Coming Soon to a Bookshelf Near You

Folks,

Graeme Deeley, the author of 'Worst Fears Confirmed' about the Intelligence Corps from Arnhem to operations recently in Iraq has just published his second book about RAF Regiment Parachute Units from 1942 to the present day.

http://www.nevernotready.co.uk/

Steve

 

It looks as good if not better than WFC, and it looks like I'm gonna be poor this next few months, with all these books coming out!

 

Another two I had now idea about ... oh well I will have to find some spare pennies or raid my ISA again!

Andy

 

Hello

I hope its alright to post some details here as I have my first book coming out this September (the first of many hopefully!!)

It has taken me five years to research and write and has become a labour of love (aren't they always). There are several WW2talk members that have helped with advice and information, to which I am eternally grateful, and I have given them and the WW2Talk forum a "nod" in the credits section.

I hope those who buy it enjoy it.

Some blurb and details below:

The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was the paramount Allied sabotage force of the Second World War. Its job - in Churchill's words - was to "set Europe ablaze" through the use of sabotage, insurrection and assassination.

One of its "shining Stars" and "legends" was the close-combat pistol instructor, Colonel Hector Grant-Taylor. Grant-Taylor taught the commandos, secret agents and irregular soldiers the art of how to kill at close quarters. He taught them how to be ruthless, lethal and covert, and yet his own life was itself a mystery worthy of a John Buchan thriller novel. Misinformation, deception, bravery, murder, and ultimately redemption, all play a part in his story.

At Close Quarters finally puts to rest the myths and legends that surrounded his life, and unravels the mysterious truth behind the enigma that was Colonel Hector Grant-Taylor!

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/david+armstrong/at+close+quarters/9842092/

I will post further details nearer the time.

Many thanks

Old Bill

 

The headline in today's (21/8/13) Times article reads:
"Churchill's famous war oratory failed to inspire a sceptical nation, historian says."

To date no one has asked my opinion as to whether or not I was inspired by Churchill's famous speeches.

Had they done so, I would have replied that as someone who was sixteen year's old when war broke out and who, until he went into the Forces at the age of nineteen listened to or read every speech that Churchill made,I was certainly inspired as was my family and everyone else in my immediate circle.

The historian mentioned is Professor Richard Toye , the article is based on his recent book " The Roar of the Lion" http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Roar-Lion-Churchills-Speeches/dp/0199642524 and, I hasten to add, I have no intention of buying it unless someone sends me a review copy or Kindle offers it for nought.!

Ron

ps
Try this https://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill?_kk=churchills%20speech&_kt=4c6e993a-b905-4d02-8650-267b7b134c3d

 

Churchill - failed to inspire !



'It was the nation and the race dwelling around the globe that had the lions heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar. WSC.

 

Wills

At the risk of sounding an old fogie (which I suppose I actually am! ) I now find I am living in the age of denigration.

I am an unabashed Churchill fan and I suppose I always will be.

That's me, in November 2009, toasting him at the Churchill War Rooms.

Ron

 

Words as a weapon of war :


http://archive.org/details/ChurchillAddressAlliedStruggle


No finer use of that weapon.

http://archive.org/search.php?query=speeches%20of%20winston%20churchill

 

This book is a History of RAF Regiment Parachute Units since 1942. An excellent read.

http://www.nevernotready.co.uk/

 

This book has now been published in the UK. I had a browse through it in Waterstone's earlier today and was impressed by it. Well written and well researched.

 

Ten stories about the engineers in WWII, mostly about the Royal Canadian Engineers.
http://www.amazon.com/Boats-at-Arnhem-Other-Stories/dp/1927679087/

 

Link to a new book called "Greece, Crete, Stalag, Dachau: A New Zealanders Encounters with Hitlers Army"

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/10232534/Book-provides-voice-of-a-Kiwi-at-war

War autobiographies on New Zealand bookshelves are mostly written by the officers if only because the NCOs were too busy fighting to write.

Non-commissioned officers - corporals and sergeants - are the soul of any army: of the 22 New Zealand Victoria Cross holders more than two-thirds were NCOs, including the most recent, Lance-Corporal Willie Apiata.

Warrant Officer Jack Elworthy sailed from Wellington on May 2, 1940, returning seven years later, after fighting in Greece and Crete.

Captured, he was held in a German prisoner-of-war camp for four years.
He managed to illicitly join a US Army unit which took him into the Dachau concentration camp as it was being liberated.
Elworthy, who died in 1999, had patched together his story for his family "in case they might one day be interested".

It is a treasure, the voice of a Kiwi at war, the perspective of the servicemen. It's the reality of a soldier's life - leavened with dry humour and unofficial rumour.

"Four days before arriving in Cape Town we had been given lectures warning us against visiting an area of the city known as District 6, reputed to be rife with vice, violence and depravity," he writes. "District 6 was fairly full of soldiers as a result."

