Film Review: Flat Top, 1952

Reading John Grehan's Battle of Midway got me very interested in USN aircraft carriers. I tried to find a WWII movie on the subject, and discovered Flat Top. Made in 1952, and starring Sterling Hayden, an actor I really dig, whilst in truth not a classic film, it is pretty much exactly what I wanted.

Sterling Hayden, a man's man in a man's world!

Great footage of USN carrier operations.

What I was looking for was a film that would show aspects of the operational and tactical life of such a vessel, and her crew. And Flat Top, whilst a bit thin and, pardon the pun, flat as a drama or character study - the drama is okay, but the characters are rather 2-D and clichéd - clearly takes pleasure in showing the multifarious aspects of life and operations aboard a WWII USN aircraft carrier.

The entire film is one long flashback, as Hayden's Cmdr. Dan Collier character recalls his WWII service aboard the same carrier in which we find him, which starts with his being given command of a new batch of raw recruit pilots. The well-worn cliché of the by-the-book hardass who ultimately comes to be loved by his men is then played out over a series of scenarios. 

Heavy use is made of real WWII stock combat footage, both of fleet activity and even more so aerial combat. The contrast of the gung-ho mirth of the pilots with the anonymous Japs being so easily and merrily dispatched is a bit disconcerting. Indeed, the enemy remains an abstracted nonentity until quite late in the film, when we start to occasionally see the human cost to both sides.

Several sequences, such as this one ...

... show how the arrestor wires work.

I suppose this was a propagandist movie, made  as it was during the Korean War, the opening scene showing jets landing on the carrier. In that respect it is a bit cornball. But what I like about the film is seeing operational stuff, like the maintenance and fuelling/arming of planes, above and below decks. Take offs and landings (the latter showing arrestor wires in use), with 'ground crew' at work, and the inter-deck elevators in action.

There's quite a lot of footage like this...

showing deck crew servicing planes...

... loading various armaments, etc.

We also see how the officers and men live, the former in their own private but box-like quarters, the latter in dorms full of bunks. There are meals in the mess, pilot briefings (in surprisingly large/luxurious looking chairs!), and red-lit acclimatisation for night combat/flying.

Below deck crew follow the action in an ops room type setting.

One of the more timeworn themes is that old chestnut of individual vs. group. This is less grating than the wafer-thin characterisations of the protagonists - a election of Everyman types, from jocks to poets, musicians to lawyers, etc. - and is, in this film as in life, difficult to square/resolve. Hayden's character does so in no uncertain terms. His immediate subordinate has a softer approach (albeit eventually conceding he's 100% wrong!). The overt message here is 'it's the team that wins'. But a certain amount of rugged individualism does sneak in.

So, not a great film, by any means, frankly. But certainly well worth watching if you're fascinated by the maritime and airborne aspects of the war in the Pacific.

One of the few glimpses we get of the Japanese enemy.

Book Review: D-Day, Stephen Ambrose

This is an excellent book. It's a pity it overhypes itself on the cover; as good as it is I don't think it's definitive. I'm not sure any single volume account of D-Day could really achieve that, frankly. It's also both heavily weighted to the U.S. perspective, and within that, the events at Omaha beach. Both latter facts are understandable enough, but mitigitate very heftily against any claims of being definitive. Never mind that the Canadian and British aspects are given very brief coverage, mostly at the end of the book.

A couple of more basic or general points in its favour, leaving aside for the moment the core content, which is excellent, are the glossary - they should be absolutely mandatory in all military history books, in my view - and the excellent maps, which by the looks of them were commissioned specifically for this book.

A fuller view of the Robert Capa photo that appears on the cover.

Ambrose has a very nicely tuned and balanced writing style, it's dry and factual where it needs to be without being dull, and he uses primary sources - a lot of oral history (interviews either he or others have conducted with veterans) - as well as any of the best (or should I say most popular/slickest?) war writers, like Beevor or, going back a bit further, Cornelius Ryan.

Indeed, re the latter point, Ambrose is in a powerful position to be the erudite authority he so clearly is, in that he was (now decesased, I believe?) at the time of writing, deeply involved not only in teaching on this subject, but also as a custodian involved in the fairly recently founded (again, when this was first published) New Orleans D-Day Museum*. And one of the many great things the museum could boast, with Ambrose involved again, was a unique (in its size and scope) 'oral history' collection.

