What Are You Reading?

Took a short break from my book to read this one from the Osprey Fortress series No.77

The Stalin and Molotov Lines
Soviet Western Defences 1928-41

Some good photos of the remaining bunkers and pillboxes, the Germans had some little difficulties in the south with them but nothing major during there invasion. According to the book the Soviets were the first to use turrets on some of there installations that of a T26 turret.

 

Doctor Danger Forward By Allen N. Towne

 

I'm still reading the usuals during the bathroom visits, Civil War Times, Military History, and Playboy Special Editions (pictures only, no words).

 

Looking forward to the post man bring me:

Glanz "After Stalingrad"

Kevin Fish "Panzer Regiment 8"

 

Some back issues of National Geographic that I picked up at a used book riot over the past three days. Currently on the October 1999 issue which contains an article about an expedition to the wreck of the Japanese sub I-52.

 

Ah! The postman hath already brought to me this past week Out Of The Clouds, history of 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, The First Battalion Of The 28th Marines On Iwo Jima, The Banzai Hunters, and War Bush, 81 West African Divison In Burma 1943-1945.

 

if anyone is interested in long OOP titles in German. some classics are listed on this link

Actuell und Antique - Antiquarische Bücher

enjoy a long look through

E ~

 

Clash of the Carriers by Barrett Tillman. It's the story of the Marianas carrier battle. Well written, not like a text book, and detailed.

 

Alter Hase,
That's quite a listing of books you posted above. Quite a variety of subjects too. I even have half a dozen or so of the listed books, such as 08/15, "It snows in September", Plevier's Stalingrad, and others. (Some actually are (translated) in(to) Dutch and/or English.)
Thanks for the link!

 

National Geographic, April 1999 issue about the discovery of the USS Yorktown.

 

Today I purchased:

"The Last 100 Days" by John Toland

"We Who Are Alive And Remain" by Marcus Brotherton

 

My aunt passed away recently. Just before she died she passed on to me two books my Grandfather: Thomas Wilson Lawlor owned.
"In Flanders Fields The 1917 Campaign" by Leon Wolff; and
"No Mans Land" by John Toland.

They are filled throughout with highlighted passages and heartbreaking little comments like "I was there."

None of my relatives and family friends who took part in WW1 and 2 ever spoke a word about their experience. It was not until weeks before my aunt passed away that I learned for the first time that my grandfather had fought through most of WW1 with the 196th University Battalion in the Canadian Machine Gun Corps in France. I knew life with my grandmother had been turbulent. I never knew why. Night after night he would wake up screaming and would, at times, find himself strangling her, thinking it was the enemy tumbling into the trenches.

So far I have been able to trace that he fought in the Somme 1916;
then in 1917:
Lens - circa June 1917
The Third battle of Ypres (Passchendaele, also known as the 1917 Flanders Offensive); (The Slough of Despond) based out of St Julien;
the November 5th final attack on Passchendaele;
1918:
the Messines and Cambrai offensive;
the March 23d 1918 German Marne offensive;
the last great German offensive in July; and the
Aug 8th Somme Offensive

Unbelievable. I never knew.

As a young law student at the University of Alberta, he and his entire class were volunteered by the Dean without any consultation. His entire class fought as one group under the command of their law professor. Towards the end of his ground war service, he was sent as a message carrier back to the command center. Just after leaving the trenches a large bomb landed in their trenches and pretty much wiped out his entire class. He stopped in the trenches to convey a last message home for one of his best friends who had suffered a massive abdominal wound, for which he could have been court marshaled.

Shortly thereafter he was transferred to flight school and was sent to the Egypt for further flight training. His most pleasant memory of the war was weekend duty as guardsman for Lawrence of Arabia, who he thought very highly of.