Elworthy offers a working class view of the war, from arriving in Scotland and discovering that his soldiers had quietly discovered an open bar on a station.
Near where New Zealand was based and amid invasion fears, he ran into people who petitioned the War Office to make their area of the town off limits to soldiers: ". . . we felt if this was England it was a pity we hadn't known before we came over to fight and defend it."

In Greece, soldiers were told to greet the Greeks with Maori words like kia ora. "Unfortunately, though, kia ora sounded very similar to the Greek phrase used to ask the time."
A new order told soldiers to greet Greeks with haere mai. "That was a bit much as it meant welcome, and it was we who were the visitors."

Near Larissa, German aircraft had attacked a line of trucks. "Several dead lay covered with blankets in the field by the road. One blanket had a pair of brown boots at one end and at the other an Australian slouch hat."

Evacuated to Crete, Elworthy walked down to the harbour to watch the Royal Marines arrive.
"They had to be seen to be believed: they had their uniforms in kitbags and tin trunks, and some officers had brought golf clubs, and tennis racquets complete with covers and presses."

Later Elworthy and his men were refused positions on retreating trucks; they were for officers and luggage.

An NCO's relationship with his men is intimate; a soldier looks for orders, safety and comfort from the sergeant, "my sergeant".
Elworthy illustrates that, writing of one of his men losing his nerve and threatening all of them. "I went over, knowing I had to put a stop to that sort of behaviour, but I didn't have to say a word."

The man knew what he had done and stopped: "From then on he was twice the man he'd been before, and more of an officer than he had ever been."
Elworthy's honest view of the enemy is striking. "It was funny: one minute earlier I had been going to batter this German's neck and head to a pulp with a stone; nothing else would satisfy me," he writes of the Battle of Crete.

But the moment he was no longer a menace but lying, quiet and frightened, with a smashed hand and part of his thigh bone sticking out of his leg, I felt quite sympathetic towards him."
When they were liberated from the German camp, an American soldier asked them why they hadn't killed their guards in the end. "We stood there, quiet and rather confused. We could not understand his thinking," Elworthy relates, saying they had built up an acceptance of captors.
"We felt some sympathy for them as we heard of their homes being destroyed or overrun and their families and relations killed . . . They had their jobs to do, just as we had ours . . . "
P
risoners were reluctant to go home, they had gone to fight, not be captured. "We had spent four years in reasonable safety while many thousands of soldiers had been fighting and getting killed to get us out. There was a feeling of shame. We felt we hadn't done as much as others."

The book ends with a moving letter he wrote in 1993 to his daughters about to visit Crete.
"Go to Maleme and have a look at the big German cemetery, which, as a POW, I had to help dig - which is, I suppose, only poetic justice as I had helped fill it.
"And go to Suda Bay . . . On your way there, pick a few of the red wildflowers that grow by the side of the road to put on the grave of my old mate since the infant classes in 1917 at Thorndon School, Harry Kyle: Gunner Henry Smythe-Kyle 2NZEF."

GREECE CRETE STALAG DACHAU: A New Zealand soldier's encounters with Hitler's army
Jack Elworthy
Awa Press
$40

- Sunday Star Times

 

Has this one been mentioned yet ?

'The BEF in France 1939 - 1940' - John Grehan & Martin Mace

http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-BEF-in-France-1939-1940/p/6751

I'm not sure about the publisher's summary..."The BEF did not commence hostilities until the invasion of France on 10 May 1940. After the commencement of battle, they were driven back through Belgium and north-western France...."

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the term "commence hostilities" or has someone overlooked the skirmishes on the Saar ?

 

I have just written a novel based on the two engagements of the Harpoon Force. It covers the rescue mission at the Hook of Holland and the Battle of Boulogne. The storyline then speculates on the real aim of the second mission. The book is called Harpoon Force and it will be published in November 2014. My father-in-law was a Guardsman in the 2nd Battalion of the Irish Guards and a member of the Harpoon Force.

Peter

 

My new book, Harpoon Force, will be published earlier than originally thought. It will be available on 10 October 2014 and is available to pre-order on Amazon now. It is available in paperback and eBook/Kindle. I hope you enjoy it. I certainly enjoyed the research and writing it.

 

Mark Zuehlke "Forgotten Victory, First Canadian Army and the Cruel Winter of 1944–45"




The book will be out in May 12, 2015

See for a description: http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Victory-Canadian-Winter-1944-45/dp/1771620412/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409140662&sr=1-2-spell&keywords=Fortgotten+Victory

 

After years of research, I am pleased to announce that River Assault is now available. Please check out:

http://www.amazon.com/River-Assault-Operation-Canadian-Divisions/dp/1927679117/

 

Just published
DUNKIRK Testimonies of the Last Survivors

 

You should be posting this in the 1940 section :p

 

Lads, this time I am posting on a want-to-know basis, instead of the usual ready-to-hit-the-bookstores mode.

Does anyone know when will the third installment of Shores' "A History of the Mediterranean Air War 1940-1945" saga will get to the bookshelves? I am referring to the one about Tunisia, the very sought after update of bl**dy expensive "Fighters over Tunisia".