What are you currently reading ?

[Ben Waterhouse]

Cunningham:The greatest Admiral since Nelson, by John Winton.

Spoiler - he wasn't... A very good admiral and the last great Hussar for battleship warfare in the Med 1939 to 43. Excellent battle and tactics descriptions.

[kipt]

Finished "SLIM as Military Commander" by Geoffrey Evans (retired LTG and was in the 14th Army in Burma).

I have always thought Slim's book, "Defeat into Victory" was one of the better books I ever read.  This current book shows how confusing the battle in Burma was, particularly during the retreat in the beginning.  Place names are unfamiliar so a sense of 'where' is lost and while the maps are pretty good, not all names are on the maps (not unusual in most military books).

The history of Slim is interesting and shows how he acquired his poise in dealing with those above and below him.  while sometimes caught on the wrong foot, Slim was able, due to his foresight and troop dispositions, to generally come out ahead of the Japanese.  A great commander and possibly the best Allied commander in WWII (in my opinion).

[Chris Pringle]

Place names are unfamiliar so a sense of 'where' is lost and while the maps are pretty good, not all names are on the maps (not unusual in most military books).

When Prof Murray and I translated Clausewitz's history of "Napoleon's 1796 Italian Campaign", we were very conscious of this problem and vowed to ensure that every place we mentioned would appear on our the maps Nick created for it.

Then we found that it was practically impossible. If we'd put everything on the maps, they'd have become illegible, so we had to break our vow and make choices about what was or wasn't important enough to include.

Not to say that we, or LTG Evans's publisher, or many other authors and publishers couldn't have done a better job with the maps; but I do have some sympathy with authors and publishers as well as with readers when this problem occurs.

(Pleased to see my own maps in my latest book, "Hungary 1849", got very honourable mention in Chris Jarvis's kind review in Miniature Wargames, though - they were a lot of work!)

[kipt]

Agree and "Hungary 1849" is in my pile to read.

[kipt]

Finished "Stay Off The Skyline: The Sixth Marine Division on Okinawa" by Laura Homan Lacey.  The author is (was? - 2005) the historian of the Sixth Marine Division.

A history of the battle told by the survivors, and it is pretty gritty.  Young Marines, 17 to 19 in their first battle along with some old time veterans.  Many had volunteered after Pearl Harbor (though many did not know where Pearl was, but were mad at the Japanese).  Volunteering ended when the draft started but still many were able to go to the Marines.

Pictures and short bio's of those interviewed.  To a man they were very happy with Truman's decision to drop the A bombs on Japan.  Up to that time they did not expect to survive an invasion of Japan.

Quick book to read.

[fsn]

The Strike Wings: Special Anti-Shipping Squadrons 1942-45 by Roy Nesbit.

The history of Beaufighters and Mosquitos in the anti-shipping role. Nesbit was a Coastal Command veteran and tells the stories of his peers simply and effectively.

This has changed the way I perceived these strike aircraft, their tactics and methods far more sophisticated than just charging at anything that floats.   

[steve_holmes_11]

The piece about relating maps to text is an interesting one.
I'm unlikely to be the only one here who recalls library books where all the shiny pages were in one or two clumps.
A reader hoping to extract details would be reading with two or three fingers stuck in the relevant map pages.
(Leaving greasy fingerprints on the nice shiny photo paper).

I think our world of modern gadgetry offers a solution.
Provide the modern name (subject to change) and grid reference - probably in a footer under each page.
This allows the avid reader to fire up public mapping software and locate the site of the events.

It doesn't boost the page count.
Think of it as a service to the reader, like the extensive (or not so extensive) bibliographies found at the rear of history books.

[T13A]

Hi

Provide the modern name (subject to change) and grid reference - probably in a footer under each page.
This allows the avid reader to fire up public mapping software and locate the site of the events.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

One thing I do like about my Kindle is the ability to tap on a 'note' in the text which takes you straight to the note in question at the back, tap on it again and you are back where you were in the text. Just wondering if something similar could be done with place names, tap on it and it takes you to a map, highlighting the place in question.

Cheers Paul

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Not in paper books Paul, but no reason why it couldnt in an electronic one.

[Ithoriel]

Have just finished "How Carriers Fought" - much recommended if you are in to the nuts and bolts of carrier warfare and care how long it took to launch an aircraft or why you might, or might not, want more fighters or torpedo bombers and an overview of how all of those nuts and bolts were put together in the carrier battles of WW2.

Now, finally, getting around to the November/ December issue of Slingshot. I'm guessing I'm a little late to send feedback via the questionnaire!

[Chris Pringle]

The piece about relating maps to text is an interesting one.
I think our world of modern gadgetry offers a solution.
Provide the modern name (subject to change) and grid reference - probably in a footer under each page.
This allows the avid reader to fire up public mapping software and locate the site of the events.

Ideally you'd want to link to a contemporary map. For a lot of C19 (or indeed C18) conflicts in Europe, I highly recommend the maps here:
https://maps.arcanum.com/hu/map/europe-19century-secondsurvey/?layers=osm%2C158%2C164&bbox=2057197.0902563662%2C5901668.9719951805%2C2469651.294883177%2C6042618.852153046

Names 'subject to change' is a big deal. In what used to be the Austrian empire, it is common to find a place has three names: the German one; the Hungarian one (if it was in the Kingdom of Hungary); and the local Rumanian, Croat, Czech etc one. In my Hungary books I had to put multiple pages of name index in the front to give readers a chance of following the action. (Plus putting a lot of effort into creating clear maps that tell the story on their own.)

