Current Reading: June 2023

The long march continues:

Finished Spyflights and Overflights, which is basically a piece of military staff work disguised as a book for enthusiasts. A pretty thick read, since Hopkins is trying to cut through the BS that tended to accumulate around writings about the spyplane effort. I do hope the proposed follow-up books in what was supposed to be a trilogy come out.

Done with Franco's International Brigade, an account of the Spanish Civil War as filtered through the experiences of the volunteers who thought that they had signed up for a crusade against International Communism. I was on the verge of skipping this work, as it had been hanging around on various reading lists for over five years, but it turned out to be very worthwhile.

>2 Shrike58: May I ask worthwhile in what way? What value did you find? Although I've read bits of memoirs from the communist side, I've never encountered one from the fascist side - something your post immediately pointed out. So I'm wondering if this is a book you'd recommend as well as curious as to what you've found interesting.

>3 PocheFamily: Othen has basically produced a general history of the war from the "Nationalist" side, but it's filtered through the perspective of the various volunteer and formal expeditionary forces that wound up involved in the revolution. Othen does draw a great deal on personal memoirs to fill out his narrative. As I noted in my short review, Othen brought up points that I had not been previously aware of, such as how the wave of Moroccan troops the Nationalist leadership recruited thought they might win their independence, besides taking some revenge on Madrid. There are also nuts-and-bolts attributes, which tie into the contrasting Nationalist and Republican way of war. The Nationalists could have had many more foreign volunteers if they had an apparatus such as the Comintern provided. Finally, one last key point I might offer is that, when it was all said and done, very few of the Nationalist or Republican volunteers cared about Spain; it was just the place where they were fighting the ideological war that they cared about.

Finished Hessians, a new account of the British use of German mercenaries in the American Revolution, which debunks a lot of misconception about these people, besides providing a narrative of their service in this conflict. It's as much social history as it is military history.

Finished Tsushima, a modern account of what is arguably the best example of a decisive naval battle. Keeping in mind the mission of the series of which this book is a part, the author spends as much time on the continuing impact of the battle as he does on the battle itself.

>2 Shrike58: et. al. I have read several histories of the Spanish Civil War, including Antony Beevor's exhaustive study, The Battle for Spain: the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939. But the only book I have seen strictly from the Nationalist side is one I haven't read yet: Combat Over Spain: Memoirs of a Nationalist Fighter Pilot, 1936-1939 by Captain Jose Larios - Marquis of Larios * Duke of Lerma. One of these day . . . .

I just finished I finished Mission to Moscow, Joseph E. Davies' memoir, sort of, of his two years (1936 through 1938) as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union. I say "sort of" because the book is not a narrative but a series of journal and diary entries as well as many of Davies' official reports and correspondences with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, President Roosevelt, and other government officials. There is quite a bit of repetition, as sometimes, for example, a report to Hull is immediately followed by a very similar report to Roosevelt. That said, the accumulation of information and insights that Davies provides ends up being pretty interesting for someone (like me) with an interest in the events of this era. Davies was in Moscow, and part of the inner diplomatic circle, during the purge trials and the run-up to World War Two. Interestingly, this book was published in October 1941, just 6 weeks or so before Pearl Harbor.

I include this book here because Davies spends a lot of time talking about the run up to World War 2, and the fact that the Soviets were evidently much more clear-eyed about who Europe was dealing with when it came to Hitler than anybody else with the possible exception of Roosevelt. Davies reports on the Soviet government's increasing frustration with Neville Chamberlain's appeasement politics towards Germany and their eventual outrage when they are left out of the negotiations that led to the infamous Munich Agreement. In fact, according to Davies, the Russians had been prepared to come to the aid of the Czechs militarily (as per the mutual defense treaty the had with Czechoslovakia and France). From the Munich Agreement, says Davies, the Soviets concluded that England and France were willing to give away Eastern Europe to Hitler in order to keep from being attacked themselves, and were probably willing to let Russia have to take on Hitler by themselves. This led them to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact that would allow them to at least forestall a German attack. Most of the folks in this group are probably aware of most of these things, but some of it was new to me.

Believe it or not, I've posted a longer review on my Club Read thread.

