• Military

      Samurai War Stories by Antony Cummins and Yoshie Minami 

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      metellus cimber
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      Teachings and Tales of Samurai Warfare

      If you are fascinated by Japan in the Middle Ages, which in Japan’s case ended as recently as 1868; the year of the Meiji Restoration, this is a book for you. Even if you merely admire Japanese art and culture, you might enjoy it. The two editor-authors are experts: Anthony Cummins is an historian and archaeologist who has written several books on war, including True Path of the Ninja and Conversations with an Assassin. Yoshie Minami has written or co-authored a number of books on the Ninja tradition. Samurai War Stories is a primary source: an English translation of three classical Japanese works: Tales of the Foot Soldiers (1657-1684); Tales of the Samurai (1654) and The Story of Oan and of Okiko. The book is well-illustrated with contemporary engravings of the Japanese soldiers described in the text.

      As the authors tell us, “history is best told by the people who were there.” This is true up to a point. Distance however can lend perspective: if you were ever a participant in a war – even a General – it is unlikely that you understood the full picture at the time. It is only much later that the complete picture emerges (in some cases it never does). Thereafter historians can add their own particular gloss. Samurai War Stories offer us both: a translation from original manuscripts as well as a learned commentary and notes by modern historians. These are very necessary, as the Samurai is a subject that we think that we know a lot about. We know what they looked like; we have seen the visually beautiful films of Akira Kurosawa (The Seven Samurai, Ran, Throne of Blood etc). Yet there is a lot that we do not know; do not understand. Here you can learn from primary sources about the Samurai themselves, their foot soldiers and the role of women in war. Like some sixteenth and seventeenth century European books (The Compleat Angler comes to mind), the text often takes the form of conversations between well-informed people.

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      'All Hands' by Brian Lavery 

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      seaweed
       Number of Views: 266 
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      "The Lower Deck of the Royal Navy since 1939"
      "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
      And every single one of them is right!”
      (Kipling)

      This is a third book of a trilogy documenting the ordinary sailors of the Royal Navy whose immediate precursor, ‘Able Seamen’ I reviewed here recently. This volume takes us from 1939 to the present. This is dangerous territory, for it covers the service of much of its potential readership, including my own.

      The first third of the book is devoted to the Second World War, in which a Navy of 130,000, aided by 16,000 reservists, grew to a peak of 790,000 net of thousands of losses, including 50,753 dead and 870 missing. The difference was made up of ‘HOs’ (ratings entered for ‘Hostilities Only’ and conscripts. As with later National Service the Navy was able to some extent pick and choose whom it took, so somewhat raising the educational and social level of the pre-war Lower Deck. The HOs turned into matelots and the oldsters provided a skilled backbone, perhaps in only penny or single numbers in the smaller craft (Lavery quotes Coastal Forces as being 98% HOs).

      Between them all they won a World War, often in the context of watch and watch, dawn and dusk Action Stations, ship’s duties when off watch, and often sea conditions making it impossible to obtain even such sleep as time did allow. In tropical waters ships would be crammed with a full war complement, totally inadequate washing facilities, and of course no air conditioning. In machinery compartments temperatures could easily reach 135ºF, partly due to steam leaks which seemed to be largely avoided in American warship construction.

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      Night Raid by Taylor Downing 

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      untallguy
       Number of Views: 263 
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      The raid on Bruneval and Johnny Frost are part of the myth and legend of the Airborne Forces and rightly so. The first successful raid of its type in World war Two used novel techniques for the time that we would now regard as the norm and gave the British a significant military, technological and propaganda victory. For those of you who don’t know the story, the short version is as follows: Paras drop close to German radar station, nick various bits of radar, fight way down to beach and extract courtesy of Royal Navy.

      Taylor Downing has written a good book on this raid and its subsequent effect on Airborne Forces, the radar battle between the Allies and the Axis, the propaganda victory and the radar war between the two sides. When it comes to describing radar, Downing is very good. He has taken a well-known, albeit technical, story and told it in an accessible and simple way – even a technological muggins such as I could follow it clearly.

      The portrayal of the preparation and training for the raid and its subsequent execution is well-researched and articulate. The style is clear and accessible and fully shows the problems that both the British and the Germans had, especially the Paras when they think the Navy aren’t coming to get them!

      The descriptions of what happened after the raid, be they technical, tactical or the impact on individuals or groups, are excellent. I was fascinated by the detail that the author went to and this was most impressive.