After the war he took up law practice in Grande Prairie Alberta and during WW2 in addition to duties throughout as Mayor of the city, was in charge of legal affairs regarding international transport of American goods to Russia through Alberta and the Yukon. (One of his unpleasant duties was dealing with looters who would raid sidelined rail cars.) I am now also in possession of a pair of cuff links with the Russian Coat of Arms, given to him and all those like him by the Russian Government to who thus served the war effort. (If I can figure out how to scan it, I'll post a photo.)

Finding Aid

Salute Grandpa Lawlor. I never knew.
- I have to tell you old boy, this is one tough, tough read - page after page after page, one horrifying passage after another... only now comprehending all you went through, :hug1: :flag_canada:

Posted by: Frederick Thomas Lawlor Wilson
- named after my two grandfathers Fred Wilson and Thomas Lawlor,
and unbenownst to them, also for Fred Sutherland of the Dambusters (another wonderful man who will not, because he can not, talk about his experience in the war. It just brings back too many nightmares.
- Though you can share a few moments with him on History Channel's episodes focusing on Bomber Command. Watch for it. Its worth every moment.)

 

Almost forgot. Also just finished Glantz´s Kharkov 1942. Excellent book! ( and only 280 pages... )

 

'Masters of Battle' by Terry Brighton, a comparative study of Patton/Monty & Rommel. Was quite enjoying it, but then went back to Irving's 'Trail of the Fox' and spotted the bits that had been 'lifted' (shall we say)...

 

This:
http://http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Agents-Handbook-Mark-Seaman/dp/1585742864
Before reading this book, I thought the fake rat David Niven planted in The Guns of Navarone was typical hollywood nonsense. Well, I was wrong.

 

hey, the book seems pretty interesting, i might buy it

 

spent yesterday at the beach reading my copy of Richard Evans' 'Third Reich at War' - oh dear..what an incredibly annoying work..
Evans persists in using badly translated terms throughout - does he speak German or was he using Google?. A GCSE student could have given him better examples e.g. referring to Task Force C, Task Force D when talking about the mass-killings of Jews in the early stages of Barbarossa. Obviously he's referring to Einsatzgruppe C or Einsatzgruppe D (Einsatzgruppe could better be literally translated as "action group"). You'd have thought that Evans would have known better (as a 'professional' historian) than to use English equivalents of German words which are quite difficult to translate into English. Other examples in this work are Racial Observer (Volksicher Beobachter), Death Head (Totenkopf), People's Storm (Volkssturm) or "The Stormer" (Der Stürmer) ..is that a word in English ?
This work is absolutely littered with similar examples and large passages are thus intensely annoying.
Evans' writing style is hugely turgid and boring - nothing as entertaining as Beevor's - no style or flair at all. Just a dull recital of events. Nothing here to compare with Stalingrad and Berlin. Interesting anecdotes are thin on the ground. The Third Reich at war is just plain boring with no new analysis, interpretation or information. A good example is the chapter on the Battle of Britain, one of Evans's key turning points - the analysis here is frankly amateurish. " Hitler's first defeat ".
Despite the author's protestations in the Foreword this is not so much a history of the Third Reich at war, more a treatise on the 'Final Solution' and Nazi administration of the occupied territories and as such might be of interest to some
PS: picture 21 is wrongly captioned as a Tiger in production - it is in fact a picture of Sturmgeschütze (Assault guns)

 

It's funny - I really enjoyed the first two volumes of Evans' trilogy. Bought the third. Settled down and started reading. There are good bits to it but it really skims over the war, cherry-picking episodes. Of course, in a general history, you can't have everything, but I just found some of the things he chose to focus on - ignoring others - a bit odd.
Perhaps it's because he's a social historian rather than a military historian - that possibly also explains the focus on occupational policy/Final Solution. He would have been much wiser splitting the volume into two...
The English translation of German terms is all the more bizarre as he speaks fluent German. I've forgotten what he translated the 1 SS Pz Div Leibstandarte AH as but it was excruciating.

 

the forgotten 500 by Gregory freeman. Have to say the book really has me hooked in the past 2 days ive read about 168 pages and hope to finish it today/tomorrow.


Then its Hamlet