What Are You Reading?

Martin,
Try Babelfish
Ok, so you can only type a certain amount of text in at a time, and it'll take you a while, but........

 

I tried - but they can't handle Gothic script.....

 

Aw, jesus... there's always one!

 

Incredible that you also got a copy Martin. I have the two Stukas too. I understand german, although the reading in gothic takes some time. The accounts of the Poland campaign are nice, a bit like a military propaganda article, but no real political ideology there, just military facts from a German point of view of course, like "aircrew ready to take off", "a polish city destroyed by our airforce", "another victory of our brave soldiers" etc... I guess that a Soviet alter ego would probably have the same captions.

 

you might be surprised goggling the Franktur schrift, not gothic and find what you are looking for. As long as it is not down in the old stylizied Sütterlin which is the common "old" schrift written druing WW1 and 2. I have a book of that and the old letters have to be gone through almost at a murderous slow pace, i.e. s to f's look the same and h and i as well . Bed patient

 

Well, I don't think I'm missing too much ! The good part is the photographs - there are many in the book, and just about all of them look unfamiliar to me. I'm guessing that this may be because the original negatives were lost/looted/destroyed later in the war....

 

Tigers in Combat II,
another by Schneider
It's got that pick I spoke of before of a Stalin "slug" stuck in the mantlet of a Tiger I.
Aside from that one book on Kursk, Ive not seen so many...shot up/destroyed Tigers.
Even some of the best go down.
Rand McNally World War II Airplanes vol 2 (British/Italian/French/German)(used book store)
Kinda neat, showed me alot I didn't know well. Many odd ones.

 

I scanned a few rare pictures from the book. Enjoy! It took me a while to get them here (thanks for your help Erich)

 

Currently at the plate is Mike Ostlund's excellent book, "Find 'Em, Chase 'Em, Sink 'Em: The Mysterious Loss of the WWII Submarine USS Gudgeon."

On deck..."Spadefish: On Patrol with a Top-Scoring World War II Submarine" by Stephen L. Moore and "The Luck of the Draw: The Memoir of a World War II Submariner From Savo Island to the Silent Service" by Captain C. Kenneth Ruiz.

And yes, I am getting ready for the upcoming sub sim, 'Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific.'

 

Got some new books:

Debrosse and Burke: The secret in bulding 26 ( on the US version of the Colossus after the Germans started using the fourth wheel in Enigma ).

Derek Robinson: Invasion 1940 ( on Seelöwe )

 

Got some new books coming (!)
again:

Das Reich Tigers by Wolfgang Schneider

---------

Vlad Antipov & Igor Utkin. Aviaeology, 2006. The Combat History of the 812th Fighter Regiment. Volume 1: Liberation of the Motherland.

http://www.aeroplanebooks.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=&idproduct=48722

 

Kai :

I will be really interested on your review of Schneider DR Tigers.......I hae heard some positive comments bout them

just received last yesterday Kent Millers 356th fg in WW 2. will help me confirm what I have thought about this little know fg in the war, knowing some 6-8 former pilot vets and their experiences flying against the Me 262 for a book project I am working on...........look out Hess I am going to stomp on your toes

 

very interesting 356th fg book. pretty simple straightforward day to day diary, photos of the pilots and crewmen/engineers in the back. Every P-47 and P-51 listed although some pilots did give their Stangs a name like the chap I have been conversing with the last week. Victories and losses listed after each days mission............ when I receive word for two other pilots I wills tart posting on the 8th AF memory thread Martin started or thereabouts as there was s similiar thread. what I have enjoyed about the 356th fg boyz is the simple flyers attitude, no glory big time I am an ace feelings. They went out on bomber escorts, got chances to get down low and strafe and blast off road targets or airfields and just plain did their job .........

also not so much a book but just the every 2 week's correspondance through a friend to Will Reschke, so pretty fascinating materials have come about on his missions and the Ta 152

 

hi all...currently i am reading
THE 12TH SS by HUBERT MEYER...an amazing book, presise, consise and a must read!
and..
A TANK SOLDIERS STORY by ARTHUR REDISH....A Sherwood Rangers story from the desert to germany!

many thanks, Karlo

 

Hello gentlemen,

I'm reading "Der Spanische Krieg", by Ludwig Renn, and "The Spanish Civil War", by Paul Preston. Both are very good.

Regards,
I-16 Rata

 

Welcome aboard, Rata ! My knowledge of the Spanish Civil War is very limited indeed ( I've always found it very confusing ) but by coincidence I was just today re-reading Hemingway's 'Old Man At The Bridge'

( Well, it's only three pages long so even my attention-span doesn't wander..... )

 

Hallo Martin,

Thanks for your welcome.
BTW Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is one of the most beautiful books I ever read.

S!
I-16 Rata

 

I found another rare 1941 book with great pictures by war reporter Rudolf Van Wehrt called "FranKreich auf de Flucht". It talks about his travel through France in June 1940. He often got to several places before the Pioneers got there and got among the refugees, the Stuka attacks , sharing a haystack with German soldiers or refugees. His aim was to get to be the first German to reach the Franco Spanish border and to take a picture of Germans meeting Spanish border soldiers. When he eventually got there, he found out that some American reporters had already gotten there by plane via Spain. His testimony is nice, with many pictures from Northern France to the Loire valley and then South Western France. The ambiance reflects the chaos of the situation and the "good" German soldier helping the "widow and the orphan" .There is a picture of Waffen SS offering free petrol to refugees so that they can get home. There are also terrible accounts such as this woman who lost her two children and who buried them herself because there is nobody left in the village, or this other woman who get mugged by civilians because she had a car. Van Wehrt has some typical remarks that show that he is impregnated with propaganda and the three "k" woman mentality (Küche, Kinder , Kirche) like "she shouldn't have been driving in the first place" !

 

What's wrong with that ? Sounds OK to me....

 

Just got "B Company Arrived". Can't wait to get into this one. It certainly is a very well produced book. Glad to see my Arnhem collection expand with thsi one!