military non fiction

The cold war years saw massive concentrations of armour deployed either side of the Inner German Border. Starting with Shermans and M26 Pershings plus numerous tank destroyers in the US forces and Churchill, Sherman and Centurion in the BAOR. French troops deployed US equipment in the first...

The Italian campaign of 1943 and 1944 was one of a steady slog up the Italian peninsula. In general the Germans chose the battlegrounds they wished to fight on and in retreat were well able to always fall back on prepared positions. There were the obvious clashes between the German Army plans...

Second World War RAF books in UK and European airspace are numerous. Accounts of the Far East units are thinner on the library shelves. Similarly, a generation has grown up with tales of the spectacular performance of Mosquito aircraft in Europe. This book sets out some of the limitations of...

World War 2 photo books are two a penny but the Images Of War series have produced a good piece of work. It is probably of particular interest to serious military modellers but could also make a good accompanying book to have when reading one of the weightier Ardennes tomes such as Snow & Steel...

Gabriele Esposito has produced a follow on to Wellington’s Infantry (reviewed March 2021). The self-declared aim of the book is to present a detailed overview of the organisation uniforms and equipment of these groups in the Napoleonic wars. The quality of the work is excellent with 7 chapters...

Spanish civil war books have tended to look at the overall conflict rather than focusing on the armoured warfare sector. S J Zaloga produced a book about eleven years ago (Spanish Civil War Tanks) and IWM have some reference material. There is a raft of accounts of bullets, broads brandies and...

The second book by Bruce Newsome studying the rise and fall of Western tanks , in this case the period from 1939-1955 is covered. The Second World War and the limbering up for the Cold War. By 1939 Germany and the USSR had seen a degree of collaboration on defence projects. France was...

Wellington’s army must be the most thoroughly studied of all periods. A panoply of books looking at the capabilities the doctrine , the command decisions, the uniforms and equipment and more first hand accounts than most preceding wars. They range from original document research to coffee table...

The Peninsular campaign has been researched with various degrees of skill and zeal for decades. Looking at any new offering it is an obvious thought; What’s left to write about? The author has assembled a first class set of historical data, photographs of the ground, maps and contemporary...

The Royal Engineers have left relatively few Great War memoirs for some reason. This republished work by V F Eberle is a rare gem. Originally titled My Sapper Venture copies of the original are few and far between. Pen and Sword deserve the thanks of readers for reviving this work. A further...

The story of British Armour during the Second World War is well known and has attracted a host of excellent military writers. The British Army finished the war with their Cromwells, Comets, Churchills and American Grant Shermans and Fireflys. The route there had been painful, littered with a...

Illustrated war histories can be a series of loosely related photographs assembled with little effort and dumped on the market in the run up to Christmas. This book from Brooke S Blades is in a different category. The author has assembled 245 pages of text and illustration devoted to a 5 month...

The Normandy Invasion is a central part of any Second World War history. The day that Germany’s defeat was sealed by the Allies; 6,939 vessels, 156,000 American, British and Canadian troops and countless air sorties threw an invasion force ashore in a tight interval set by weather fronts and...

Operation Jubilee has been dissected and reviewed for over 75 years, Excellent books such as “One Day In August” and novels abound. This , however, is the official account produced in 1958 by The Admiralty and expanding on Battle Summary no 33 Raid on Dieppe. The Dieppe Raid was conventionally...

There are reams of D-Day books covering every aspect of the landings, tactics, uniform and equipment. Some are helpful if visiting but this is aimed squarely at those planning (and making) a visit. The book gives some background notes, some really helpful points on using the guide and some...

To a generation coloured by Bernard Cornwall’s eminently readable Sharpe series this is a chance to return to the root sources. Stuart Reid has assembled the Duke of Wellington’s published despatches. They form a contemporary account of the campaign , the key item for the serious historian is...

There have been numerous books written about the German occupation of the Channel Islands including Jersey Under The Jackboot, Living With The Enemy and The German Occupation of the Channel Islands by Charles Cruickshank. For those excited by reinforced concrete (stand forward ex Sappers) there...

The eternal trinity of manoeuvrability / armour /armament has long been acknowledged in the AFV design progress. Currently the main MBT scene is dominated by a small number of nations and design costs of a new MBT run into lots of noughts ! During the second world war rapid improvements to AFV...

This is the first of 2 volumes covering the famous Pointe Du Hoc assault by the US Rangers; it examines the training equipment and doctrine of the US Rangers. All good armies see elite formations arise, compete, merge or survive. The US has the advantage that a large US Marine Corps makes for...

Abercromby is not the best known general of the late 18th century . A previous work by J A Dunfermline is periodically reprinted but Carole Divall has brought an interesting and devoted soldier out from the shadows. Her work has primary and secondary sources and has obviously been thoroughly...

Your County in WW2 books are 2 a penny with some pretty poor examples. However, in this case Mark Khan has produced an excellent little book. The pictures have first class notes and eagle eyed readers will be delighted with his attention to detail , who could confuse a Lewis Machine Gun with the...

Letters from serving Light Division members in the Napoleonic wars turn one’s thoughts to Rifleman Harris and Private Wheeler, two well known books. Gareth Clover has edited the letters of Captain George Barlow to produce a fine addition to this period of history. George Barlow saw service...

Books on Colditz abound, most of them based on the experiences of the British POWs, along with a few books from the German perspective. Pen and Sword have revived a fascinating tale written by two of the prominente in the immediate post war years. The prominente were prisoners selected by the...

Yves Buffetaut has produced a brief but useful overview of the Ardennes offensive of 1944. Readers of a certain age will be familiar with the film “The Battle Of The Bulge” and there is a famous clip of the Panzer Lied that surfaces regularly on YouTube. Heavyweight books abound including Snow &...

Books on the preparation for the Great War are in relatively short supply. The Edwardian years saw major army reform after the shocks of the Boer War, a rethink of the strategic role of the army and a complete overhaul of the reserve forces. Russia and Japan saw changes in weapons and tactics in...

From The Knights of Bushido and The Bridge on the River Kwai, tales of the Japanese brutality to their POWs abound. For every recorded war crime there must have been scores committed in unmarked clearings, deserted kampongs and in rivers or at sea. In Germany the SS and Gestapo murdered British...

Philip Kaplan has chosen to write on well trodden areas of history. There are a legion of books looking at the D Day landings in general and German defences in particular. A key issue is whether this book adds to the subject or not. Rommel was well aware that allied air superiority would make...

The Sinai and Palestine campaigns of 1916-1918 are well off the general knowledge radar screen , the coming Armistice celebration and recent media coverage has been western front orientated. The Lawrence of Arabia film is well in the past and the Middle East resounds to more recent fighting...