Airship.  It's about the commercial zeppelins.

"US Infantry Weapons in Combat: Personal Experiences from World War II and Korea" by Mark G. Goodwin.

Best $18 I've spent in a long while.  Couldn't put it down.

God is my Copilot, by Col Robert Scott.

I read it a while ago, but in re-reading it, Col Scott seems like a publicity hound.

The OSS in China.  It's another Naval Institute Press book that was on sale.

Punk Rock Dad by Jim Lindberg

Remember it was written in 1943 and part of its was (propaganda) to encourage Americans on the war effort.

I put down The OSS in China to read Duels In The Sky.  Unfortunately, the author Eric Brown never flew in P-40.

Clear the Bridge by Richard O'Kane.

Just got and perused through Denison: British Airborne Specialist Clothing from WWII to the present day by Bruce Wilson.

Very well-done book. Excellent pictures, thorough descriptions, and in-depth history about the garments and the men who used them. Plus, a portion of the proceeds go to the Air Assault Museum in the UK.

Theodore Mason's We Will Stand By You.  The title comes from the ocean going tugboat, USS Pawnee's captain.   The Pawnee was towing the USS Houston, a Cleveland class CL when she was hit but a torpedo.  Threatened with another attack, if the Houston went down she would drag the Pawnee with her.  The Pawnee's skipper had to make a decision.  Abandon the Houston and save his ship or continue with his misson of towing her to safety.  He chose the latter and signaled the Houston, "We will stand by you."  Brave man, brave ship.

Mason hated the skipper but respected him after that.

American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church



It's a good read.  I'm enjoying it.  It's the history of Joseph Smith and the Mormon Church.  I had no idea that much of the Mormon religion is based upon Freemasonry.

Rendezvous With Destiny by Theodore Mason.  It's the final book in Mason's triology about his experiences in WW II.  He offers insights that were not shared in his previous two books, like how the Pawnee acquired its mascot, the cat, V-6, and where it was lost.  He also talks about shore leave in San Francisco and many of the places or locations are known to me.  I would have loved to have seen the battleship fleet from Telegraph Hill (Coit Tower) in SF (my father did).

Mason's third book was fun for me because he spent a lot of time in my native city and describes the areas I ran around in.  The the third in a trilogy of Mason's account of WW II as a common sailor, the preceding books being Battleship Sailor and We Will Stand By You, Mason was aboard the USS California when she was sunk at Pearl Harbor and from her mainmast saw the Arizona blow up.  Anyway, after the California was sunk Mason was sent to Yerba Buena/Treasure Island and played Shore Patrol while waiting for his assignment to a new command.  Mason provides some interesting descriptions of San Francisco and had Chinatown as his beat where he and his partner swept up drunk or troublesome sailors.   They'd walk on one side of Grant from California down to Columbus, turn around and walk back on the other side.  

Mason also worked as a teamster to raise money for his one week leaves.  He learned about the waterfront and the riots there in the late '30s.  

Here's a saying from back then:

The miners came in forty-nine
The whores in fifty-one
The two got together
And made the Native Son.

HMNZS Achilles. About the light cruiser Achilles and her actions during WW II.

Finished the HMNZS Achilles.  Per the author, under forced draught, the 32.5 kt rated Achilles achieved 36 kts!  During the battle of River Plate, the Achilles also tripled her maximum expected rate of fire for her 6" guns.  Her crew was that well trained.

Enough with naval history for now.  Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man.  It's about the Great Depression.

Black Edelweiss: A Memoir of Combat and Conscience by a Soldier of the Waffen-SS, Johann Voss.

Voss volunteered for the Waffen-SS and trained as a mountain soldier then saw extensive action against the Soviets in Finland, then the Finns when Mannerheim cut a deal with Stalin.

He made the long march up the peninsula and then saw action against the US in the Vosges as part of Nordwind until his capture in early 1945.  

He wrote the good as a POW so most of the recollections are clear and current.  The writing flips between his time in the field and his time the POW camp with quite a bit of reflection on what he thought was the basis for the war and what he found out after his capture.

Reading works from the "opposite" side are always interesting and illuminating.

I am just finishing up Coming to age by Anne Moody. She is a civil rights activists from Mississippi. She was one of the first to do sit ins at Woolworth who refused to serve blacks. Very powerful memoir.

