What are you reading at the moment?

Discussion in 'Books, Films, TV, Radio' started by Gage, Mar 12, 2006.

  1. klambie

    klambie Senior Member

    Canuck, from near the end of the chapter Epilogue: Face to Face:

    "We found out that, except the 101. Airborn Div. and the other paras the U.S. haven't been very hard fighters. If they wouldn't have had the endless lot of material and we had a few more tanks together with hundred ME 109. the Uta-Beach would have been a fiasko. The British have been hard fighters. For my opinion harder as the U.S. And the Canadiens didn't care at all. They have been the most rude fighters I saw. That's not you are such a man out of that army. It's stated in a lot of books."

    It's excerpted from a letter from Carl Heinz Holst that is in the Appendix if your version includes it.
     
    canuck likes this.
  2. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Many thanks Kevin.
     
  3. kopite

    kopite Member

    Currently reading about the discovery in India, transportation back to the UK and eventual restoration of Battle of Britain survivor Hurricane R4118. Now on display at Old Warden Aerodrome, Bedfordshire as part of the Shuttlewoth Collection.


    upload_2019-2-10_21-18-30.jpeg
     
    A-58 and Chris C like this.
  4. Markyboy

    Markyboy Member

    [​IMG]

    This was another charity shop find, which has a generic title but is actually a memoir mixed with a few other tales. George Culling (still with us), trained as a navigator towards the end of WW2 and didn't see any action in the European war save a diversionary channel flight dropping window. His crew was earmarked for Tiger Force, so his own experiences relate to long distance training flights dealing with clouds, icing etc in preparation for a task force which obviously didn't end up being used. The rest of the short book is bulked out with accounts by other members of his aircrew association, ranging from the early days of the war in Whitleys up to later Mosquito operations. A bit of a mixed bag, but different what i expected judging by the front cover. There's also a review of how he believes Tiger Force would have fared if they'd been sent into battle which made for interesting reading.
     
    Waddell likes this.
  5. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    I'm reading Salmond's The History of the 51st Highland Division 1939-1945 but to be perfectly honest I am not enjoying it so far, because of the style. e.g. at the start of the description of actions at El Alamein he pauses to quote from Montgomery and the Australians for their praise about 51's performance in the battle. (Instead of putting it at the end, which is where I'd have expected it, maybe.) Elsewhere he writes a paean to the divisional artillery and their CRA. It makes me gag a little.
     
  6. vestingjager

    vestingjager Well-Known Member

    Ian Fleming's Commandos:

    [​IMG]
     
  7. kopite

    kopite Member

    After finishing reading a book on the Hurricane, I thought it appropriate to read my new book on the Spitfre next. “Spitfire: A Very British Love Story” by John Nichol is a series of recorded interviews with pilots, engineers, mechanics and ATA, that flew and worked to keep the planes in the air during the war.

    upload_2019-2-16_17-31-9.jpeg
     
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2019
    Waddell and Chris C like this.
  8. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    That is a brilliant cover!
     
    kopite likes this.
  9. kopite

    kopite Member

    Hi Seroster,

    Judging by the reviews I’ve read, a brilliant read also. Looking forward to reading it.
     
    Chris C likes this.
  10. Waddell

    Waddell Well-Known Member

    six weeks of blenheim summer.jpg

    This book has been mentioned a few times in this thread- 'Six weeks of Blenheim Summer' by Alastair Panton. This is only a short book (155 pages), but what a great book. Beautifully written, to the point and gave a lot of feeling as to what Panton endured in that short time. Came away with the impression that he must have been a very caring and dedicated man, who looked after his crew and those around him. He lost four Blenheims and the one shot down over Dunkirk must have affected him ( I won't spoil it for other readers).

    Currently reading an oldie. 'The Ship Busters' by Ralph Barker. From Blenheims to Beauforts.

    Scott
     
  11. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Just started reading, King Rat, by James Clavell. Seen the film a few times with George Segal in the title role and was given the book a while back by a mate.
     
  12. D-DayDodger

    D-DayDodger Member

    It's available in various prints and sizes from here

    Simon
     
  13. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

  14. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    I've been on a Stalingrad binge. This was triggered by my Xmas acquisition of the Glantz and House Stalingrad, a one-volume summary of their huge trilogy. It's highly detailed and exceedingly dry with very little from the ground level or the human level, but it makes me want to read the other volumes. I've also re-read Heinz Schroter's little book (good stuff from the German side), Beevor's Stalingrad (he gets a lot of slagging but I think it is a good book), A Writer at War (Beevor's edited and glossed collection of Vassily Grossman's war reporting), the Stalingrad bit in Werth's Russia at War, and the novels by Theodor Plievier (Stalingrad) and Heinrich Gerlach (The Forsaken Army). That's the old edition of Gerlach, the one he re-acquired through hypnosis postwar. Incredibly enough the original version was found in Russia and has appeared recently, and I would like to get my hands on it. All of these are good books; Stalingrad, like Burma, seems to have produced a lot of high-quality literature.
     
  15. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Buckley is excellent. So is his Monty's Men.
     
  16. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    TTH, what did you think of Plievier's novel? I picked up a copy along with a random assortment of other books last year, but I haven't read it yet.
     
  17. vestingjager

    vestingjager Well-Known Member

    I'm starting in this one, just received this week from Australia:

    [​IMG]
     
  18. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    I think it is very good. It's also very intense and darkly gloomy in that German Romantic, Ernst Junger way, almost reveling in the horrors. Despite this it is one of the most important things written about the battle and it had a big impact in Germany. Plievier was an interesting character. He went to sea as a young man, served in the KM in WWI aboard a famous raider, and participated in the 1918 mutinies. He became a Communist or at least a fellow traveler and went to Russia, where he did propaganda for the Russians during the battle of Stalingrad. He interviewed many of German survivors after they were captured, just as Gerlach did. Gerlach was a former officer of 14th Panzer Division who joined the BDO after he was captured, and it's clear that he and Plievier interviewed many of the same men since many of the same incidents and characters appear in both novels. It's interesting to see the different ways in which the two present the same things; Gerlach was not a trained fiction writer, so he tends to be dryer and more factual and less darkly poetic than Plievier. Plievier became disillusioned with Communism and fled to the West postwar; Gerlach followed the same trajectory somewhat later. His novel (unlike Plievier's, which appeared earlier) was deemed unacceptable by the Soviets and confiscated. Gerlach was stuck for years after his release in the Eastern Zone lying low to avoid the KGB (which had tried to turn him into a fink on his fellow Germans).
     
    Chris C likes this.
  19. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Does he talk about 51st Div's struggles in the early phase in Normandy and the relief of Bullen-Smith?
     
  20. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    I have all three of Pfanz's books, all are excellent. As to battlefields, I recommend Antietam as it is relatively unspoiled. Shiloh is said to be the same, as it is not near any beaten track.
     

Share This Page