once trained he was posted to a jeep bound patrol and that was his job till the end of the war!

he goes into great detail about his fighting in Italy, where his unit was in the forefront of the advancing allies. Here his story actually starts to resemble the one told by Popski in his book, both doing reccie for the army, both were invovled in being put behind enemy lines by the RN and used to round up escaped prisioners.

But, nevertheless, a good and interesting book in the "Boys own" style.


He does provide a diversion for the reader by describing both his sex life and the night life in Cairo!

 

Believe it or not, Birds of Prey of Africa and its Islands by Alan and Meg Kemp!

 

So, you are a closet twitcher then?eep:

 

Macarthur - Movie

I have just watched the movie and thought I would post some of the goofs.

• Errors in geography: The general proposes landing at Leyte Beach "on the island of Luzon" in the movie. Leyte Beach, where the general made his famous landing in 1944, is not on Luzon but on the southern island of Leyte, some 500 miles southeast of the point the general indicates on the map. In fact, he is pointing to Lingayen Gulf, which is on Luzon, but is not where his first attack will be. It is where the Japanese staged their amphibious landing in December, 1941 (that eventually pushed down the island to Bataan, Manila, and Corregidor Island), and is where the U.S. forces came ashore in early January, 1945, after the first landings on Leyte in October, 1944.
• Revealing mistakes: In the beginning of the film (and also in a briefer moment later), there are Japanese planes bombing soldiers on the field. However, you can see no bombs carried under the planes, nor being dropped from them - just a swoop of the plane and an explosion on the ground to coincide.
• Anachronisms: A Vietnam War-era F-4 Phantom fighter (first flown in 1958 and first operational in 1962) is seen (in stock footage) dropping napalm during the Inchon landing in 1950.

• Anachronisms: The map used MacArthur's 1950 invasion of Korea was a post-Korean War map showing the 1953 Demarcation line vs. the 38th parallel line that separated the two Koreas.
• Anachronisms: During the surrender aboard the USS Missouri, among the quick cuts to onlooking sailors, one sailor is clearly wearing modern, 1970s-style glasses.
• Factual errors: On board the USS MISSOURI, before and during the surrender ceremony, Admiral Nimitz is depicted wearing four stars, one rank below General of the Army MacArthur. In fact, he had been promoted to Fleet Admiral, a five-star rank, the previous December, and was equal in rank to MacArthur. He actually wore his five-star insignia before MacArthur, much to the General's dismay.
• Anachronisms: When MacArthur is notified about the start of the Korean War he is watching Winchester '73 (1950). The war started on June 25, 1950 and the movie was released on July 12, 1950.
• Factual errors: In the invasion scene of the return to the Phillipines, the soldiers storming the beach are dressed as U.S. Marines were in WWII in the South Pacific. The invasion was an all Army show and soldiers did not routinely wear camouflage helmet covers nor leggings. This was probably done to match up actual combat footage since the Navy and Marine Corps filmed a great deal of combat footage in color.
• Factual errors: The film clip of the atomic bomb exploding in the film is obviously meant to represent either the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki (or perhaps even the first bomb test at Los Alamos). Yet the film clip used shows a United States bomb test over the ocean and these US ocean tests did not take place until well after WWII had ended.
• Anachronisms: In the exterior shot of the airplane flying MacArthur to Hawaii, the side of the airplane reads "UNITED STATES AIR FORCE". The U.S. Air Force was not created until after the war, in 1947.

 

Nah, well and truly out of the closet on that one (darling!) and my interest is really only focussed on the birds of prey, their conservation, trying to get a half decent photo of them etc etc! eep:

 

Hmmmm, obviously Andy is a right floozy - he was calling me darling not so long ago!! :Booty:

 

I suppose I should start mentioning the book(s) I'm currently reading. However, being rather fickle, I tend to have a number on the go at the same time.

Yesterday, I started Raj, Secrets, Revolution: A Life of Subhas Chandra Bose

I'm also currently reading:

HIMALAYAN EAGLES History of the Indian Air force which is packed full of photographs. It's a great companion to The Eagle Strikes: The RIAF 1932-50

This month has also been rather good for magazine articles - Britain at War, Flypast, and Aeroplane magazines have some great WW2 articles that have kept me busy for a week or so.

 

Offical Secrets - Richard Breitman

Sub-title: What the Nazis Planned - What the British and Americans Knew.

This book deals with what is an emotive subject and that is, what exactly did the Allies know about the Holocaust.

Churchill in parliament was recorded saying,

Taken from Buchenwald Camp - the Report of the Parliamentary Delegation CMD 6626 (This author’s collection)

The above quote gives an example of what was publicly announced and what was privately known through intelligence sources and this is subject undertaken by Brietman. He uses as his source material the various declassified decrypts from both sides of the Atlantic.

The evidence that he produces is at time gruesome as they include details of the death totals of various Aktions and Einsatzgruppen activities. Dr R V Jones in his book, Most Secret War, gives an example of what use these figures were routinely put to be the Nazis, in Jones’s case, it was to help encipher the test results of V1 rockets.

However, it is clear that the Allied government knew more than they would freely admit to, and this causes problems, because it raises the question of why they did not do anything about it. Why not bomb the camps, the trains, the killing grounds? To those of us who study the Holocaust then theses are questions that have be answered and Brietman goes some way towards answering them from official sources.

As for the information released to the public, I have a book called I was Hitler's Prisoner by Stefan Lorant, who spend time in a pre war concentration camp published in 1935.


Brietmans book is a good study book for one aspect of the Holocaust which has still to be thoroughly researched.

 

Any port in a storm...

 

My favourite line from Fanny Hill

 

I aim to please. :eyebrows:

Currently valiantly wading through a pile of magazines as I've fallen behind with my monthly, bi-monthly and quarterly! Grand total of about 8 mags I need to knock off...

Have already got two issues of Wartime (the quarterly) and haven't finished the first one yet!

 

Air America - Christopher Robbins

This is not as you would expect the novel of the film, but the book from where the scriptwriters got their ideas from.

It covers the period 1947 thru to the 1990s, when the CIA ran its own airlines to help support various fractions.

Interesting read but not worth watching the film as some of the stories from the book are more exciting!

 

Iron Kingdom - Christopher Clark

Sub title - The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600 - 1947.

This a mighty tome, covering as it does almost 350 years in great and glourious detail.

The particular copy I have in my possession is a publishers draft! And, I wish it had been around when I did German History and Institutions at Uni!

Good but heavy book. The front cover has a very telling picture which is reproduced below.