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      The Making of a Nazi Hero: The Murder and Myth of Horst Wessel by Daniel Siemens. 

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      metellus cimber
       Number of Views: 389 
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      I recommend this book to everybody with an interest in German history and in the rise to power of the Nazis. It covers a most interesting period: the short-lived Weimar Republic, and provides insights into how and why that experiment in democracy failed. The author is a serious, academic historian who lectures at University College, London, and Bielefeld University. Serious historians will welcome this book; armchair historians should also enjoy it. History apart, it is a fascinating detective story, a little like Julian Symons’ The Quest for Corvo, which led the author into some odd places, including the archives of the former East German Stasi. One word of warning: this is not light reading. There is a lot of historic detail here; much of it very interesting; all of it essential to understanding the story as it unfolds.

      On 14 January 1930 Horst Wessel, a young and ambitious member of the Nazi SA (Sturm Abteilung, the brown-shirted storm troopers), was shot at close range at his home in Berlin. The crime was never completely solved but it is likely that the murder was committed by a group of Communists with close connections to the city’s gangland. Wessel later died of his injuries.

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      The Art of War by M.C. Scott 

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      Command_doh
       Number of Views: 737 
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      2. Fiction,
      3. History,
      4. Military,
      5. War
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      The Art of War is set in AD 69, the 'year of the four Emperors' and is the fourth in the Rome series by MC Scott. I hadn't heard of the author prior to being allocated this novel by Auld_Yin, and was mildly surprised to see that it was in fact, a woman. Nothing wrong with that, it's just I don't think I've seen many (or read any for that matter) historical fiction books written by women.

      It's a hefty tome, weighing in at some 560 odd pages, but don't let that worry you, it is a very easy book to read, and the story flows along nicely, drawing you further and deeper in as it progresses. Unusually – for me at least – the tale is told in the First-person narrative, describing both their observations of other characters and their own feelings. Scott does it very well, and whilst there are times you see the same situation from multiple perspectives, the repetition is only minor and instead the motives of a key character doing something are fleshed out in more detail. ...
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      'Sorrow Into Pride’ by Ken Wayman and Barry Crutchley 

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      Soggy4978
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      Sorrow Into Pride is the story of the Elmore Green High School War Memorial, or, more accurately, it’s the story of those whose names are inscribed into it, as well as some of their relatives.

      The authors begin by telling us the remarkable story of how this memorial was unveiled in 1922, subsequently lost (the ability of the local council to simply forget where they’ve put a huge alabaster plaque would seem to fit perfectly well in any part of the UK), and then, through the efforts of local people, rediscovered in a stonemason’s yard prior to being rededicated at its original home.

      The narrative then begins in earnest, telling us of life in Bloxwich prior to the war and giving us some background on the homes these men left behind to embark on lives as soldiers. Having given us this glimpse of home, Messrs Wayman and Crutchley explain the make up of the Army at the time and how this would change at the outbreak of war.

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      RACE2RECOVERY - Beyond Injury, Achieving the Extraordinary 

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      terroratthepicnic
       Number of Views: 542 
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      4 cars, 7 men & one woman, 7 prosthetic limbs and one race.

      Not to mention the Renault Kerax, 2 drops (The Duff and the Man Kat) and 3 Landover’s (2 Discoveries and 1 Defender 130) and an army of support staff that travelled along with them.

      In 2010 one man had an idea. That idea was to have a team of injured serviceman and veterans competing in the worlds hardest rally...

      The DAKAR.

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      Broken Men, Shell Shock, Treatment and Recovery in Britain 1914-1930 

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      Fang_Farrier
       Number of Views: 544 
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      This interesting book deal with the subject of how those with shell shock were treated after the First World War. It deals with the definitions of shell shock, potential reasons, the politics of shell shock and in particular the setting up and action of the Ex- Servicemens’ Welfare Society(ESWS).

      The author gives several prospective to the whole atmosphere at the time which I had never considered, although fairly well read on the psychological aspects of warfare. At the time there was definitely it was a very much masculine led society and as such males always had to be the strongest aspect and shell shock could be seen to be a failing.

      Shell shock victims were initially almost always viewed as “poor boys” who had suffered a trauma, whether it be physical or mental, however as time went on this viewpoint lost its meaning as it was realised that it was not only the young soldiers who suffered (the average age of a shell shock victim was 26) but also that as the sufferers aged, still requiring treatment years after the war had ended.

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