What are you currently reading ?

[pierre the shy]

Thanks fsn 

I've already put together a FK&P scenario for Newburn Ford based on somewhat limited information
that I have been able to find online, though those sources vary widely as to who was there and what actually happened.

One of my regular opponents is keen to play and has very kindly made a couple of very nice looking star forts for the English defenders.

So if Reid's book has a full order of battle etc then I'll definitely get the book at some stage. 

[pierre the shy]

As for the new Furgol, I've seen some of it, but in an earlier guise. I think there must be a 'story' why it changed publishers...

I'm thinking that the €180 price tag is a bit steep, which is clearly a bonkers statement when I have all 3 volumes of the fairly new collection of Cromwell's Speeches and Letters. Would be good to hear your impression of it PTS.

The old Furgol SL&C armies book is practically identical to Reid's recent history of the SL&C armies (I've got both, Reid's will be considerably cheaper than a 2nd hand copy of Furgol's)

Not sure what the story is as to why the publisher changed, but it added an extra figure to the price!

I found a good deal through a well known third party seller that was offering free shipping, so that was fairly decisive in my decision to get Furgol's new book.

Release date is given as 16 Sept so I will report once it arrives.

If it's as good as his eariler volume (as I'm sure it is) then I will be in C17th Scots Royalist nivarna     

[Radar]

I see that said well known online seller has it for £153 (which probably translates to €180).

The bits that Ed presented at the Helion Conference were interesting. He admitted that he might have use wargaming miniatures for the illustrations.

I think I am slowly talking myself into buying it. I'm sure that the bald tyres on my car aren't really that bald. An overpriced academic imprint would be a much better use of my bank balance

[kipt]

Finished "Chesty: The story OF Lieutenant general Lewis B. Puller, USMC" by LtCol Jon T. Hoffman, USMCR.

A very well written book on Puller's life.  This book comes after Burke Davis's book "Marine" which was also about Chesty.  It corrects some of the wild stories and takes us to Puller's death.  An incredible warrior, entering the Marine Corps in 1917, too late for WWI; Puller, after Officer's Training Camp, was sent to Haiti and later Nicaragua.   He actually did not get commissioned until 1924.

5 Navy Crosses, but no Medal of Honor. He was a great leader, way out front with his men, no matter his rank.  He fought in the Banana Wars, WWII and Korea, but was retired before Vietnam.  He and his wife had a daughter and then twins, a boy and girl.  Puller was a devoted family man but told his wife he would always march to the sound of the guns.  The Marine Corps was his life.

His son, Lewis B. Puller Jr., did become a Marine Lieutenant.  However, after reporting in Vietnam in August 1968 as a platoon leader, he was wounded in October 1968 by stepping on a 105mm howitzer shell rigged as a land mine.  It blew off both legs, parts of both hands and other injuries.  He survived, but later in life committed suicide.

[kipt]

Finished "The Geographies Of War" by Jeremy Black, a very prolific writer.

The book is pretty dense and discusses more than physical geography.  He says the tactical level is more for the physical geography but strategy relates more to the human geography, as he defines it.  The customs, mores, beliefs and racial is included in the human geography.

Quite a bit on mapping and how that has progressed from land to the sea to the air and now to space.  I didn't realize that the US used drones for mapping in Vietnam - thought they were more recent that that.

I did not get what I wanted from this book, although Black is a gifted writer.  I was hoping it would discuss more tactical themes (always thinking about wargames) but that is not what this book is.

[pierre the shy]

I finally got a shipping update on Furgol's new book on the Scots Royalists, which should now arrive in a couple of weeks give or take.

  

[kipt]

Finished volume 1 and 2 of "Into The Endless Mist" about the Aleutian Campaign.  Vol 1 is June to august 1942 and Vol 2 is September 1942 to March 1943.  Both by Michal A. Piegzik, who does a great job using information from both sides.  Good pictures, maps and OB's.  He speaks and reads Japanese I believe so he can really get into the information.

Highly recommended.

[pierre the shy]

Yes, Piegzik is a brillant author Kipt.

I have his book about the Battle of the Coral Sea from the Japanese perspective....it explains how the Japanese fought their side of the battle extremely well.  

[kipt]

Finished "Remember Fontenoy! The 69th New York And The Irish Brigade In The Civil War" by Joseph G. Bilby.  A good account of the regiment and the brigade throughout their time in the Civil War.

A sympathetic discussion of General Meagher and his time with the regiment and brigade, and after he resigned. There is an appendix listing the small arms for each of the regiments in the brigade from 1862 to 1864. Notably Meaghers wanted the regiments to use smoothbore so they could use buck and ball as he believed the regiment and brigade would all be fighting at close quarters, just like at Fontenoy. Eventually, when at Richmond and Petersburg, and under a different brigade CO, they had the rifled weapons.