And it's from these sources that this very colourful account gets many of its richer hues.

I believe this may be another of Capa's blurred but highly evocative images.

Whilst he doesn't shy away from the tragedies of war, collateral damage, friendly fire, prisoner executions, and all that, Ambrose does give a decidedly heroic ring to it all, pitting the 'citizen soldiers' (a phrase that's also the title of another book he's written) of an 'aroused democracy', fighting inly to liberate, against the empire-building Nazis, whose troops are - by this stage if the war, and in this particular theatre - either indoctrinated Germans, either docile or fanatical, or unwilling thralls, as per the Ost-truppen.

Whilst it's a all a bit rich - apple-pie 'n' God Bless the U. S. of A, and all that jazz - for a very sceptical chap like me, Ambrose does make pretty solid case in contrasting the sclerotic command malfunctions of the German's, Hitler in bed till noon, his panzers immobile without his personal authority, with the hands-off approach of Ike and Churchill. Gone is the  flexible auftragstaktik that characterised the first blitzkrieg years of the war.

Capa again: Omaha, pinned down on the beach, sheltering behind German obstacles.

One of the things that winds up happening is that things are in exact reverse of how, on paper, they should've been: the Allies were landing against a supposedly extremely well-fortified coast, not using harbours, but beaches. The Germans, with the land and its transportation networks at their backs should've been the easier supplied and maneuovred. But, thanks to the Allies total air and naval superiority, it is the Allies who are free to manoeuvre and resupply more or less at will, with the Germans in Normandy effectively cut off, on a landlocked island.

Whilst D-Day wasn't on the scale, in terms of troop numbers and vehicles, as some of the largest clashes on the Eastern Front, it was the most massive combined operation by land, sea and air ever. Even Stalin freely admitting as much, and suitably relieved/impressed by it. The mind still boggles at the scale of it. And it continues to exercise a deep fascination. It's kind of shocking and surprising how little photographic documentation has come down to us so far.

It's a bit surprising there aren't more photos like this, conveying the enormity of the operations.

Another of Capa's few surviving images.

The fate of Robert Capa's photos [1], one of which is on the cover of this edition, may possibly sum that situation up. Related to all this, yesterday I caught the tail end of a recently produced American TV documentary entitled The Battle of Normandy: 85 Days in Hell, which appears to include lots of 'previously unseen' footage (much of it looking very nicely restored, and a good deal even in colour). So perhaps as time goes on more visual material will emerge? I do hope so!

Anyway, this book is excellent, a suitably rousing document that is also a tribute to the events and the men it brings to life again for us. Superb, and very highly recommended.

---

Ambrose as I first saw him, on ITV's superb The World At War.

NOTES:

[1] The story goes that Capa shot 106 photos, but that back in England the excited developer botched his job in his eagerness, only eleven of the photographs surviving. There are also stories going around that suggest Capa 'sexed up' his account. Read more here.

Book Review: Liberty's Provenance, John Henshaw

Subtitled The Evolution of the Liberty Ship from its Sunderland Origins, John Henshaw's new book on these vitally historically important vessels aims, in his own words, to 'once and for all' settle the issue of their provenance. Whether or not he succeeds in this once and for all aim, this is without doubt a fascinating and beautifully presented account of the evolution of a particular maritime lineage, during a very generally exciting and interesting period of world history.

I'm no expert on things nautical, but I'm finding my interest in the logistical side of both real military history and my mini-military stuff is leading me, seemingly inexorably, towards a deeper interest in sea warfare generally, and The Battle of the Atlantic in particular. As Henshaw notes, Churchill said the war on the oceans was the 'dominating factor throughout the war. Never for one moment could we forget that everything happening elsewhere, on land, at sea, or in the air, depended ultimately on its outcome.'

And in keeping with this perspective, it's salutory to remember that whilst other theatres of conflict would have short periods of intense activity and longer periods of stasis or inactivity, the war at sea lasted the entire duration.

The fantastically named Hog Island shipyard. [1]

The level of detail here is quite daunting to a landlubber like me. Fortunately there's a glossary. The glossary is very helpful - they should be a mandatory standard feature in specialist books, in my view - but could've been better. E.g. the nautical meaning of terms such as beam and draught are given, but sheer isn't. And whilst many of the acronyms used are expanded and defined, not all are.

