BillP's Book\Miniature\Wargame Blog

I finished two more books, neither of which was very good.

First up was I’m Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC by Jim Proser and Jerry Cutter. This was, quite simply horrible, it purports to be a biography of one of the legends of the USMC, Gunnery Sgt. “ Manila” John Basilone. Basilone was a machine gunner at Guadalcanal who was instrumental in breaking the back of the massive Japanese assault on Henderson Field on 24/25 October 1942. For his bravery and effectiveness Basilone was awarded the Medal of Honor and sent on a War Bond tour. After the tour, Basilone was assigned to train Marines for later amphibious assaults. In 1945, he gave up his safe state-side training billet, demanding to accompany his trainees into combat. He was killed on the first day of the Iwo Jima invasion after single-handedly destroying a Japanese bunker that was pinning down his unit.

The book was not nearly worthy of Gunny Basilone. In the first place, somebody decided to write the damn thing in the “first person” as if Basilone himself were the author. Since everyman and his dog knows that Basilone died in combat, this is just creepy. Second, there is a lot of “mental explanation” in the book (the authors, one of whom is Gunny Basilone’s cousin, probably chose the “first person” perspective so they could put this crap in the book), but it is largely stuff the authors had no way of knowing. Stuff like How Basilone felt about a particular girl back home, or how he ended a “friends with benefits” type of relationship he had with another woman.

The book in short on facts, but long on made up stuff about what GySgt Basilone was thinking or about how he felt, which stuff the authors have no way of knowing since the man has been dead for 65 years.

Don’t be suckered by the blatant attempt on the cover to tie in with the new HBO. This book just sucked. GySgt Basilone deserves a better biography.

Second was The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour by Andrei Cherny. Again, this purports to be a history of the Berlin Airlift, but instead, is really anything but. The book seems to have two primary theses; first, that the Berlin Airlift was instrumental in changing public perception of Truman from being “weak on Communism” and thus paved the way for his improbable victory over Dewey. Second is the proposition that before the Berlin Airlift the average Berliner hated Americans and the American military, but that the airlift won their “hearts and minds” changing them into friends of America. Either or both of these theses could be true, unfortunately the author provides no hard evidence. There are many attempts to infer or extrapolate from events, but nothing concrete.

In addition to his largely unsupported theses, the author has a number of smaller axes to grind, first is a (well deserved) smacking around of Gen Curtis Lemay. Throughout the years, Lemay has taken much of the credit for the airlift, when in fact the entire thing was the work of Gen William Tunner, who also designed and executed the airlift over the Himalaya Mountains that supplied China during WWII.  Cherny also goes to great pains to show us that virtually the entire US military establishment was against the airlift, feeling that it was a waste of aviation resources they would need in the near future to fight the Soviets. Lastly, Cherny, for reasons known only to himself, also includes a fairly detailed description of the trials and tribulations of James Forrestal, the first SecDef, which ultimately ended with Forrrestal’s descent into madness and suicide in May of 1949.

Notably absent from the book, is any comprehensive history of the Berlin Airlift itself, there are only the vaguest references to tonnages delivered with no sense of when (or how) the airlift turned the corner to ultimately deliver a higher tonnage of goods that was delivered by train. In fact, the fact that, at its height, the airlift was delivering more stuff to Berlin that the trains had pre-blockade wasn’t even in the book. Nor is there any description of the scheduling of the crews, the technical details of the IFR systems or the maintenance operations. Even the fact that GCA systems were used for the first time is glossed over as are the contributions of the British and the US Navy which were only mentioned in the most perfunctory way.

In short, this book really doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up. If it had more (any?) documentation, it could be a decent explanation of Truman’s victory. If it provided more information on Gen Tunny, it could be a great biography of him, if it actually provided any data on the Berlin Airlift; it could be a decent history of Operation Vittles. As it is, it is none of those, and not recommended by me.

