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What book are you reading now?

MarkOttawa said:
Very interesting and wide-ranging beyond operational research, good pieces on GCCS/Bletchley Park SIGINT--scathing on Bomber Harris and RAF bomber command in chapter "A Very Scientific Victory":

Harris's argument against the diversion of heavy bombers to the Atlantic battle was put forward in his paper to the War Cabinet on 28 June 1942.

He pointed out that it would take months to convert bombers to an anti-submarine role, and fit them with ASV radar.

"While it takes approximately some 7,000 hours of flying to destroy one submarine at sea, that was approximately the amount of flying necessary to destroy one-third of Cologne."

It would also demonstrate to the Russians what Bomber Command could do at a time when the Soviet armies were losing hundreds of thousands of men in a single battle.

 
mariomike: Aside from matter of diverting Bomber Command planes to Coastal, Blackett book makes the point that what Harris actually was willing to do--trying to hit concrete U-boat pens themselves, and also intentionally devastating area-style the French cities in which they were located--did very little to impede submarine ops.

Mark
Ottawa
 
MarkOttawa said:
mariomike: Aside from matter of diverting Bomber Command planes to Coastal, Blackett book makes the point that what Harris actually was willing to do--trying to hit concrete U-boat pens themselves, and also intentionally devastating area-style the French cities in which they were located--did very little to impede submarine ops.

Mark
Ottawa

Mark, from what I have read, bombing raids on Germany destroyed 207 U-Boats at dockside, or in the ship yards.

On top of that, it is estimated that damage to German factories disrupted production schedules enough to cost the enemy fleet more than one-hundred submarines.

Because each U-Boat sank an average of three allied ships during the war, it's estimated that Bomber Command saved about 900 Allied ships.

Bomber Command was also laying mines in the Baltic sea and other German-controlled waters. This disrupted the training of U-Boat crews. Mines laid by Bomber Command also sank or damaged more than one-thousand enemy surface vessels.

Bomber Command also sank six German battleships.

My source is this book,
https://www.amazon.ca/Battlefields-Air-Canadians-Allied-Command/dp/1550284916
page 174.

Bomber Command went to great lengths to avoid French civilian casualties. A good book about that is "Massacre over the Marne: The RAF bombing raids on Revigny ( France ) in July, 1944".
https://www.amazon.ca/Massacre-Over-Marne-Bombing-Revigny/dp/1852604522

As you likely know, 9,919 RCAF members were KIA with Bomber Command
 
mariomike: A recent tweet of mine:
https://twitter.com/Mark3Ds/status/892819425438642177

@Mark3Ds
Replying to @20committee

And in #WWII as whole 10,000 of 55,000 #RAF #BomberCommand dead were #RCAF--see final para here http://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/photos_temp/event_background_2017-08-19.pdf …
https://twitter.com/Mark3Ds/status/892819425438642177

:salute:

Mark
Ottawa
 
Old Sweat said:
I read Scapegoats. If you have the more recent version, there is a surprise ending.
Being a cheap b@#$%d, I downloaded the free Gutenburg version  (posted in 2004, but don't know how recent the edition that was uploaded was) -- I'll let you know if I'm surprised @ the end so I'll know whether to pay for an edition :)
 
That should be alright. I read it while researching by Boer War book that was published in 1996.
 
Now i'm reading "In het Diepste Geheim"(translated something like"In Deepest Secrecy"

It's a book about the Dutch Silent Service wich tells about all the operations from the 50's untill the 90's.(so spying on Sovjet subs,destroyers,harbours,etc)

For now it's only in Dutch,but i couldn't think of anyone in Canada wanting to read about the Dutchies. [Xp



https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/500x768q90/922/NYAUtp.jpg
 
'Just started this one, picked it up at the War Museum gift shop a few weeks ago.

NAZI GERMANY AND THE JEWS 1933-1945 (An abridged edition of The Years of Persecution and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Years of Extermination)

$20, good reading so far. The writing style is clear, concise, informative and written in such a way as to avoid any dryness where finer details and descriptions are needed.

There are some maps, an excellent bibliography and index as well.

New York Times book review: "Establishes itself as the standard historical work on Nazi Germany's mass murder of Europe's Jews...An account of unparalleled vividness and power that reads like a novel...A masterpiece that will endure."

Scattered amongst my family and extended family history are those who were a part of different facets of WWII; POWs, those who fought with both the allies and the Germans, as well as survivors of concentration camps. I haven't read the full versions, but am inclined to pick them up, as I'm enjoying what I've read so far.
 
Reading Vimy: The Battle and the Legend by Tim Cook https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30555607-vimy

Tim Cook is one of those authors whose books I automatically pickup when I see them in the store. I have enjoyed all of them so far and these book is not an exception. As you can guess from the title it is about the Battle for Vimy Ridge and how what is just a small battle in the grand scheme of WWI became a focal part of Canadian history and our nations identity.

I was a bit surprised when I was reading the book that the depiction of the battle was only a small part of the book but that the major theme of the book was to examine how and why the Battle became so significant to Canada (had I bothered to read the dust jacket I would have known better). So in addition to the depiction of the battle, he goes over the post WWI selection of battlefields that the government chose to honour with monuments, the struggle to actually build the monument and most importantly what the battle meant to Canadians in different decades following the first world war.