Mark Felton's Never Surrender: Dramatic Escapes From Japanese Prison Camps

Vasily B. Emelianenko's Red Star Against The Swastika. Emelianenko was a sturmovike pilot during WW II.

Just finished Tomas Fernyhough's Marines to 95th (Rifles). Fernyhough was a lieutenant in the Royal Marines who fought at Bueno Aires and was captured there (as were the rest of the British sent there).  Paroled, he returned to England and with much effort was transferred to the 95th Rifles where he fought in Spain and while missing Waterloo (his battatlion was short of rifles), was present for the pursuit of Napoleon in to Paris and that city's occupation.

Annie Jacobsen's Operation Paperclip.  The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America.  I knew about Paperclip decades ago, but this is the first book I've come across that details it.

The Nazis had a very nasty poison gas, Tabun (aka Trilon 83, Substance 83, Gelan 1). One drop of this nerve agent on your skin or any inhalation and its over.  Why they didn't use it on the Russians escapes me.  Hitler after all was a mad man and thought if Germany couldn't win the war, the Germans were unworthy of living.  Therefore collateral consequences would not have even entered his mind.

ETA:  Finished it last night.  It's an impressive work and it explains some of the LSD experiments the CIA tried on its members as well as an unsuspecting pubic.  Some of those Nazi scientists really covered their tracks well and weren't revealed for the monsters they were until they passed away.  The author filed thousands of FOIA to attain information and book is well researched, endnoted and will probably be up for a second edition in ten years time when the secrecy on some files are lifted.

Roscoe C. Blunt's Foot Soldier: A Combat Infantry's War in Europe.  Blunt was a soldier in the 84th Infantry Division.  He was trained in explosive ordnance (mines, booby traps) and was transferred to an anti-tank unit after he fell out from a forced march.
One time he decides to search a building and it didn't occur to him until after he captures the first of twenty one Germans that all he had was a minesweeper which he waves menacingly at them.  

Another time he volunteers to go out on a night patrol to the German lines.  He gets separated from the lieutenant and winds up in front of a German sentry whom he knifes.  Unable to go back because of daylight, he observes the Germans set up some artillery and tanks.  At night he crawls back but now the password is changed.  The sentry calls out, "Buck" to which Blount replies, "Roger."  Nope.  Some cussing follows and after being grilled instead of drilled, the sentry lets him in.  The lieutenant finds him and had written him off for lost as he was missing for over 24 hours.  Anyway, the intelligence is passed on and the artillery score a direct hit on the Germans.

During the Battle of the Bulge Blunt and 17 others who were made into truck drivers were captured by an SS panzer unit.  They are forced to march behind the retreating Germans and fed very little.  One German secrets a loaf of bread to them and explains he was from New York.  He is shot by his comrades for that.  Later the Germans discuss what to do with them and it is decided to shoot them.   Blount then speaks up in German and asked to talk. Surprised, the German major accedes.  Blount explains that he is part of the 84th Infantry and that they teamed up with the 2nd Armor, Hells on Wheel.  He promises that if they surrender, that their lives will be spared.  The Germans asked for proof and Blount points out two mountain tops and says that American observers are watching them from it and can rain down artillery on them at any moment if they delay.  Suddenly an artillery barrage opens up on them. Blount dives beneath a panzer for safety and when the barrage lifts, no one, German or PoW is injured.  The major agrees to surrender and the column reaches American lines where Blount writes out a note in english stating that he had been captured and received good treatment.  The major salutes him (nazi style) and shouts, "Heil Hitler!"  Blount ignores this and doesn't return the salute.

They liberate a concentration camp and he meets one prisoner who gives him a tour.   Later on Blount is assigned as a temporary MP and is told to guard some prisoners including a Gestapo man.  He beats the man up and throws him several times into a manure pile. Mock executions begin to unnerve the Gestapo man.  Finally, Blount tells him in German that he saw the camp and pointed to another American and said, "He is a Jew.  He has also seen the camp."  The "Jew" then proceeds to wreak havoc on him too.  

Darn good book and there's plenty more in there including the time he got to play sniper Blount wasn't a good shot but managed to hit an artillery spotter at 500 yards.  Earlier, the spotter saw him and landed a shell in Blount's makeshift hideout so it was payback.

