Survivors of Stalingrad by Reinhold Busch is really a must-read, and not just for those interested in the epic 1942-1943 Battle for Stalingrad. This book provides an engrossing look at the horrors of combat in an impossible situation.
The author's focus is on breaking down what it was like to be trapped with the German Sixth Army following the Red Army's brilliant encirclement of its previous tormentor. The author has studied hundreds of previously unpublished reports, interviews, diaries and newspaper accounts.
You may or may not be familiar with After The Battle Magazine. A quarterly publication that began in 1973, it ended its production history with issue 195 in May of 2022. Since acquired by Pen and Sword Books Ltd., many of its long-standing editors continue to run the company - with a new focus on updating past content and presenting it in book format.
The Battle of Stalingrad: Then and Now is one of several such publications that have since been released.
The Germans And The Dieppe Raid is a true gem, providing Second World War history enthusiasts with a unique look at how in August of 1942 a hardly imposing German defensive grouping defeated a far better trained and equipped Allied raiding force. What's more, the book offers excellent insight into how the course and outcome of this battle shaped the German approach to defending occupied France against the far more famous Allied invasion set to come in June of 1944.
The August 19, 1942 Dieppe Raid is pretty well known.
Today's Ukrainian-Russian war is dramatically reminding us all of the defensive power wielded by modern Surface to Air (SAM) missile systems and interceptors. Perhaps no military establishment in the world has more experience operating interceptors, ground-based radars, and surface to air missile systems than Russia.
However, creating world class combat aircraft such as the SU-57, and missile defense systems such as the S-400 (one of the best of its class fielded by any military today) didn't happen overnight. It took decades and enormous expense in an effort that began immediately following
The Normandy Campaign was one of the most important of the Second World War. The German inability to fend off the Allied invasion of France was most likely the final nail in the inevitable defeat of the Third Reich. The campaign also featured a dizzying array of combat operations, not least of which being some of the biggest tank battles fought between the Allies and Germany.
The largest armored battles took place on the eastern side of the Allied bridgehead.
The Long Range Desert Group is packed with tremendous detail for such a modestly sized book, and is one I very much recommend.
The book is organized into two parts (each broken down into easily digestible sections of six to twelve pages). Part One covers the formation of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), and the period of 1940-1943 when it operated in North Africa as part of the Allied forces then fighting the Axis armies in mostly Libya and Egypt. Part Two is a much briefer look at the author's 2012 retracing of the LRDG's patrol paths.
Eric Hammel's book Chosin was originally published during the Cold War. But it remains a must read, as shown by the recently released paper-back edition of the book reviewed here.
One of Hammel's goals in Chosin was to show what it was like to be there on the ground in a typically harsh Korean winter during one of the greatest military crisis in which the U.S. Marine Corps and Army was ever involved.
I enjoyed this book, and if you have any interest in modern mechanized warfare you will too. In Battlegroup professor and former British Infantry Officer Jim Storr takes his considerable, training, knowledge, and experience and condenses it down toward assessing the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the NATO and Warsaw Pact armies that faced off across the East/West German border during the latter part of the Cold War.
If that were all Storr did then this book would still be supremely interesting, especially for anyone who has maybe read fictional accounts of what such combat might
The Desert Air Force in World War II is an informative and enjoyable read. Though I most often enjoy operational histories, I also believe it is important to get a better idea as to what it was like to experience combat during the Second World War. To that end, Ken Delve does a superlative job of gathering and presenting as a coherent narrative the first-hand accounts from the aircrews responsible for fighting against the Axis powers during the first two years of the war in the Mediterranean, Africa, and the Middle East.
This book also offers a detailed look at the organizational structure,
Lend-Lease And Soviet Aviation In The Second World War will go down as the definitive book on this topic. Author Vladimir Kotelnikov has assembled in these pages as comprehensive a study as one could want regarding this subject matter. Not only is the book extremely detailed and well-researched, but it contains numerous nuggets of information even the well-informed Second World War enthusiast will find novel.
Kotelnikov walks the reader through the entire process involved in selecting, delivering, modifying, and using the various Allied aircraft shipped to the Soviet Union.
