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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Looking at that site - is this really a Spitfire ? as titled Royal Airforce Fighter Plane (Spitfire) Art Print by lugerphotography TD
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.
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.
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).
Does he talk about 51st Div's struggles in the early phase in Normandy and the relief of Bullen-Smith?
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.