What Are You Reading?

Stilwell, Mission to China

 

Working on this right now. US Naval Commander Chick Parsons escaped from the Philippines with his family after the fall of Corregidor in 1942. He went back several times to evaluate the guerrilla movements, establish supply routes and to distribute much needed supplies to those movements in preparation of Mac's return. Not a bad book.

 

I've just started on Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell.

 

Started with this one a few nights ago. Kind of interesting so far. The protagonist in the story, Joe Beyrle (pronounced Bye-early, but yeah, I thought it was pronounced Berl too) is a paratrooper with the 101st Abn Division, gets captured sometime after D-Day, escapes from a POW camp and makes his was east and links up with the Rookies. He fights with them until the end of the war. I think that they make him an honorary commie since they liked him so much. Beyrle shares with them his love for blowing things up since he was trained in demolitions. At this point in my readings, the 101st has just disembarked off the British transport ship at Liverpool and are building tent cities and other forms of lodging. They really enjoyed marching the 5 miles or so inland to their camp after being cooped up on a boat for about 8 days or so. All the GI's apparently loathed British on-board chow, and succumbed to eating them when they ran out of C and K rations about halfway across the pond.

 

HMCS Haida: Battle Ensign Flying by Barry Gough.

 

I just finished with Homage to Catalonia. If you've read 1984, then you'll see where Orwell got the mood of it by reading Homage. The paranoia in Barcelona, in addition to the tedium and terror at the front. He also tell us about the internecine feuds that made him and his wife leave after only six months in country. It's pretty good stuff.

 

I just read Hooligan Island. Technically a Historical nonfiction book, but still pretty good.

 

Working on this one now.

 

I'm about a quarter of the way through Tyranny Unmasked, by John Taylor. He was an Anti-Federalist who was speaking against a tariff with this pamphlet, but he made some remarks later one that ring true today about big government.

 

Lou, you need to read "Chosen" (sorry, forgot the author). A true account of the same action. My insurance agent and his brother were both Marines and involved in this action. My agent's brother was involved in several invasions in WWII in the Pacific and decided to remain in the Corp just to go through that fiasco in Korea. Gotta be tough.

 

A-58,

Is this a new title or something published in the past? I have always been fascinated by this soldier!

 

Just finished reading "Shadow Divers" by Robert Kurson. It's the true story of two American deep divers who discover and finally ID a sunk WW2 U-Boat sunk off the New Jersey coast. This was a process that took several years and killed 3 divers! The mystery was that no German or American U-Boat expert believed a boat was sunk there. this is a real gem of a book that is a story of two men with unbelievable balls and of the crew of the U-Boat that went to sea with all hands knowing that they probably wouldn't return. Has anyone else read this book? It was published in 2004.

 

German submarine U-869 - Wikipedia

I remember that from the NOVA episode.

 

This,

 

Lou, it's by Eric Hammel, Watch for the name "Friedl" He was a FO for his company in the 1st Marine Division and my agent's brother. Like most military histories,the author locates a few veterans of a campaign or battle and they use his quotes in several places in the book. I was in Korea for two winters and often thought, while freezing my butt on guard, how bad it must have been to be fighting the cold and some guys trying to kill you.