If you have an interest in Vimy Ridge, WWI history, or Canadian history in general I recommend this book. It is a fairly short (compared to some of the author's other books) story that I found to be enjoyable to read. 
 
Just finished Browned Off and Bloody-Minded: The British Soldier Goes to War 1939-1945 by Alan Allport--best overall look at WW II British Army I've read, very much worth the read. 

Covers creating a mass army where one had not been planned (colonial policing, e.g. in Waziristan, Palestine the main job), social aspects of a new type of recruit than before WW I (highlights importance of Adjutant General Ronald Adam, very close to CIGS Alan Brooke, from 1941 on in dealing with this), problems with infantry doctrine (but artillery very good, armour took while to realize they were not new cavalry) and officer quality generally, main points about major campaigns, combat effectiveness, how soldiers viewed those in countries where they were sent, why Labour won in 1945 but didn't last long (many in army did not really want more control of their lives) etc. etc.

Also not often realized--World War I-scale infantry casualties in Western Europe after D-Day, leading to divisions being cannibalized (same for US Army, cf. Canadian Army and conscription).

Lengthy review--excerpts:
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1882

...the British military faced the challenge of turning civilians into warriors. The British Army had faced another obstacle, as it was far more dependent than the other service branches on conscripted, non-voluntary recruits. Allport notes that many of these draftees were in much better physical condition than their fathers had been in 1914. They were also more privileged consumers, used ‘to greater privacy and material comfort’ (p. 80). Less deferential than their forebears, more willing to air grievances and absolutely desirous of making their stint in the army as short as possible, they seemed a parade ground sergeant’s nightmare. Resounding defeats in Asia and North Africa in the first half of 1942 left many old soldiers, and politicians, denouncing this new generation of soldiers as physical and moral cowards. In fact, the army, still mired in pre-war practices, was spending much of its recruits’ energies on spit-and-polish inspections and drill, while continuing to provide officers selected less for their physical or academic qualifications and more for who they knew or with whom they rode to hounds. Fortunately for Britain, help – in the name of General Sir R. F. Adam – was on the way.

...voting allowed the soldier a rare opportunity to strike back at the bureaucracy and rules and small indignities that made up military life. It was less a wholehearted vote for Labour than a sort of protest vote against those whom the soldiers identified as their superiors for the previous five or six years. Given the rather cynical view of politics and politicians that many soldiers seemed to share, as well as the often outspoken resentment many in the forces expressed towards those better-paid and occasionally disruptive miners and munitions workers in the UK, the argument that the 1945 election, at least for soldiers, was not about ideological change or even class solidarity seems a sound one...

...Alan Allport has produced a cohesive and coherent overview of the British soldier’s experience. Fluently written and liberally bolstered by the words of the soldiers themselves, this account should attract, and deserves to gain, both a specialist and a general readership. It should also remind historians that the resources available for the study of this war and its role in contemporary British life are vast and under-explored. This is a valuable work, one that brings its subjects to life...

Amazon.ca:
https://www.amazon.ca/Browned-Off-Bloody-Minded-British-1939-1945/dp/0300170750

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Mark
Ottawa
 
The 6 day war and War of the Running dogs, first one is the precursors to the 6 day war and the other about fighting the Malay Emergency.
 
Re-Reading 'Excursion to Hell' by LCpl Vince Bramley, 3 PARA. A classic.... Too bad a lot of these guys left the regiment right after the War. They'd seen the 'elephant' ....

“By about three quarters of an hour after darkness had fallen, we had marched about 20 kilometers [cross country carrying about 100lbs of weapons and equipment each]. Taff shook uncontrollably. He had bad cramp and lay there, totally out of the game. Together we sat him up and tried to revive some spirit in him, but with no joy. To me, Taff looked as though he was about to die. His nine-stone [126 lb] frame wasn’t strong enough for the rest of the march. Taff could run the Army’s [1.5 mile] ‘Battle Fitness Test’ in around eight minutes and was considered our best runner. This proves, as do other accounts I heard after the war, that the fitness of troops cannot be determined by how fast they can run. The Paras always pride themselves on tabbing with kit, and rightly so, but I learnt a lesson on our first night march. You must have body fat on you to waste, for the kind of long tab we had embarked on.”

Excursion to Hell, LCpl Vince Bramley, 3 PARA, p.48-50
 
daftandbarmy said:
Re-Reading 'Excursion to Hell' by LCpl Vince Bramley, 3 PARA. A classic.... Too bad a lot of these guys left the regiment right after the War. They'd seen the 'elephant' ....

That and the book "Green Eyed Boys" are two of my favourite first hand accounts from the Falklands war.
 
Currently reading the intelligent investor by Ben Graham, its more of a project book as it requires more in depth analysis so when I want to read something less... intense? (Might not be the best word choice) I'm reading Outlaw Platoon.
 
Cloud Cover said:
"Street Without Joy": The French Debacle in Indochina.  (written in 1961).

I scrounged up a first edition in a used book store, which I covet....
 
Artemis, by Andy Weir (author of The Martian).  Just like that book, I can see this being made into a movie, if they can get the main character right.
 
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