A good read, a bit outdated with new information; this book was written in 1995.

[pierre the shy]

I received my copy of Edward Furgol's new volume "His Majesty's Loyal Subjects: The Scottish Royalist Armies of the British Civil Wars, 1639-1655" in a cardboard box wrapped in a single sheet of brown packing paper. My copy however survived its journey from the USA in mint condition. 

Is it worth the price? To me yes definitely 100%.

Furgol co-wrote the book with Andrew Lind but its set out very similarly to his eariler work on the Covenanters. It covers all Scots units that fought for the Royalist cause from the First Bishops War in 1639 to Glencairn's rising in the mid 1650's, including those that fought in Ireland (such as McColla's "redshanks") and Montrose's ill-fated Carbisdale campaign of 1650.

A new addition to this volume is the inclusion of orders of battle and deployment maps for all the major engagements of the era.

It was gratifying to me to note that Messers Furgol and Lind's interpretation of the regiments present and how they deployed was pretty similar to our humble efforts in the three Celtic Fringe books we put together for FK&P.     

Very impressed with the level and amount of detail in this book. If you are just dabbling in the Celtic side of the War of the Three Kings then maybe its a bit too pricey, but if you have, like me, a deeper interest in the period then I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Cheers
Peter
 

[kipt]

Finished "The Fall Of The Philippines: The War In The Pacific" part of the U.S.Army in World War II series.  This edition by The National Historical Society.

Detail, detail, detail.  While I had studied the 1st (Japanese conquers in 1941-1942) battle in the Philippines before, it was never in this much detail. Unprepared as the Americans were, they still put up a tremendous fight.  Essentially causing General Homma to be sidelined after his final victory.

[kipt]

Finished "Seizure Of The Gilberts And Marshalls: The War In The Pacific" part of the U.S.Army in World War II series.  This edition by The National Historical Society.

Some of the first amphibious landings after Guadacanal.Lots to learn but after these actions the remainder of the island landings pretty much followed the same pattern.

Very well done.

[kipt]

Finished Volume 90, N0. 2 of "The Journal of Military History".  Published 4 times a year.

Articles include:
The 2026 George C. Marshall Lecture In Military History  The fate of the day: bringing Back the Dead 250 Years After the Revolution, by Rick Atkinson.  This is a fantastic lecture.  Don't know if it is online anywhere but I urge you to read it if you can.

In Defense of a Kingdom: The 1855 Hawaiian Articles of War and Major Francis Funk,

Ferdinand Foch and the Operational Level of War, Part 2: Operational Art and allied Victory,

A Brotherhood of Unequals: The Experience of Benelux Volunteers in the Waffen-SS Transnational Project,

And several others.

And, as always, book reviews.  This of 78 pages.

[kipt]

Finished "America's First Aircraft Carrier: USS Langley And The Dawn Of U.S. Naval Aviation" bu David F. Winkler.

Starting as the collier USS Jupiter, the book takes us through its rebuild, its use as an experimental platform for naval aviation and almost weekly details as to what happened, where, by whom and when.  A bit repetitive in the sense that we have been to this port before, but still interesting.

Prior to WWII, the Langley was again rebuilt and repurposed.  This time into a seaplane tender, AV 3, having had the front portion of her landing deck removed. As the US entered WWII, the Langley went to the west and eventually Darwin.  The Langley and a convoy MS.5left for Java with a load of over 60 P-40's, their aircrews, ammunition and spare parts.

The rapid advance of the Japanese rerouted the convoy to Bombay, angering the dutch who needed the planes and material, so again the convoy was rerouted to Tjilatjap.  As is know, she and the convoy didn't make, being damaged by Japanese aircraft, but with a minimum loss of crew.  The Allies had to sink her so the hull wouldn't fall to the Japanese.  The crew was transferred to the Pecos, and oiler.  Later she was attacked and sunk, so some of the crew that survived the Langley met their end here.

Good book.

[kipt]

Finished, and finally read, "Co. Aytch" by Sam R. Watkins.  As it says on the back cover, "Among Civil War memoirs, it is considered a classic".

Sam Watkins enlisted in the 1st Tennessee in 1861.  The regiment started with 1,250 men, added 1,950 recruits and conscripts during the war for a total of 3,200 men.  When Joseph E. Johnson surrendered in Greensboro, North Carolina,
only 65 officers and men were left to be paroled.Sam was one of them.  Wounded several times, captured and escaped twice, he relates many storied of his comrades.  As he stated he was not writing a history of the war, but scenes that he saw.  Still, the war in the West is well covered, as is the short time he was with Stonewall Jackson's army.

This is a very entertaining book about the ACW and gives good accounts of what skirmishing and battle was like.  As he said, a private is only a tool, and goes and does what he was told.