Agree and "Hungary 1849" is in my pile to read.

Thanks, Kip. At ~550 pages, that should take you what, a morning to read? 

[tony of TTT]

Trying to do some 'what if' scenarios for an Austrian intervention in Wallachia I had major difficulties with maps of the area (both contemporary and modern) seeming to give places random names that appeared to have no linguistic link between them. Even using 5 maps I found little consistency and a rather casual attitude to those parts of a map that allow you to compare them. If both were to be accurate the course of the Danube seems to have changed by about 30km between 1849 and 1880 according to 2 maps.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

The Danube has changed course a lot since 1800
See below
https://www.icpdr.org/main/publications/historical-patterns-along-danubes-course

[kipt]

Finished "Tarawa" by Charles T. Gregg, a very detailed account of this battle.  Another hard fought combat against the Japanese during the"still learning" period of the Pacific War by the US Marines.

Good read.

[PedroSwift]

Just started reading The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot. Quite an entertaining story so far.

[fsn]

Just started reading The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot. Quite an entertaining story so far.

Great read.

Apparently Marbot was the inspiration for Brigadier Gerard.

[kipt]

Finished "The Chindit War: Stilwell, Wingate, and the Campaign in Burma:1944" by Shelford Bidwell.

A book about the "irregular" columns acting as guerillas  against the Japanese in the north of Burma, while Slim was fighting in the southwest and Stilwell was using two Chinese divisions in the north.  Reading this makes you wonder at the stamina of humans - marching up and down high mountains, little food, bad water if any, high humidity in the jungle and cold up high, only forest tracks, terrible communications between the columns.  But they did harass the Japanese.

Wingate was the driving force for the Chindits.  But a very determined officer who would not hesitate to go above his commander(s) and appeal directly to Churchill (who was always amenable to offensive warfare and strange ideas). 

The 70th British Infantry Division commander, General Symes, had this to say about Wingate:
"fanatical, ruthless,, supremely self confident, a master of duplicity,arrogant,argumentative,untidy, unorthodox...the magnitude of his plan in conception and in detail was amazing...he was essentially a 'doer' and was satisfied that he could do anything better than anyone else...He knew everyone [in his force], had their confidence and demanded implicit faith from his subordinates.  He lacked administrative and organizational knowledge, and knowing it, had an inferiority complex on the matter.  [He displayed] impatience and ill-temper when he construed any question as an obstruction to his ideas...He appeared deliberately to make enemies...".

But his men believed in him.

The other person in the book is the American general Stilwell, often known as Vinegar Joe.  He answered to Mountbatten on one side, Chiang Kai-Shek on another and also the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  He absolutely hated the British, calling them cowards who wouldn't move.

The author says this: "Unfortunately the acidulous qualities, so amusing in a major, proved to be disastrous in a general who was his country's military representative with the Chinese on the one hand, and the British on the other.  As Stilwell grew older his tongue became more barbed, his judgements harsher and his manners, bad at the best of times, abominable.  Like Wingate, he was verbally aggressive, and could never forego the pleasure of being rude, especially to some unfortunate prevented by military discipline from answering back."

So a cast of characters (Wingate was killed in a crash of his B-25 when visiting his troops), and hard working columns of British, Indians, Gurkas, West Africans, and Americans (Galahad Force, also known as Merrill's Marauders).  The author also gives the Japanese their due; short anon rations, equipment, support, but full of dedication to the Emperor and willing to die).

Almost a fatiguing book to read concerning all the hardships the soldiers went through, but good.

[DecemDave]

Mammoth book of Soldiers at War first hand accounts of warfare from the age of Napoleon edited Jon e lewis

Better than I expected although there is a lot of we went over here then we were ordered over there and back again. And other such realities like the endless search for food and water. Grattan's account of cuidad rodrigo and Badajoz is pretty stomach churning.

Worth reading these memoirs in some form and here there are 14 excerpts in the one book.

Biggest surprise for me is that several of the infantrymen accounts refer to taking their packs off for action and leaving them in the rear "organised by companies and under guard"

So perhaps Leon could kindly redo all the Brit action poses without packs and a new scenic item of a heap of packs.   

[Heedless Horseman]

I think I've read that most British Infantry at Waterloo were without Packs... presumably some other battles too. Certainly an assault on a breach would require mobility.
In one of the Sharpe novels, Harper is 'framed' by having a stolen item 'planted' in his pack.
I do not know if French or others also removed packs for combat but would imagine so.
ACW, packs often piled too.

[hammurabi70]

The German Invasion of Norway April 1940
GH Haarr
ISBN 978 1 84832 032 1

A detailed examination of (only) the naval aspects of the invasion that covers all the initial German landings, including Stavanger and the Sola airfield landings.  This gives ALL the details, including which forts were manned and what guns they had, what picket boats were on station and where these were located, what submarines were where, what people did over 8/9 April. A very detailed book covering all the different locations and naval craft; a must read for anyone wanting the naval angle on the invasion.  I certainly learnt a lot.  Very little coverage of what happened once the German troops were ashore but a great deal about how they got ashore.  After this, it is all arithmetic history!  Excellent for naval history.