Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/April 2024/Book reviews


 * By Hawkeye7

The second book on the wartime exploits of the famous American general. This one takes up where the previous volume left off, on 1 August 1944, when the Third Army became active. From then on, it was almost constantly conducting combat operations.

The book reads much like a diary, with a day-by-day account, and in fact draws heavily on Patton's diaries. These differed from those of most commanders in that they were very personal and full of colourful, quotable snippets. They were originally written in longhand but while he was cooling his heels in the Mediterranean in 1943 after the slapping incidents he had it typed. Extracts from the typescript with substantial additions and amendments were published by his wife as War as I Knew it in 1947. A combined edition was published by Martin Blumenson as The Patton Papers in 1974. The diaries were later deposited in the Library of Congress where they were transcribed and uploaded to the internet in 2016.

The amendments, both by Patton and later by his wife, had the effect of making Patton sound more sagacious, perceptive and prescient than he actually was. Having access to the original handwritten entries forced some revisionism. Many famous Patton quotes were now revealed as bogus, and it was now clear that, for example, Patton was as taken by surprise in the German Ardennes Offensive as other commanders.

Much of Patton's claim to brilliance comes from his outstanding performance during August 1944, when he led the Third Army in an extended pursuit. This included some tactical innovations such as using the air force to guard his flanks (something of a hobgoblin of generals with an infantry background). This occupies the first third of the book. While the decision to continue the pursuit beyond the Seine was Eisenhower's, Patton's lack of logistical acumen did not help. (He seldom mentioned the work of his staff.) The campaign in September gives him little credit, with a series of costly, unnecessary and unproductive attacks on the German defences in the Battle of Metz. Eventually he adopted Omar Bradley's recommendation, and enveloped Metz in the November campaign. The grim fighting in September, October and November occupying the second third of the book. The final part is about Patton's role in the Ardennes Offensive. If people wonder why Eisenhower kept Patton around when he could be such a pain and an embarrassment, this was the reason.

It must be emphasised that the book is not a detailed operational history of the campaigns, but readers with an interest in Patton should enjoy this book.

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 * By Nick-D

This small book is a collection of papers presented at a 2015 conference on the role of the Royal Australian Navy in the first year of Australia's full-scale involvement in the Vietnam War. It includes papers by many prominent Australian military historians, including Tom Frame, David Shackleton and the late Jeffrey Grey, and was edited by Frame. While it often takes years for works of this type to be published, Frame impressively got this book out the door on the same year as the event! Only a small number of copies seem to have been printed, and I picked mine up in the collectors section of a local secondhand book fair.

As the Navy's role in the Vietnam War was actually very modest in 1965 (it comprised two voyages by the fast transport HMAS Sydney (R17) and escorts to transport army units to the country), the scope of the book is thankfully somewhat wider than its title implies. While there are several papers on Sydney's voyages, most authors chose to focus on the readiness of the navy for war in the mid-1960s. This is a more interesting topic than I expected, as over the preceding years the RAN had gone through a period of considerable material and professional improvements in response to concerns over its poor state in the 1950s. The disastrous 1964 Melbourne–Voyager collision indicated that some significant problems remained, however, which a paper by Frame does a good job of discussing. To my mind the best paper in the book is that by Grey on inter-service collaboration, or the near-total lack thereof, which notes that it didn't even occur to senior officers at the time that they should encourage collaboration with the other branches of the military. With this backdrop, he illustrates how the Navy and Army muddled through to get Sydney ready and successfully execute her transport missions, developed good arrangements that sustained the remainder of Australia's war effort until the early 1970s and then promptly disregarded most of the lessons learned.

The usual limitation of collected conference papers is duplication between papers and gaps in coverage, and this book is no exception. As noted above, several papers cover the role of Sydney, and it's not until the third one that we get a description of the 'Operation Awkward' anti-diver countermeasures that were used to protect the ship in Vietnamese anchorages and are noted as having been very important in the first paper! The absence of a paper discussing the Navy's role in the political manoeuvring that led to Australia's entry into the war is also unfortunate, though this might simply reflect the marginal importance of the Navy to the government's considerations given the deployment of an infantry battalion was the main focus. Some of the papers also have a stronger focus on the Navy's activities in the late rather than mid-1960s.