The book begins by looking at how in WWI a similar project was undertaken at more or less wars end, the ships made not seeing wartime service at all, and overproduction contributing to postwar shipbuilding slumps. Also late in coming was the adoption of convoys. In contrast, in WWII these projects were set in motion much earlier, and a mission to the US headed by the very young Cyril Thompson, of Sunderland shipbuilders Thompson's, was integral to the story told here, of the development of the Liberty ships.

Henshaw dedicates his book to Cyril Thompson, the 'unsung hero in the evolution of the Liberty ship', and extols their virtues by not only clearly tracing their lineage, but also highlighting how they not only met but exceeded their original brief, doing the job intended for them, and then going beyond that, forming the basis of numerous variants, and often surviving and serving long after WWII.

Liberty ship EC2-SC1.

There are plenty of photographs, liberally sprinkled throughout, many of which are great. There are also a good number of relatively poor quality. But as Henshaw explains, they're as good as he could find, and illustrate important points. Using such surprisingly scant reference material - scant when you consider over 2,700 of Liberty ships were built - Henshaw has produced what is probably the most attractive aspect of this book, the numerous line drawings.

Some of these are quite accurate, where plentiful reference such as other detailed drawings could be sourced, whilst others, as Henshaw is at pains to point out, are educated guesses based on the available evidence. I love them, and hope they might one day help me build models.

A fascinating book, well worth having/reading. 

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NOTES:

[1] Built expressly for the construction of these ships, and now the site of Philadelphia International airport.

This looks like a great kit. Definitely on my wish list!

As usual, when I read a book like this and find it exciting and inspiring, I want to get a model to build to further explore the interests that have been aroused. Trumpeter do a couple of 1/350 Liberty Ship models. I'd love to get and build one of those. Perhaps the SS John W Brown? This is also one of the only surviving seaworthy examples some of this once numerous class.

The real McCoy.

Book Review: The Jeep, Lance Cole (Land Craft, 1)

With this title on the iconic Jeep, Pen & Sword launch a new series called Land Craft, a companion to their already well established Tank Craft series. The Jeep is an excellent place to start, being one of the most recognisable vehicles of WWII (and beyond). Indeed, it's iconic position is such that it's been used as the logo for the Land Craft series, in the top right corner of the cover.

I've been lucky enough to receive a new copy from the publisher, for review. I'm really chuffed to be getting to review a fair amount of books on a variety of Pen & Sword imprints. And thus far I've loved and been very impressed with pretty much everything I've read. So much so I've rated practically all of them around four to five stars. Alas, this title hits the first bumps on this particular road!

It's still a book worth having, primarily for the visual reference, and secondarily for the model-related sections. This said, the non-model related picture content is not up to the usual Tank Craft standards, mixing WWII period photos with more contemporary images apparently randomly, with too many of the latter. And within the latter there's too much repetition of images of the same vehicles.

A very well known image, of a Jeep in British North African service.

Tamiya's 1/35 kit helped cement (boom-boom!) the SAS image in our minds!

The colour profiles are also not as good as in other similar titles I've received from the Tank Craft line. On the plus side this volume does include aerial/plan views in the colour profile section, which most of the Tank Craft equivalents don't.

But where this particular title differs most is in the text, which is very poor, in my opinion. I mean no offence to author Lance Cole. He obviously loves his subject, and doubtless knows a lot about it. But it simply doesn't read well. I've struggled to about half-way through the written part, and given up. It's headache-inducingly prolix, meandering around aimlessly and constantly repeating information. It could be cited as a definition of the phrase 'lumpen prose'. 

Although the book is structured similarly to the Tank Craft series - listing the chapter titles shows this to be the case (Development and Design, The Jeep in Detail, Camouflage and Markings, Model Showcase, Modelling Products, In Service and in Action, Variants) - it doesn't read that way. Compared with the lucid, well-structured writing of, for example Dennis Oliver, this text is like treacle. Strict and severe editing is required. Judicious editing from what's here would probably reduce it by 50-60%. But it's so poor a total rewrite would be best.

Another Jeep, also in British service; is this Burma?

