- Author
- Brian Best
- ARRSE Rating
- 3.5 Mushroom Heads
The Forgotten VCs is a very easy to read book telling the tales of the Victoria Crosses won in the Far East, I would argue they are not so much the forgotten VCs than the less well known about but that's not as catchy for a book title.
The book starts of giving a brief run down of how the war in the East came around and who was involved.
The book then goes into a chronological order of events that lead you to each VC action. This is by no means a definitive account of the history of the war in the Far East but enough for you the get a flavour of what was happening to lead upto the VC actions.
On each VC action there starts with a brief description of the recipient before the war and earlier service depending on wether he was British or Indian/Gurkha very much depends on how detailed this is.
You obviously then get the main details of the action where the medal was won, this is well told through unit diaries,personnal accounts and the medal citations.
For the recipients who survived there's a post script of what they did after the war, this is particularly interesting for the Indian and now Pakistani soldiers who continued to serve in their respective armies.
The last chapter details Australia's war in their Pacific campaign and oddly enough the last VC, won by the Fleet Air Arm, is in here as well, as geographically it was earned round that neck of the woods.
All in all I enjoyed the book, it's easy to read and not too heavy hitting on the historical side; it may be an expert could probably find some fault on a few of the historical points.
If your into VCs this is a must!!
Amazon product
The book starts of giving a brief run down of how the war in the East came around and who was involved.
The book then goes into a chronological order of events that lead you to each VC action. This is by no means a definitive account of the history of the war in the Far East but enough for you the get a flavour of what was happening to lead upto the VC actions.
On each VC action there starts with a brief description of the recipient before the war and earlier service depending on wether he was British or Indian/Gurkha very much depends on how detailed this is.
You obviously then get the main details of the action where the medal was won, this is well told through unit diaries,personnal accounts and the medal citations.
For the recipients who survived there's a post script of what they did after the war, this is particularly interesting for the Indian and now Pakistani soldiers who continued to serve in their respective armies.
The last chapter details Australia's war in their Pacific campaign and oddly enough the last VC, won by the Fleet Air Arm, is in here as well, as geographically it was earned round that neck of the woods.
All in all I enjoyed the book, it's easy to read and not too heavy hitting on the historical side; it may be an expert could probably find some fault on a few of the historical points.
If your into VCs this is a must!!
Amazon product
