What Are You Reading?

That is a very, very scarce book indeed, Kai ! Took me years to find a copy. A unique memoir of the Eastern Front.

 

Thanx Martin! You do find some rather odd books every now and then at second hand book stores but not many are really worth while.

This book did change one of my carved-in-stone images of the Barbarossa offensive. I had always thought for some reason that the furthest the Germans got was the tram stop. Like they got there for a second and were pushed back. Nope. The tram stop was there to visit for the troops as the doctor did with his assistant thinking that soon they would be able to take a tram all the way to Kreml...

 

"Moscow Tram Stop" Heinrich Haape 1957 copy:

A few tricks from the book to keep your MG´s prepared for fight in minus 40 degrees Celsius:

1. Keep the MG gun in the oven of the enarby house and once the attack starts get the gun. When you shoot with it it keeps itself warm.

2. Pour some gasoline over the moving parts and set it on fire. After a while the weapon is ready for firing.

 

I've just got my reading lists for the first year of my university course (War Studies and History at King's College London), so I've currently got:

John Keegan - Face of Battle
Laurence Freedman (ed.) - War
Martin van Creveld - The Transformation of War
Knox and Murray (ed.) - The Dynamics of Military Revolution
Michael Howard - War in European History

And a handful of others, but I'm mostly reading those above.

[ 02. October 2004, 03:29 PM: Message edited by: Greenjacket ]

 

Same as Wolves Uni list almost!

I hated Freedman... It was boring...

Keegans book is ok.

What modules have you got Greenjacket?

I only have to teach once next year and thats the trip to Normandy... 6 months to go! Yippee!!!

 

I'm taking units on the Conduct of War, the Experience of War, and two compulsory half units entitled the Art of War Studies (seems to be basically an introductory unit) and Contemporary Security Issues. I'm taking a fourth unit from the History department, Europe 1500-1800.

As for Keegan, I'm ploughing through it at a fair old lick, it's proving readable and straightforward if not particularly eye-opening.

 

About your trip to Normandy, with any luck the department should be taking a trip to Arnhem some time either this autumn or in the new year, looking forward to it.

 

Excellent! Would be useful for my Masters on Airborne Effectiveness! Any spare places... Let me know!!!

 

im reading "cassino: the hollow victory" by John Ellis, again, while i wait for "arnhem 1944: the airborne battle" by Martin Middlebrook to come (ive ordered it)

 

Figjam,

GEt yourself a copy of 'It Never Snows In September' by Robert Kershaw to read along with 'Arnhem 1944'. This gives the German account of Operation Market-Garden. Excellent book.

RED

 

ok, thanks mate!

 

Reading DRESDEN, Tuesday 13 February 1945, by Frederick Taylor.
So far a good book. Lots of myths laid to rest, but he doesn't give the Allies a 'free get out of jail card' over the raid either.

Also re-reading CONVOY, Drama in Arctic Waters by Paul Kemp.
Interesting book, amongst other things he points out that the Germans lost over twice the amount of men attacking the convoys than the allies suffered

 

I want to get my hands on a copy of 'Dresden' at some point, it's always been an interesting raid.

 

Right now reading 'The Price of Glory' by Alistair Horne. Amazing book!

 

Yes - it remains probably the best book ever written about Verdun.

 

The author is a warranty of quality. 'To lose a battle' is a supperb book.

And one thing I love about Alistair Horne is that he is one of the very few war historians who, before becoming a Historian, he studied Literature! Therefore his books are not only a good source, but also a good reading.

The best example of this combination is Sir Winston Churchill. No Historian will ever match that!

 

Have just come back from a second hand book shop and I have behaved badly…

Bought some very interesting but 'reddish' stuff:

"Moscow Dateline" by Henry C. Cassidy, Boston 1943.

"Commands of the Soviet Army" (Sovetskie komandirii) by I. Bebenko, Moscow 1977.

"On the State" by V. I. Lenin, Bei-Jing 1975.

"Fundaments of Leninism" by. I. Stalin, Bei-Jing 1975.

"Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels" by V. I. Lenin, Bei-Jing 1977.

"Imperialism, superior phase of Capitalism" by V. I. Lenin, Bei-Jing 1989.

 

Well, not all was so leftie-oriented:

I got bt merely $3:

"La Dottrina Fascista" (Fascist doctrine), Libreria del Littorio Roma, 1930.

Original Fascits propaganda!

 

Geez, Fried changes his 'signature' more than I change my underwear. Reading ;Waffen-SS Kursk 1943 and Actung Panzer #5 Sturmgeschutz III,Stug IV. Has some good pics!

 

Im almost finished with Thomas Taylor's Behind Hitler's Lines and Battles Lost and Won by Hanson Baldwin. I'm also reading Martin Gilbert's The Second World War for the second time, starting D-Day, and in the middle of World War Two Reader.