Overall, this book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the Royal Australian Navy during the Cold War.

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 * By Hawkeye7



This monograph is about how the Canadian Army maintained its manpower and armoured vehicles at near full strength during the campaign in North West Europe in 1944-1945. There is a particular focus on the manpower crisis of 1944, which had political repercussions in Canada in the form of the Conscription Crisis of 1944. In recent years there has been an upsurge of writing about Canadian military history, although I doubt whether it has had much impact on the public.

There were several reasons why the manpower crisis came about when it did: there was a lack of forethought and planning at the highest level; the Canadian Army had more overhead that its British or American counterparts; deficiencies in training led to high casualties when units were committed to battle in Normandy; and casualty forecasts were based on the fighting in North Africa, where the free-flowing nature of combat exposed support and service elements, whereas in North West Europe the bulk of casualties were experienced by the infantry. That having been said, every combatant faced a manpower crisis at some point during the Second World War when the bottom of the manpower barrel came in view.

The first attempt to resolve the crisis involved retraining reinforcements from other arms as infantry. This was only partly successful, because it was initiated late and their re-training was basic. The solution to the problem was to ship conscripts (known as "Zombies") overseas, but this did not occur until November 1944. In the end, the Canadian Army handled its manpower crisis fairly well. Unlike the British Army, it did not have to break up divisions, or, like the US Army, strip divisions of their infantry for reinforcements. Reinforcements were treated better than in the US Army, resulting in lower rates of casualties and more efficient units.

The book also covers the replacement of armoured fighting vehicles, which is detailed but somewhat less interesting.

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 * By Hawkeye7



The battles in western Europe in 1945, especially those in April, have received little attention compared with those of 1944, giving many people the impression that the fighting ended with the crossing of the Rhine; nothing could be further from the truth. This book was written by John Russell, a graduate of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and Staff College, Camberley, who saw active service in Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Afghanistan and postings to Germany, Belize and Australia. He has conducted battlefield tours of the locations in this book for the British and German armies. He wrote an early work on the subject back in 1982, but this version is greatly expanded. It is richly illustrated with contemporary and recent photographs, and has 74 maps. Up the back, there is also a section telling you where to find video of the operation.

On one side was two corps of the British Second Army: VIII Corps, with the 6th Airborne Division, 11th Armoured Division, 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division, 6th Guards Armoured Brigade and 1st Commando Brigade; and XII Corps, with the 7th and Guards Armoured Divisions, 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division and 4th Armoured Brigade. On the other side was Armeegruppe Blumentritt, a scratch formation. Its main element was the 2nd Marine Division. This was formed in January 1945 from sailors and so was like the Royal Naval Division of the First World War rather than the Royal Marines (whose No. 45 (Royal Marine) Commando and No. 46 (Royal Marine) Commando participated as part of the 1st Command Brigade). There was also a Hungarian battalion, a collection of Luftwaffe flak units, and the Training and Replacement Battalion of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. This was made up of 17- and 18-year-old conscripts, but led by a veteran training cadre. The book has detailed orders of battle to help the reader keep track of units and their equipment.

Armeegruppe Blumentritt was deployed to defend the Weser and Aller. Cue 300 pages of fighting, with detailed descriptions down to the company and platoon level, enlivened with many first-hand accounts. The research is first rate, with the author drawing on accounts in both English and German. The notion that April 1945 saw little fighting is debunked at length, as is the one the that Luftwaffe was no longer a threat, with German piston-engine and jet aircraft playing an important part. (At one point British troops were cheered by the sight of British jet aircraft for a change.) The sailors and SS in particular put up a tremendous fight.

Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in 20th-century ground combat.

