What are you reading at the moment?

I was given a copy of Ludovic Kennedy's 'Pursuit' from a friend who recommended it. Am about 100 pages into it and finding it a great read. I know what happens, but it doesn't matter. Hood has just been sunk and the author is moving towards Esmonde and the Swordfish. Great stuff!

 

Thanks for the docs. I've still not got further than the Goch one. More Gumpf to follow.

 

An abridged English translation of the third volume of the Operations in North Africa published by the Historical Office of the [Italian] Army General Staff.

Great to get the Italian perspective in detail of this part of the Desert War.

 

Cassino Portrait of a Battle
Fred Majdalany. £1 from a market stall in the wilds

First time i have read about Cassino or the Italian campaign
Old book 1959 copy
But for a twit like myself very easy to follow and understand the concept of the war in Italy

 

"Voices from the Front" Durham Light Infantry in WW2 by Peter Hart on Kindle
A less costly way of learning a bit about Salerno where my current focus of study Captain Frank Smith was killed.
Never know what might crop up.

 

The Hiding Place.



Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch lady and her family in Haarlem who hid Jews and other enemies of the Nazi government until they were discovered, arrested, and sent to a prison camp.

 

I am on an Eastern Front binge--the Eastern Front in the First World War. So I am reading A Mad Catastrophe by Geoffrey Wawro and The Eastern Front 1914-1917 by Norman Stone. Both are good books on a subject which gets damned little attention from English language scholars.

 

What's the Italian division of the fighting?

In British historiography, it's (now) generally accepted that there were two battles of El Alamein: the first under Auchinleck at the beginning of July 1942 and the second under Monty in late-October to early-November the same year.

The first got upgraded from a shambles and a fluke to a close-run victory post-, probably, Correlli Barnett's book.

When does that Italian author put a third battle?

Edit: is it Alam el Halfa?

 

It's divided as follows: First in July (matching up with English language first) Second in end of August (so yes Alam El Hafa) and Third (English historiography Second).
Sorting out how each side writes and names its history can certainly avoid confusion if one is figuring out which "Second" is being referenced!

 

I'm finally back in the game:

 

I recently finished Don Charlwood's 'Journeys Into Night' which I would highly recommend.

Am working my way through a large pile of books and am about half way through Tom Pocock's 'Alan Moorehead'. I picked this book up at an Op Shop not too long ago as it is mentioned in Thornton McCamish's recent book on Moorehead 'Our Man Elsewhere'. McCamish mentioned that the large collection of letters, diaries and correspondence loaned to Pocock for his book can no longer be found. Accordingly I am finding this book full of some little gems of information about Moorehead's life. To be honest this book is bit more balanced than McCamish's book. Whereas McCamish clearly put Moorehead on a pedestal, Pocock's book has revealed a few of the less attractive aspects of Moorehead's life. I guess everyone has some insecurities.

Looking at a list of Tom Pocock's works I note that he has written a few books on Nelson and the Napoleonic era. I think he wrote about Moorehead as he met him when he was a very young war correspondent towards the end of the war.

Scott

 

The Wing - By Rom Landau (1945)

Bit of an obscure one (although easy to find a copy). Rom volunteered to assist with the establishment of the Polish Air Force in Britain, so found himself a PO aged 40, new to the RAF and a bit of a cuckoo in the nest. It's a deceptively long book as it's tiny print on the old wartime approved rice paper style pages and I'm about half way through. Rom was an author anyway, so this is well written, combining diary entries along with his honest appraisal of the events that unfolded around him. He is initially welcomed with open arms at an operational station (149sq disguised as 941sq) but then childishly bullied by the old guard at a training establishment where he seems to have rubbed everybody up the wrong way apart from the CO. With his duties nearly concluded, he is determined to become an air gunner despite his eyesight being below par so it'll be interesting to see how that goes.
This is so far about as far away from an action packed war account as you could imagine, but great at providing graphic descriptions of RAF stations during the early period of the war.

 

His biography of General Sir Walter Walker is decent enough. The grounding in journalism apparently gave him the power to sketch and contextualise:

Fighting General: The Public and Private Campaigns of General Sir Walter Walker

He was working with the subject himself and his memoirs, but he was adept at selecting only illustrative anecdotes instead of trying for encyclopaedic coverage.

 

I forgot to add, I suppose Moorehead is best known to posterity as the author of two epic books on the history of the Nile and its exploration (one on the 'White' and one the 'Blue'). I dipped into the first a long time ago and enjoyed it (planned to buy a copy, but never got around to it—must rectify).

I'd speculate that he was a big influence on this work by a more modern popular historian:

https://www.amazon.com/Explorers-Nile-Triumph-Victorian-Adventure/dp/0300187394

Which is a most enjoyable read.

Edit: Wikipedia seems to agree with me, which sets off alarm bells...

 

Without a doubt Moorehead's work held a lot of influence over many writers and the development of the 'popular history'. That is one of the main themes of McCamish's book.

The odd thing about him being that after the war he pursued writing novels with limited success and was talked into writing Gallipoli around this time, which is where he found success. He was one of those Australians who couldn't wait to leave the place and yet ended up writing a considerable amount of Australian history. He undoubtedly influenced Robert Hughes and the later cohort of journalist turned popular historians down under such as Les Carlyon, Fitzsimmons, Paul Ham and the like. Your Max Hastings writes similar books.

A good book about Moorehead is available here-

https://www.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/alanmoorehead.pdf

Scott

 

I've gone slightly off topic with my latest purchase. Hopefully a good read though:

 

I am reading Strick: Tank Hero of Arras and I'm really enjoying it. One caveat: if you are looking for a warts-and-all biography apparently this isn't it. So far I don't really think a fault of the man has been discussed. Now granted, this is by his son, so maybe that's as expected. Maybe he was that saintly, then again, maybe not.

However I think it's pretty clear that Strick was not just a good officer but a good man. There are a lot of comments and anecdotes from other men and letters between Strick and his wife which help round out the narrative. Also interesting is that the text of lectures by Strick on tank tactics and some of the details of exercises he conducted have survived, which put one in the picture about his emphasis on training, and what he was telling his men. I am only now getting into Italy; the NIH is preparing for the fight in the Liri Valley in support of 1st Canadian Infantry Division. .

 

Arnhem their final battle (11th Para Bn at Lombok)

I read this monography of the 11th Para Bn written by Gerrit Pijpers/David Truesdale, one out of a series of successful (Arnhem) publications by Sigmond publishing. It has much triggered my attention to what happened in the western suburb of Arnhem, called Lombok.



PS. I have a spare copy (hardcover) so if anyone fancies one let me know

 

Hmmmm…. Post should read I’m really struggling to find reading matter in my chosen subject… but will use this as a poor attempt at deflection

 

You might be right there, but it does have Churchill in the title. Truth is, I did communicate with the author last year and assist with info about Tony Beauchamp and his time on Chindit 1.