All the Jeeps in the Model Showcase section are 1/35th. It'd have been nice to see one or two in other scales. Anyway, in conclusion, I'd say that thanks to the imagery herein this is still worth having. But I'd forewarn potential purchasers/readers re the quality of the writing. 'Tis a pity that what will surely be a very useful series (I also have the next one, on the M2/M3 halftrack) gets off to a somewhat shaky start.

If you did think you might want to buy this, now is a good time, as both this and the M2/M3 title are currently reduced from the RRP of £14.99 to just £12.99, over at the Pen & Sword website.

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NB: I used to write regularly for the now sadly defunct Drummer (UK*) magazine. I remember several occasions where the editor intervened to temper my criticisms, usually either on account of personal or professional connections between the subject and the mag. So, for example, I was asked to review a particular CD by a certain band (I forget who now, thankfully). I thought it was awful, and said so. However, our editor was trying to cultivate the drummer of this band as a potential contributor to the magazine. My review wasn't used. 

I also recall having to soften critiques - or finding them having been editorially softened for me - of products. What galled me most about the latter was that I was prevented from speaking the truth as I saw it, and usually re cheapo gear from big manufacturers, whereas there was a freedom to pan the little independent concerns, 'cause that wouldn't threaten advertising revenue unduly. I mention all this because I want it to be known that opinions expressed on my blog (at least by me, at any rate) are genuine.

* Not the US Drummer magazine, by the way, a gay leather/porn mag!

The following photographs include some great Jeep images... none of which feature in this book, alas:

Jeep goes airborne... yeehaw!

UK or Commonwealth soldiers posed as if thumbing a ride.

A US vehicle graveyard on Okinawa, '45.

Jeep ambulance. Not sure where this is, or what nation it's being used by?

Jeeps roll off the production line and onto the transport supply lines.

Maintenance work; is that an engine powered lathe? 

Another Jeep auditioning for the airborne!

Jeep ambulance. Note bullet holes in windscreen!

They sure made a lot of Jeeps!

Jeeps are sexy!

Cole meanders in and out of his timelines all over the place, one minute talking about wartime Jeep history, and often (too often for a book aimed at WWII Jeep modelling) talking about postwar Jeep stuff. But he doesn't include the rather amazing almost James Bond-esque image above.

Film Review: Hamburger Hill, 1987

May '69, the 101st Airborne, or 'Screaming Eagles', are ordered to take Hill 937, a heavily fortified North Vietnamese strongpoint. Repeated assaults ensue and, due to heavy U.S. losses, the battle acquires the nickname Hamburger Hill.

This portrayal of those events is, like most American 'Nam movies, told pretty much entirely from the U.S. perspective. The disparity of means at the disposal of the engaging forces is depicted accurately, in that the Americans, if they don't always outnumber, certainly outgun their adversaries, calling in artillery and air support their foe simply don't have.

Dylan McDermott as Sgt. Frantz.

In some ways this is just another typical 'Nam movie; just like the Asian cookery of the region, certain key ingredients are esssential: most of the actors are perhaps rather too good looking to be entirely plausible, there's the ubiquitous war-weary male combat banter, and the movie as a whole straddles that paradoxical divide between a homage to 'our brave boys', and a condemnation of the wasteful brutality of war.

The core of the film shares a common theme with many contemporary war films, and real combat (from what I've read), in which soldiers ultimately fight for themselves and the men close to them - stay alive, stay together - rather than for any ideology. The themes of bonding and loss under extreme conditions are certainly major components of this film.

Courtney Vance as 'Doc' Johnson (right). [1]

Other prominent and interesting sub-themes are: ongoing issues of racial tension, a growing awareness of the anti-war movement 'back home', and doubt in the soldiers minds over why the battle/war is being fought at all. Where Hamburger Hill differentiates itself most noticeably from some other similar genre pieces is in its tight focus on a small ensemble of soldiers - 3rd Squad, 1st Platoon - fighting one particular ten day battle.

Ultimately it's the characters and the actors portraying them that make or break a film like this. The film's central character, Sgt. Frantz (Dylan McDermott), is good in this respect, as is Sgt. Worcester (Steve Weber), his war-weary immediate superior. The cast of largely less than familiar faces acquit themselves well; underneath all the macho army banter lurk real human beings. Courtney Vance deserves special mention for his charismatic portrayal of medic 'Doc' Johnson. These guys are believable enough that one really does feel engaged in their story.