16 for the year

I finished Red Inferno: 1945: A Novel by Robert Conroy. This is an alternate history novel that asks what if the Western Allies and the Soviets had fallen out at the end of WWII. In the book, Truman grows suspicious of Stalin’s designs on Eastern Europe and orders Eisenhower to push some American troops across the Elbe, toward Berlin. Stalin, fearing Allied interference with his domination of Eastern Europe ambushes the American advance to “teach them a lesson”. That encounter escalates into a general war, between the former allies which is fought pretty much the way one might expect, with Soviet quantity matched against Allied quality, and Allied airpower being a very important factor.

The book unfolds in a workman like manner, not particularly well (or poorly) written with decent, if somewhat stereotyped, characters. There are a couple of minor sub-plots involving an OSS team, a non-Russian Soviet colonel who is resentful because of the discrimination faced by non-Russians, and a couple of minor love stories. There are also a couple of preposterous “deus ex machina” plot devices which were somewhat disappointing, but all in all it wasn’t a bad book. At the end of the day this book was good way to kill a couple of hours, but provided no real insight into what would have happened.

14 for the year.

First up was New York: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd. Rutherfurd is kind of an English James Michener who specializes in long historical novels that follow the fortunes of a small group of families living in a particular geographical area through history.  This one covers the history of New York from the Dutch founding of the colony through the present day.

While this was an excellent novel, based on prior experience, I was a bit disappointed.  I’m not sure whether it was a shortcoming of the actual book, or whether I just love New York so much that any novel would have a very high bar.

My biggest disappointment was that Rutherfurd didn’t follow the all of the families as diligently as he had in previous books. For instance, the novel starts with four core families, the van Dykes, Dutch settlers; the Masters, English settlers; an Indian maiden who has a child by the Dutch settler; and an African slave owned by the Dutch family. The book blends the Dutch and English families by marriage early on in the narrative, and they form the core of the narrative from then on. The descendants of the slave show up intermittently until the 1870s, then disappear and we hear nothing further from the Indian family. Rutherfurd does introduce a couple of families, one Jewish from Eastern Europe and one Italian that illustrate the immigrant experience, but I still found myself wondering what happened to the Indian and the African-American families.

I don’t mean to denigrate the book, I enjoyed it thoroughly, in fact I read the bulk of it in one four hour chunk out in my garage with a couple of cigars, I was just a little disappointed, still highly recommended.

Second up was ALBUERA 1811: The Bloodiest Battle of the Peninsular War by Guy C. Dempsey. This was an outstanding little book on the battle. It is the first one I’ve read on the topic, but it seemed very thorough and complete. The book starts by giving a brief sketch of the Peninsular War until 1810, and then it gives a detailed analysis of Soult and Massena’s conflict with Napoleon over the plan of the 1810 campaign, the execution of the 1810 campaign, Soult’s attempts to relieve Allied pressure against Massena in 1811 that resulted in the battle.

The book then covers the battle in great detail. And finishes up with a three chapters on what happened to the dead, the wounded and the prisoners and a chapter on the subsequent lives of the major players. The book ended with a great anecdote. In the 1870s, Sir Evelyn Wood was addressing a group when he saw an old grizzled veteran in the crowd. Upon inquiring, Wood was told that the man was “just some old peninsular officer of no particular account”. Wood spoke to the man and discovered he had been an officer in the 54^th at Albuera. He brought the old vet up on the stage and introduced him to the crowd.

My only complaint is the common failing of military histories, a paucity of good maps.  There are some decent maps on the battle itself, but the operational maps of the 1810 and 1811 campaigns leave something to be desired. Particularly irksome is the tendency for authors to describe operational movements in terms of geographical features that aren’t included on the map.  You know, “d’Erlon’s I Corps marched from Oakdale to Hilltown” with neither of those metropolises shown on the accompanying map.

Other than that, the book was excellent, and may well be the definitive account of the battle. I recommend it highly.