Brian Murphy's 81 Days Below Zero.  It's about the sole survivor of a B-24 crash in Alaska and his trek back.

Eric Lomax's The Railway Man.

Richard Heuer Jr's The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis

Gregory Fletcher's The Intrepid Aviators.  It's about the men who sank the IJN BB Musashi.  If you like WW II aircraft carriers, shipborne operations and WW II naval history, this book is great!  A bit over 1/3 the way through.

Just finished it this afternoon.  Our naval aviators used the hammer and anvil attack where the planes would split off with one side attacking port and the other starboard.  They learned from sinking the Musashi that this made damage control easier (damage control was able to correct the list after every attack) and when other squadrons attacked the Yamato, they approached from one side.  This made the subsequent sinking of the Yamato much quicker than the Musashi which went down much slower.

The author's father, Willard Fletcher, was shot down after the torpredo from his Avenger hit the Musashi.  He was rescued by the Filipino guerillas and participated in an ambush of a Japanese landing craft that was going to raid the island he was on. About thirty Filipino guerillas and twenty-nine rescued avaitors participated in the attack.

While some nervous person fired prematurely, the instensity of the first two volleys silenced the twenty Japanese soldiers and sailors who were on the wood landing boat.  The stern of the boat was aflame and the aviators and guerillas boarded the boat to capture the survivors and to salvage anything of use.  The guerillas were better armed afterward (more rifles, machineguns which they didn't have up to then and grenades) and came off with three wounded prisoners and three unharmred ones.  The Filipino women and villagers took care of the wounded prisoners while the guerillas protected the unwounded ones.

The Japanese sergeant glared with hatred at Willard Fletcher. Then he spat on Fletcher.  Fletcher's rage took over and he struck the sergeant in the face and then the stomach.  When the man buckled in pain, Fletcher kicked him in the groin, causing the prisoner to sink to his knees.  Fletcher pummeled the man on his head, driving him over his side.  He continued kicking and pummeling the man until the Filipino guerilla pulled him off.  Another guerilla approached and with two chops with his bolo, decapitated the prisoner.  The other two prisoners were taken away but were "shot" while trying to escape.  Willard received as a souvenir the bolo used to decapitate the prisoner.

Along with other Americans, Willard was taken to a secret rendezvous point where the USS Hake, SS-256, took them aboardship and transported them to Freemantle.

Harry Dent's The Demograhic Cliff.

The Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century by Larry H. Addington, and The Dead Hand by David Hoffman. I don't usually read two at once.

A couple of days ago I re-read Charles Davis' Letters of a Combat Rifleman.  He's not as good of a writer as Blount, but like Blount he was a looter and at one time he and his platoon lt. attempted to rob a German paymaster wagon that was surrendering.  They wanted their Swiss watches, pistols and the money    It was like Kelly's Heroes but without the tanks and supporting cast.  Instead, it was three GIs with plunder in their hearts arriving too late to intercept the wagon and instead got to see it move down the road where it was going to surrender itself to the Americans.

Just finished reading Jody Mitic's The Making of a Canadian Sniper.  It's a good book for anyone who has lost a limb.  Mitic stepped on a landmind and lost both legs.

Herbert Meager's Lost Honour, Betrayed Loyalty.  Less his mother be sent to a concentration camp for her unflattering remark about Hitler, a Belgian man is forced to volunteer into the Waffen SS.  His memoirs are of his service in the 1 LAH Div, his transfer to a partisan hunting brigade and finally his PoW experience with the Russians.

Just finished with:

Mission Memories- World War II, by Theodore Homdrom, St Paul, MN: privately published, July 2002, ISBN: 0-9721557-0-8

It tells the story of a Minnesota native's experiences, mostly as a B-17 navigator, in WWII.  The writing style is plain and straightforward, but very dry.  Homdrom tells of being drafted in March 1942, and training in tanks with the 5th Armored Division.  He applied for an AAF training slot, went through navigator training and flew 30 missions with the 381st Bomb Group, from December 1943 to June 1944.  He details a bit of his training and experiences in the military, but the bulk of the book is a recreation of his 30 missions from his wartime logs.  Some of his experiences seem a bit self-censored, such as his described friendships with women that he met- but this is not surprising in light of the fact that he became a Lutheran minister after the war.  One interesting anecdote concerned his return to the US after his tour.  He was assigned to be an instructor at the same navigator school he went through as a student.  The same instructors were still there, still Lieutenants, while he was a Captain with 2 DFCs. Air Medals, a Purple Heart, and 30 combat missions completed.