The ensemble cast.

A second viewing confirms that it's this ensemble quality, and the above average quality of the dialogue, that lift this film above the purely workmanlike. Yes, a lot of the macho banter sounds clichéd - and in many ways it is - but that's a part of the reality of the tribalism that develops amongst fiercely competing all male groups. But there's also some subtler stuff in there to. The other thing that struck me powerfully on second viewing is the insane sacrifices demanded of the 'grunts'.

An impressive CGI-free production, in which terrain and weather play notable roles, Hamburger Hill sits between the old school epics, in which the violence of war is suggested more than depicted, and the more recent trend towards splat-fests. Whilst there's a lot of mud and blood, it's only occasionally punctuated with a smattering - or should that be a splattering? - of more shockingly visceral moments.

Enjoying behind the lines comforts.

Less self-consciously aestheticised or (pseudo?) philosophical than The Thin Red Line, and completely eschewing the over-hyped psychedelic rock-opera stylings of Apocalypse Now, Hamburger Hill is correspondingly that much more realistic. Not an instant classic, but a powerful grower, and more than just good solid fare for the war movie junkie.

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NOTES:

[1] I sometimes wondered if the racial elements might have contributed to some of the ideas in Tropic Thunder.

Book Review: A World On Fire, Amanda Foreman

NB - Another old review I've only now gotten round to finishing and posting.

Wow! AWOF is a weighty tome; not for the faint-hearted, or those with only a passing interest in the ACW and 19th c. Anglo-American relations.

The only pic I could find of Benjamin Moran is in vol. I of  his memoirs. [1]

Fantastically rich in detail, and very effective in portraying character (there are a great many well drawn character studies, but I particularly enjoyed the slightly sour Benjamin Moran, assistant sec. at the US legation in London, despite - or perhaps because of - Foreman's portrayal being perhaps somewhat jaundiced) - no small feat given the enormous cast - this is an exciting and informative read, and lives up to the description of "total immersion". On the one hand there's the grand sweep of the great events, and on the other there's the patchwork 'Anglo-American quilt', if you like, of small details, and it's this latter element that gives this book its character.

Mosby's Raiders.

A host of little details, such as the theft of Bradford Smith Hopkins' 'personal effects' (Hopkins, a British officer in Mosby's Confederate raiders, was killed by Federal troops in a skirmish), and the resulting enquiries that lead to the items being returned to the grieving parents, are really touching, and humanise the larger narratives. Particular characters are followed throughout, as central figures (Lord Lyons and William Seward, for Britain and the US respectively, figuring largest of all, far more so than the leaders of their nations, because they embody and are the active players in the relationship that's at the heart of the story), whilst others make cameos, or pepper the book with piquant appearances.

Belle Boyd, Confederate spy.

Elizabeth Blackwell, abolitionist and medical trailblazer.

Foreman's own Anglo-American history would seem to place her well for the treatment she decided upon. And she's brought in a lot more than you might normally read about (in the predominantly male authored literature on this kind of conflict) from the ladies in the story, like Confederate spies Belle Boyd and Rose Greenhow, or the Northern supporter and medical trailblazer Elizabeth Blackwell, and the wives, mothers and siblings of soldiers and politicians and so on, like Mary Sophia Hill, a pro-Southern British citizen whose brother is in Lee's army, and who finds herself caught up in the great drama. And the overall narrative is refreshed by this broader and more inclusive perspective.

Frank Vizetelly's 'Government by the Roadside'.

AWOF is also lavishly illustrated, with a large number of photographs, maps, and, best of all, numerous wonderful engraving style illustrations, predominantly from either Punch, or Frank Vizetelly (war artist and correspondent for the Illustrated London News), and these really help generate atmosphere. I particularly like Vizetelly's depictions of the last days of Jefferson Davis' Confederate leadership, described by the artist as "governement by the roadside". The size of the book, the nature of the illustrations, and the use of chapter sub-headings, all give the book something of a C19th feel as well, a nice touch appropriate to the subject.

A hefty book on an epic subject, well-written, thoroughly researched, and, being both engaging and informative, a real joy to read; brilliant!

Amanda Foreman, perhaps best known for The Duchess, which became a film starring Kiera Knightley

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NOTES:

[1] Moran is one of Foreman's go to sources.