13 for the Year

Finished two more books this week. First up was Alex Cross’s Trial by James Patterson and Richard DiLallo. This book caught my interest because of the “hook”, the book is purportedly a novel written by Alex Cross, recounting an old Cross family legend about Alex’s relative, Abraham Cross, and Abraham’s  grand-daughter, whose name escapes me. Anyway, this is a fairly standard “wasn’t Jim Crow and all the lynching going on in Mississippi and the rest of the South around the turn of the century horrible” novel.

The book is about a bright young lawyer from Miss. sent by Teddy Roosevelt to investigate reports of the resurgence of the Klan in Mississippi. The rest of the book is about what you’d expect. Neither well written, nor compelling, it was just kind of there. I finished it, but only because I had started it and wondered what the end state of the characters would be. Not recommended.

If you’re interested in Jim Crow and the plight of blacks in the deep South read something a bit more factual such as Allen et al’s Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America or (especially!) Doug Blackmon’s Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.

Next up was the outstanding, A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn – the Last Great Battle of the American West by James Donovan.  This book is the best account of “Custer’s last stand” that I’ve found. It starts with a brief biographical sketch of Custer and then proceeds to a brief account of the history of White/Indian relations since the European discovery of the new world. Both of these “asides” provide really valuable context for understanding the Indians, the US Army and specifically, the Black Hills War.

The next section of the book describes Custer’s command of the 7^th, his performance at the Battle of Washita and the general plan Terry conceived for the converging columns. Donovan has made good use of primary sources from both Indian oral histories and white memoirs. He describes the actual battle very clearly and lucidly, from both the Indian and the Cavalry perspectives.  He does an especially good job of keeping the reader oriented to the separate movements of the three columns (Custer, Reno and Benteen). Donovan also gives a great deal of attention to the epic two day Reno-Benteen fight.  I haven’t seen that in previous books, which tended to focus almost exclusively on Custer.

Donovan closes the book with a fairly detailed description of the aftermath of the battle, the Reno court of inquiry in 1879 and what happened to all these people after the battle. I was shocked to find that the last white survivor, Charles Windolph, only passed away in 1950!

Donovan’s view of Custer is more nuanced that many I’ve read. As he sees it, there was a confluence of several factors that sealed Custer’s fate. First, was Crook’s inconclusive fight at Rosebud, which placed added pressure on Custer to fight a decisive battle. Second was the failure of the Agency officials to notify the Army that large numbers of Indian warriors were leaving the agency to bolster the numbers of the Indian forces. The best information the Army had indicated a maximum of 800-900 warriors, the actual number was probably double that. Third was previous experience that indicated that Indians generally lacked commitment to offensive action that would cost them casualties. This in turn meant that Army units could routinely hold off 2-3 times their own numbers while awaiting relief.

Given the pressure on Custer for a decisive battle, the estimate of correlation of forces, and previous experience, dividing his command made sense. Unfortunately the force he kept with him was simply too small to effectively resist that vast number of Indians he encountered.

All in all, this was an excellent book, the best single volume I’ve encountered on the battle and one I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in the battle.

11 for the year.

Just finished The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer. This book gives are fairly detailed yet still extremely accessible view of life in England during the 14th century. The twist of this book is that it is written as if it were a guidebook for time travelers who were contemplating visiting that era.

The book describes all of the sights, sounds and smells of medieval England in great detail. It also has sections detailing what you can expect in the way of food, drink and lodging as well as providing a fairly comprehensive description of correct behavior, including what to do if you’re arrested and accused of a felony (claim “benefit of clergy” and read aloud whatever bible passage they put in front of you!). It even included tables for “tourist attractions” such as Cathedrals and the various repositories of Saints relics.

The book was tremendously engaging, and very educational. I enjoyed it immensely and would suggest it to pretty much anyone who was even vaguely interested in life in medieval England. It would be especially good for early high-school aged kids (or precocious middle-schoolers).

9 for the year.

Three more books finished. First was Almost A Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence by John Ferling. This is a military history of the American War of Independence and therefore gives very little coverage to the political side of things. With that understood, this is an excellent book.