Finished South Pacific Air War, the first book of an ongoing blow-by-blow history of the campaign, with significant coverage of just what the Japanese perspective was. I'm very impressed with the author Michael Claringbould and, from here on out, I'm going to take seriously anything with his name on the cover.

Finished Pipe Clay and Drill: John J. Pershing, the Classic American Soldier by Richard Goldhurst. Published in 1977, it is a fairly thorough look at Pershing, as well as the American military at the time, and also a look at the political realities experienced by Pershing during his time in Cuba, the Philippines, Mexico and Europe, the latter during WW1. The author is somewhat opinionated and gives his own interpretation on events, but not to a degree that discouraged me from finishing the book.

Completed the Library of America's World War II Writings by A. J. Liebling. What a wonderful writer! His character sketches and vignettes give a good feel for the era. Well worth reading.

Being one of those people who read multiple books simultaneously, I am working on Inside Hitler's High Command by Geoffrey P. Megaree, and Triumph in the Philippines by Robert Ross Smith. The former is quite readable, and focuses on the politics, personalities and organization that ultimately lead to the high command's failure. The later covers an area of WW2 that I know little about. Beyond MacArthur's return, the battle of Leyte Gulf, the raid on the PoW camp and (mostly from the Cryptonomicon) the battle for Manila, the fighting there seems to be neglected in comparison to the central Pacific island battles.

>11 wbf2nd: Regarding Triumph in the Philippines by Robert Ross Smith, I see it is an official US Army publication. It is an enjoyable book to read? I'm meaning versus some dry, official report type book. I also know little about fighting in the Philippines during this period and would like to know more but I am leery of grinding through some dry reporting.

>12 jztemple: It is part of the official history of the Army in WW2 aimed primarily at professional military (which I am not by a long shot), but also for the interested public. As such is is a bit dry and quite detailed from high level planning down to the movement of units etc., but the author does provide flashes of color to enliven the narrative. I have found it interesting and not a struggle to read, but it does require attention so goes a bit slowly, and so with my tendency to get distracted by squirrels I have gone at it in fits and starts, but never just put it aside. My conceit has been to read the combat volumes in chronological order, with the occasional technical services volumes interspersed (some of which are fascinating). It has taken me much longer than the war lasted to get this far. Anyway, I would have liked to have read a more popular history of the campaign first to have had a framework to begin with, but I have yet to stumble across one. On the plus side, the story is all new and interesting to me. I believe that the Army Center of Military History provides for free pdf downloads of the entire Army in WW2 series, so if you don't mind reading on an electronic reader you can check it out and see if the books are to your taste without any expense except time.

By the way, this is the second volume on the Philippines campaign, the first being Leyte: The Return to the Philippines.

>13 wbf2nd: Thanks for the info on the Army publications. Unfortunately Triumph in the Philippines isn't available right now in PDF, but Leyte: The Return to the Philippines is available so I'll give it a look.

Finished an excellent Day of the Rangers: The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years On by Leigh Neville. As the author notes, this book was not intended to be Black Hawk Down 2.0, instead it has a more complete view of not only the two days of the battle, but also the military and political events leading up to as well as the aftermath. It is also a military historian's view rather than that of a reporter. There are extensive quotes from the participants with the author's narrative seeking to tie together the individual views. There is also an excellent final chapter on lessons learned and post mission controversies. There are three appendices covering weapons and equipment, a discussion of the accuracy and inaccuracies of the film versus the actual events and finally the full Joint Operations Center Operations Log giving a good timeline of events. Finally there are several color photograph inserts which also include three maps. Highly recommended.

>15 jztemple: Sounds good.

As for myself, I finished up Heinkel He 177 Greif, which remains the best work on the plane, but which is now a hideously expensive collector's item that I was lucky to pick up for a reasonable price when it first came out.

>16 Shrike58: I'm in the same situation with lots of books I was grateful that I picked up decades ago when their prices were quite reasonable.

Meanwhile I completed Target: America: Hitler's Plan to Attack the United States by James P. Duffy. Not a bad book, it has some interesting items I'd never heard about, but the plethora of of small errors makes the reader wonder if there might be larger ones as well. At least it is a short and fast reading book.

Finished One Faith, One Law, One King, a wargamer's guide to the French Wars of Religion. It's got its quirks, but basically time we'll spent.