Book ReviewOmar DeWittGhost Soldiers by Hampton Sides. © 2001 Doubleday. 342 pgs. Maps, photographs. Rating 4 A well-written book about a Ranger Battalion’s rescue of some 200 POWs from a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines in 1945. Many of the prisoners were survivors of the infamous Death March, and had dubbed themselves the “ghost soldiers.” The rescue raid itself takes up only about half the book. The rest recounts (in more detail than I wanted to read) the Japanese atrocities on The March and in various prison camps. This is now in paperback. Blood, Tears And Folly An Objective Look at WWII by Len Deighton. © 1993 Jonathan Cape in Great Britain. Castle Books in US. 653 pgs. (Remaindered at Barnes and Noble) Maps, photographs. Rating 5 Very interesting and well written. He describes the situation leading up to WWII, and writes about the first year or so of that conflict. Some of the items I found of particular interest were his comments on the RAF and Rommel. The RAF between wars was primarily interested in separating itself from the Army and Navy and becoming a force unto itself. To this end, they supported the concept of strategic bombing and de-emphasized fighters, which might be called upon to support the Army. And yet, when war started, the RAF had few effective bombers, and no bomb sights or navigation equipment worth much. Deighton is not impressed with Rommel. “Rommel was not one of the war’s great generals.” “When all is said and done, Rommel did little more then repeat O’Connor’s methods.” O’Connor is the British general who routed the Italians. Furthermore, Rommel was terrible with logistics, paying little attention to his supply situation. “His troubles arose from a combination of his own daring and improvisation and a disregard for the terrible problems such impulsive decisions made for his supply staff.” I can sympathize, having gone seven turns in a row without rolling a supply unit in Afrika Korps. The British defense of Malaya he finds astoundingly incompetent. Hitler lost the war because he invaded Russia. He invaded Russia not for land, resources, or plunder, but because of hate. “The German armies invaded the Soviet Union only because Hitler and his SS men wanted to murder Jews and the ‘Bolsheviks.’” Gone For Soldiers, A Novel of the Mexican War. By Jeff Shaara. © 2000 Ballantine Books 424 pgs. Maps. Rating 2 Jeff Shaara is the son of Michael, who wrote the outstanding The Killer Angels, on which was based the excellent movie Gettysburg. Jeff has written two novels bracketing in time his father’s book: Gods And Generals and The Last Full Measure. I have read the first and found it adequate. I was much less impressed with Gone For Soldiers. This book is written from the viewpoint of Winfield Scott and Robert E. Lee, primarily, with short parts from the viewpoints of William Worth, James Longstreet, Thomas (to be “Stonewall”) Jackson, U.S. Grant, and Santa Anna. Shaara spends much too much time relating what these people are thinking; for instance, Lee is hiding under a log from Mexican soldiers, and the author spends four pages telling us what is running through Lee’s mind–none of it interesting. A much more satisfying book is: So Far From God, The U.S. War with Mexico 1846-1848. By John S.D. Eisenhower. ©1989 Random House 436 pgs Maps, photographs. Rating 5 This book is well written and well researched. Eisenhower covers the battles both between Winfield Scott and the Mexicans and between Scott and the politicians in Washington D.C. Highly recommended.
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