The book is structured in an interesting way, before dealing with each year, Ferling presents a short chapter “Choices, 177X”. In this chapter, he describes the general military situation and the resources each side can access to address that situation. The chapter also generally includes each sides “plan” for the year. Then the following chapters give details about the progress of events and the execution (or lack thereof) of the plans.

The book has just the right level of detail, generally dealing with the “operational” level of the various campaigns, rather than the tactical details of the individual battles. The book is also especially strong on the personalities of the various Generals involved, both British and American. Ferling clearly shows how those personalities interacted, and to a large extent, drove the events.

I quite enjoyed the book, and learned an awful lot about the military operations of the AWI, especially about the operational context of the battles I was already familiar with such as Saratoga, Monmouth and Brandywine.

I was very surprised to learn how poorly “generaled” both sides were in this war. Several times Washington made critical mistakes which only the indolence and incompetence of Howe prevented from ending the war. And then, once the French entered, Washington became incredibly cautious and seemed unwilling to commit the Continental army to any battle that would risk defeat.

Similarly, Howe never seemed to grasp the need for a realistic, comprehensive strategy for suppressing the rebellion, nor did he understand the need for prompt, decisive action in executing even the half-baked plans he did come up with. Similarly, Clinton dithered until he adopted the “Southern Strategy” in 1778. And Clinton’s failure to evacuate Cornwallis ultimately cost Britain the war in 1781. Neither general seemed to understand the incredible advantage they possessed in the Royal Navy’s more or less complete command of the coast of the colonies (de Grasse’s temporary advantage after the Battle of the Chesapeake not withstanding).

The only thing that could reasonably be defined as a shortcoming is the paucity of maps. Oddly enough for an operationally focused book, many of the maps were tactical illustrations of the battles. These were quite useful in lieu of detailed narratives of each battle, but totally lacking in operational context. It would have been very useful for each year to have an operationally focused campaign map of that years action.

As I mentioned above, this book is almost completely focused on the military aspects of the War, there is very little on political issues, so it should not be the first book a reader tackles on the American Revolution. I recommend The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 by Robert Middlekauff.

Second up was Bending the Rules: What American Priests Tell American Catholics by Jim Bowman. This was an interesting little book illustrating the breakdown between Rome and the American Church. In this book, Bowman interviewed 28 serving priests about their experience with a variety of issues; birth control, abortion, marriage & divorce, altar girls, gays & lesbians, liturgy and the Pope.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that these priests aren’t “enforcing” Rome’s directives on these issues with the laity. What was interesting, was the differences in the pastoral responses of these priests and the thought process that led them to their position.

The book was a bit of a disappointment in that I didn’t actually learn anything new, just kind of confirmed that my experience with the parishes I’ve been a member of is very widespread.

The book was written in 1994, based on interviews conducted a cohort of priests who had been ordained from 1955 until about 1975. I would be very interested in reading a similar book including input from Priests who had been ordained between 1975 and say 1995.

Not a bad book, just dated and lacking anything new.

Last was Home For Christmas by Andrew Greeley. This is a sort of a Catholic version of Five People You Meet in Heaven, by a Catholic Priest who writes “novels of Grace” showing how God interacts with us in every day life.

The plot revolves around a US Army 1st Cav Captain in Iraq who has a near death experience as a result of suicide bombing. The Capt is clinically dead for about 9 minutes and gets a fairly comprehensive look at the hereafter, at the end of which God sends him back to “take care of” his childhood sweetheart. Kind of schmaltzy and melodramatic, but, my Priest friend assures me, doctrinally sound. Like Jane Austin, most Greeley novels end in a marriage, and this one is no exception. At 192 pages it took me a couple of hours to knock it off. Highly recommended if (and this is a big IF) you’re into this sort of thing. If you’re not into this sort of thing, but still curious, I recommend Contract With an Angel by the same author.

8 for the year