What Are You Reading?

Just finished "The White Rabbit" by Bruce Marshall. Wasn't too impressed with the start of the book, as there's very little about Yeo-Thomas' early life, other than that he was a Briton who grew up in France. Likewise, there is absolutely NOTHING after he returns to England following the war...literally. He lands, gets out, sees his girlfriend waiting on the tarmac, and the book ends. But the middle....his exploits while working to help the French Resistance groups, his capture, torture, imprisonment in Buchenwald, escape, capture, and escape again....man!

Overall....good book, but not the greatest. I want to know more about the MAN, not just about his wartime experiences. What did he do before and after the War? Also....maybe its a British thing, but a little bit less alliteration. Too much is ...well....too much. So, I'd give the book a 5.5 or 6 out of 10, personally, and will continue to search for more comprehensive reading about FFE Yeo-Thomas (heck, it wasn't until about chapter two that the author even mentioned what 'F.F.E.' stood for!).

 

View attachment 18250 Absolutely first class book, which at times was over my head in describing exactly how the Enigma machine worked.

 

Getting quite engrossed in Sebag-Montefiore's 'Dunkirk - To The Last Man'. Believe it or not, the first 'Dunkirk' book I've ever read . Actually, the book is as much about the Blitzkrieg campaign of May 1940 which suits me just fine - I'm interested to learn just what it was that made the Germans so over-confident about their prowess, which ultimately led to Barbarossa.

 

Reading Peter Gray's The Leadership, Direction and Legitimacy of the RAF Bomber Offensive from Inception to 1945 (London: Continuum, 2012). An expensive book but very much worth reading in order to to truly understand the senior leadership challenges faced by both Portal and Harris.

Ross

 

That sounds an interesting one, Ross - I'm completely unfamiliar with it & I'd be keen to hear your thoughts when you've finished it..........

 

Martin I am writing a review of it and it should be done today. I'll post a link when it is done.

Ross

 

Please Martin...take my Dunkirk Library...It sometimes raises my emotional hackles to tears. A great book if you have to have one though.

I finished it a few weeks ago. I basically will buy anything Dunkirk Related. Mr.Lord's work is still a good one even if dated...But one of the best....Gunbuster...

Return via Dunkirk - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog

 

Martin,

I have just posted up my review of Gray's book.

Book Review – The Leadership, Direction and Legitimacy of the RAF Bomber Offensive from Inception to 1945 | The Second World War Military Operations Research Group

Ross

 

I'm working on Old Hickory Recon right now.

 

The Easter Bunnies
Long distance Reconnaissance by the Luftwaffe 1938-45
over Poland,France,England and Atlantic
By Roman Gastager and Wendy Von Well
Trafford Publishing 2006

Carver: Dilemmas of the Desert War 1940-1942
Batsford Ltd 1986

 

Junkers Ju 88 Kampfgeschwader on the Russian Front
Osprey 2010

German Field Fortifications1939-45
Osprey 2004

 

Finished off James Hornfischer's "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" today (Outstanding). Now I'm dividing my time between a re-read of Dan Kurzman's "Left to Die" and "Escape from the Deep", Alex Kershaw's work on USS Tang's last patrol.

 

Not WWII related, but The Brothers Karamazov (Братья Карамазовы - Brat'ya Karamazovy) by Dostoyevsky. Also reading Anna Reid's account of Leningrad by the same name.

 

Purple over green : the history of the 2/2 Australian Infantry Battalion, 1939-1945

View attachment 18686

 

Now reading two titles in Osprey's Duel Series: Fw-200 Condor v Atlantic Convoy and German Commerce Raider v British Cruiser.

 

Just finished a techno-thriller by Patrick Robinso called Barracuda 945.

Bad, very bad.

Oh, and I didn't like it much!

 

The Gathering Storm by Geirr Haarr. Outstanding book of the early Atlantic war. If you read his two volume set of the invasion of Norway, you know what a thorough historian he is.

 

Looking forward to checking this one out. Thanks for mentioning it. Yeo-Thomas was by all accounts a legend. After all he went through, he served as a witness at the Dachau Trials, giving testimony that eventually got Otto Skorzeny and others off the hook for their false flag operations. Must have been one of Yeo-Thomas' toughest jobs.

 

Very Excited. Just downloaded a whole bunch of books about the space race and WWII.

Among them -

Andrew Hodges, "Alan Turing, The Enigma"
Charles Glass, "Americans In Paris; Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation"
Max Hastings, "Armageddon"
Richard Ovary, "Battle of Britain"
Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
Paul Johnson, "Churchill"
Patrick J. Buchanan, "Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War"
Anthony Beevor, "D-Day the Battle of Normandy"
William Manchester, "Goodbye Darkness a Memoir of War"
Andrew J. Rotter, "Hiroshima, the World's Bomb"
Andrew Roberts, "Masters and Commanders; How Four Titans Won The War In The West"
Robert Leckie, "Okinawa, The Last Battle" (and two others)
Anthony Beevor, "Stalingrad"
Craig L. Symonds, "Battle of Midway"
Andrew Roberts, "The Storm of War"
Richard Holmes, "The World At War"
H. W. Brands, "A Traitor To His Class; FDR"
... and several more. I am also reading the Hardcover edition of Mark Zuehlke's "On To Victory" from his Canadian Battle series.