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 * By Nick-D

This is the third volume in Osprey Publishing's new 'Fleet' series. It covers the structure and operational history of the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) of World War II. The book's author has produced several good works for Osprey on naval warfare in the Pacific War, but does not appear to have any specialist qualifications in this area.

The British Pacific Fleet 1944–1945 succeeds in its aims. Its early chapters (which make up half the 80 pages) clearly set out the BPF's role, composition and how it operated. The rest of the book covers the BPF's operations, and includes some useful analysis. Herder does a good job of explaining how the BPF stretched British logistical capacities to near breaking point and the factors that led to its success. This includes some good discussion of the fleet's support base in Australia and the tensions between the Australian and British government regarding the force, something which is sometimes overlooked. As is typical for Osprey books, it includes some excellent maps - the one illustrating the BPF's extraordinary network of bases is worth the price of the volume alone (the BPF's rear base was at Ceylon, main base at Sydney and forward bases were located off New Guinea and in the Philippines!). As books in Osprey's series have identical structures, it was good to see that the format of this new series is fit for purpose, unlike those of some other recent series which require authors to duplicate material.

There are some limitations though. The main one was that the book would have benefited from better proofing, as I spotted some minor mistakes: for instance, it's stated that the British Eastern Fleet retreated to Madagascar in 1942 when it actually was based in Kenya, and that no aircraft were lost in the Operation Inmate attack on Truk when seven were lost (one in combat and six due to accidents). The material on the fleet's post-war operations, including the important re-occupation of Hong Kong, is also too short. The book would have also benefited from an order of battle, but I suspect that this was omitted due to the short length.

Overall, this is a useful and interesting book.

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 * By Pickersgill-Cunliffe

With over 1,600 pages over three volumes, this is an extensive work. As the title suggests, the Bromleys set out to provide a comprehensive register of the memorials to soldiers who served Wellington in the Peninsular, or at Waterloo, or perhaps both. The first two volumes are the largest, organised alphabetically respectively A–L and M–Z. The third volume contains additional records missed from the initial two. Each soldier's entry includes a description of their memorial, including location (if extant) and inscription, as well as a brief service history. This encompasses their promotions, units, battles, and awards. The books are interspersed with black-and-white photographs of the memorials, and the first two volumes include CDs with another 4,000 photographs in total.

For the historian looking at soldiers who served Wellington, whether that be an officer or enlisted man, these volumes may well be the only modern source to cover them. The sheer size of this work means that if your research candidate is at all notable, they will be present. This comes with some caveats of course, the most prominent of which being that they must have, or have had, a physical memorial. These works should not be mistaken for a register of soldiers who served Wellington; this is a determining factor for their entry, but the memorial is the primary focus. This means that overwhelmingly the volumes list officers, those of lower social status being less likely to be memorialised. Private soldiers are not ignored, and where possible seem to be included, but their entries are commonly smaller and less detailed.

As such, these books provide an excellent reference for the reader focusing on memorials, but are more of a launch pad for anyone looking to go into detail about a soldier's career. The Bromleys admit that their focus for biographical details is the Peninsular War and Waterloo. As such you will find every battle a soldier fought at in either of these campaigns mentioned, but any other campaign receives much broader strokes, and individual battles are not mentioned. Dates of birth are often given with the year only, and service histories can feel incomplete.

The base biography provided for each soldier is, however, usually an accurate summary if not overflowing with detail. Directly after each entry the Bromleys provide the sources used to collate the information, allowing any researcher quick access to the sources that will hopefully fill the gaps left outside of the Peninsular and Waterloo. While I have not counted, the books claim to hold the records for 4,500 men. One would expect some amount of error with this quantity and they do exist. One consistent error is the Bromley's misunderstanding of British knighthoods. A man created a knight bachelor might see himself confusingly recorded as receiving a KCB instead.

These volumes are a great achievement for the authors and a useful addition for any historian of the period, especially those focusing on memorialisation.

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