Book Reviews

Covering 100 years of flight in 278 pages is an ambitious task, but this book blends history with just enough technical detail very nicely and I often found I wanted to know more. The back of the dust jacket grabbed my attention saying that this is the “first book to include the role of women in Civil Aviation's 100-year history” and “the first book to include all aspects of civil aviation in a single volume”. I cannot comment on these claims, perhaps some here will be able to agree or disagree. The author, Ben Skipper, is well placed to defend his position. He served in the RAF and has written other books about aviation as well as military themes. Many of us will already have some of his titles on our bookshelves. The introduction...

The Royal Navy in the Downfall of Japan. Brian Lane Herder Illustrator PaulWright. Osprey Books. In September 1944, with Germany seemingly about to collapse, and after a lot of political and strategic infighting, Churchill declared that a British Pacific Fleet would be formed and sent to aid the US Navy in their fight against Japan. Churchill original wanted the fleet to be used in the reconquest of British colonies taken by Japan, but the Chiefs of Staff pointed out that the Pacific was the decisive theatre and any other theatre was a side show. Unfortunately eight months was wasted in the discussion. The Americans were initially not that keen as they were keen that the kudos of defeating Japan should be theirs in justifiable...

Another in the Osprey 'Combat' series, and as with the others this is more of a glossy brouchure than a book. Filled with excellent art work, Photographs and maps. With a very good primary source available, the detail is staggering, but even then open to interpretation which the author is not scared to explore. Not a period of time i have taken any notice of. 'The dark ages' in Europe, but this was very interesting stuff. I was left with the impression that both sides were very, very late Romans, but the Byzantine's were better at it Not sure i could justify the £16.99 cost, but anyone collecting the series would not be disappointed by this one (Mod edit - at the time of typing it's £11.57 for the paperback and £10.99 kindle...

Published by Pen & Sword, in September of this year. I have to say that I’m impressed. My usual gripe about all pictures and illustrations being grouped together doesn’t apply here and they are inserted most usefully alongside the text where they really belong. The book is printed on a decent weight glossy paper, and to be fair, it has a real quality feel about it. I read this book over a week’s worth of evenings and thoroughly enjoyed it. The author (Gabriele Esposito) is rather prolific and has written many historical books and articles, although I can’t claim to have heard of him before this book. He’s an Italian military historian and author and is mainly known for his works on military history, particularly focusing on...

This book is in Osprey’s Dogfight series and the emphasis is on the action. Chapter headings include ‘In Battle’, ‘Art of War’, ‘Combat’. The author was a long-serving Foreign Service officer in the Pacific Islands and South-East, formerly resident in Papua New Guinea; fluent in Japanese and with a good command of their archives. Zero-sen builds on his five-volume Pacific Profiles which give accurate information on Japanese aircraft of many types. The Zero was the most famous Japanese aircraft of World War II. Chapter 4 ‘Weapon of War’ gives details of development and characteristics. It had outstanding capabilities; astonishingly light, it was manoeuvrable in combat and had a range which gave it first-strike capability. Its armament...

This book from Osprey is the story of the 1993 operation to capture Mohammed Aideed, a Somali warlord, from the teeming streets of the Somali capital Mogadishu. The author served with 3 Ranger Battalion, as part of the force sent in to give perimeter security alongside the Delta Force squad who were tasked to grab Aideed. What was planned as a fairly simple ' shoot and scoot' airborne assault turned into a rolling clusterfeck , when THREE of the assaulting aircraft were brought down by RPG's fired by Somali militia. Two crashed in downtown Mogadishu, close to the target area and the third limped back to the defended airport area to crash land inside the perimeter wire. Anyone who has seen the Hollywood version ' Blackhawk Down ' will...

If it wasn't for the title mentioning 'the ripper' I could start this by saying what's special about 1888, specifically London? Mention Whitechapel and most people think of 'Jack the ripper'. but did The Ripper kill after 1888? If we ignore war crimes, then Jack the Ripper is one of the most infamous and written about criminals of all time. Yet we know so very little about him (or her, or even them as we don't know if the ripper was a single person) and there is a lot of argument over the actual number of victims. This book is about one of these, Frances Coles. This book starts with the discovery of Frances Coles body at 02:15 on the morning of February 13th 1891 by a policeman (Ernest Thompson) on his regular rounds and goes on, in...

The Hydaspes was the last major battle fought by Alexander the Great in 326 BC. It was essentially a forced river crossing over the river Jhelum in what is now known as the Indus valley. Alexander won through tactical guile and cunning plus his usual inspiring leadership but the cost was high. This book describes the battle and the build up to it. The author, Nic Fields, is an ex Royal Marine and I was looking forward to reading a description of the battle by someone who has a military understanding of ground and operations as well as the academic research and knowledge. As the author explains, a problem with the history Alexander the Great is that there are very few surviving contemporaneous accounts. Most of what we know comes...

The book will be released on 23rd November 2023, and is currently reduced from £12.99 to £11.95 for preorders on Amazon. This is another very short book from Osprey running at just under 50 pages, However, when you take out the full-page illustrations, the full page of further reading, 4 pages of explanation and contextualisation of the many plates, plus a full page containing an index we are left with about 40 pages of text. Every page of text contains figures and plates, so really there isn’t an awful lot to read. But that really doesn’t matter, as what there is, is incredibly interesting and very readable. This little book became yet another enjoyable Sunday afternoon read. The author (David Nicolle) has a PhD from Edinburgh...