Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/December 2014/Book reviews


 * By Hawkeye7

A recent episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. showed Peggy Carter interviewing fictional Nazi war criminal Werner Reinhardt, who is looking for a deal to come to America and continue his work, as other scientists have done. Carter tells him that they were rocket scientists who would shoot rockets at the moon, while he is a mad scientist who kept people in cages and carved them up.

Did things like this actually happen? All of it actually. National Socialist philosophy held that certain races were not human, but merely animals, and therefore could be treated as such. This included using them as laboratory animals. Rocket scientists were recruited by the United States. Led by Sturmbannführer (SS Major) Werner von Braun, they ultimately did build Saturn V, a rocket that went to the moon.

At the same time, a lot was left unsaid, and some viewers may have been left with some wrong impressions. This book tells the story of Operation Paperclip, the resettlement of German scientists in the United States. On the face of it, the fictional Reinhardt is no better or worse than many. Colonel Hubertus Strughold conducted ghastly human experiments at the Dachau concentration camp, and became renowned in the United States as the "The Father of Space Medicine". A library and a prize were named after him in the United States.

Not all the scientists went voluntarily. Not all were Nazis; some were opponents of the Nazi regime. Most were not rocket scientists. Many were recruited for their expertise in chemical warfare. The Germans had developed a family of deadly new nerve agents, including Tabun and Sarin. The Allies were shocked to discover that if they had initiated chemical warfare, they would have found themselves at a serious disadvantage. Only with the help of the German scientists was the United States able to build up a stockpile of these nerve agents. (The chemists of course had their own wartime concentration camp at Auschwitz.) Others helped develop biological weapons. Unfortunately, much of this work still classified. Not all were brilliant scientists either. Some had their contracts terminated for rank incompetence. (They then took jobs in the private sector.) Some turned out to be Soviet spies.

Nor were the rocket scientists any different. They had their own concentration camps at Mittelbau-Dora, and participated in mass executions. Kurt Debus, "The Father of Kennedy Space Center", was an ardent Nazi and member of the SA and SS who denounced colleagues to the Gestapo for failing to give the Nazi salute. Unlike Strughold, he still has an award named after him (and a Wikipedia article that gives his Nazi past just one sentence).

The story of Operation Paperclip has been told before. Clarence Laby published Project Paperclip: German Scientists and the Cold War in 1971, and Linda Hunt published Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists and Project Paperclip 1945-1990 in 1991. There have also been other books on aspects of the project; but neither they nor this book is the last word on the subject. Researchers and journalists continue to dig and uncover more records. The problem is that the United States has no automatic declassification system, so embarrassing files may remain classified indefinitely; they also have a bad habit of disappearing. This book therefore contains much that is known, but also material that is new. The author will likely put out another edition if some of her FOI requests are honoured.

This book is a real page turner, and is highly recommended.

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 * By Hawkeye7

The passing of the horse on the battlefield did not mean the demise of the tactical roles that were performed by the cavalry in past centuries. In the Australian Army, the initial response was the Australian Light Horse. This was organized as cavalry, and performed certain cavalry roles, such as scouting and screening, while mounted, but also dismounted and fought as infantry. When horses finally disappeared for good, the race was on to develop and equip units that could perform the reconnaissance role.

As McGrath recounts the experience of several armies over the course of a century, a recurring pattern becomes apparent. If a reconnaissance unit is too light, it is liable to take heavy losses on the battlefield, or be held back in fear of it taking heavy losses, and then diverted to other tasks. Give it heavier equipment and more firepower so that it can fight, and it becomes too valuable an asset to just use for reconnaissance, and again is diverted to other tasks. In the end, McGrath concludes that dedicated reconnaissance units are not necessary.

This book is an easy read, covering a lot of operations and details. If the subject is of particular interest to you then you will enjoy it.

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Blackout: All Clear:
 * By Nick-D

Blackout and All Clear are a pair of science fiction novels set mainly in World War II-era Britain written by American author Connie Willis. They've won several prestigious science fiction awards, and form part of a loose series by Willis on the adventures of time-travelling historians from Oxford University. This pair of books describes the experiences of three undergraduate history students from the 2060s who become trapped in the UK during 1940 while on research trips back in time. The historians need to locate one another, work out what has gone wrong and survive the war while waiting to be rescued by other historians.

While Blackout and All Clear are primarily science fiction novels, they make great holiday reading for military historians. Willis has researched her subject comprehensively, and the books provide a compelling re-creation of life in wartime Britain. While the action is focused on the Blitz in London, the characters also experience the rocket bomb attacks on the capital, visit Bletchley Park, and work on some of the Operation Fortitude deception operations. These events are vividly described, and provide fascinating insights into the experiences of civilians in the UK during the war.

The books do have some frustrations however. In terms of readability, Willis is somewhat over-fond of farce, and keeps many of her comic interludes going well after they cease being funny or credible. Some of the history in the books is also a bit dodgy: Willis appears to subscribe to the "Great Man theory", and provides a simplistic account of why the Allies won (though I guess that there's more scope for adventure writing about the impact of key individuals than prosaic topics such as industrial production). Some of her facts are a bit iffy as well, with the characters catching London Underground lines which weren't built until after the war on a couple of occasions! Nevertheless, the story chugs along well and its historical aspects are generally convincing.

Overall, Blackout and All Clear are good fun, and will be enjoyed by military historians looking for some lightweight reading.

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