A Sniper's Conflict.   About 1/2 through.

The Upside of Down.

Put the above down to read Armin Bottger's To the Gate of Hell: The Memoir of a Panzer Crewman.  Bottger started out as a driver and then became a radio operator in the 24th Pz Division.

Inside the Neolithic Mind by David Lewis-Williams and David Pearce, an attempt to understand the psychology of Neolithic peoples through their remaining artifacts.

Barbarians by Terry Jones and Alan Ereira, a re-evaluation of the "barbarian" tribes and of the Romans (who may have not accurately represented their foes in historical writings).

When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson, a history of the German hyperinflation and the coming of the Nazi Party.

All of these are library books.

Adam Ferguson's, "When Money Dies: the Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation and Hyperinflation in Weimar Germany." The first couple of chapters point out what happened during WW I and how the German mark was devaluing back then.

Here's some interesting things:

Farmers were less affected since they were capable of producing their own essentials and adjusting the price of their commodities to reflect inflation. Landless peasants were not so well off and city dwellers even worse (p 107).

In February, 1922, Hans-Georg von der Osten secured a loan and bought a farm in Pomerania for 4 million marks. In the autumn, he sold his harvest and with less than half the proceeds, paid off his loan. Earlier in June, he bought 100 tons of maize for 8 million marks and a week later before it was delivered to him, he sold it back to the same dealer for 16 million. With a tidy profit of 8 million marks from his maize, he furnished his house with antique furniture, bought three guns, six suits and three of the most expensive shoes he could find in Berlin (p108-109).

Farmers used their paper marks as quickly as possible to purchase farm equipment and machinery. Homes, real estate, manufactured goods and raw materials held their value better than paper marks (p109).

The ones who did poorly were the college professors and men of science who had nothing to sell.

Municipalities began issuing their own currency (we've seen that recently in Utah where they recognized gold and silver as currency. Other states are discussing this.) People resorted to barter and slowly resorted to exchanging in foreign currencies (p 113).

Wages failed to keep up with prices and even the most fortunate folks who were able to have employment were impoverished. This adversely impacted the trade unions which could no longer threaten a strike and lost influence in politics and the workplace. Not that this prevented riots and there were plenty of them where people surrounded and beat up the police (p116).

There were food riots and plundering in Braunschweig and Berlin.

Stocks fell (1922) to 1/10 of its value in gold (p117).

Just finished Osprey # 202- Modern African Wars (2) - Angola and Mocambique 1961-1974

I'm on a Portuguese Colonial War kick.

Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion by Robert Aldrich

A Guide to the Atlantic Wall and D-Day Beaches (Calais to Cherbourg), by Ted Humes.  Phoenix AZ: Corporate West, Inc., 1984.  ISBN: 0-9613119-0-8

Mr. Humes provides a travel guide, current as of its date of publishing, to locate remaining German fortifications along the French coast.  He provides maps of site locations, pictures of sites, and brief descriptions of actions that took place at those sites- especially in Normandy.

The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam by Martin Windrow

In December 1953 French paratroopers, who had been searching for the elusive Vietnamese army, were quickly isolated by them and forced to retreat into their out-gunned and desolate jungle base-a small place called Dien Bien Phu. The Vietnamese besieged the French base for five long and desperate months. Eventually, the demoralized and weakened French were utterly depleted and withdrew in defeat. The siege at Dien Bien Phu was a landmark battle of the last century-the first defeat of modern western forces by an Asian guerilla army.The Last Valley is the first new account of the battle since the 1970s. The author has incorporated much new material from French and Vietnamese sources, including veteran interviews, making this the most complete account to-date.

Just started 3 RTR Bill Close's Tank Commander. Close saw action from France 1940 to the Western Desert and finally the liberation of Europe.

SPQR by Mary Beard.

Troop Commander by Bill Bellamy who commanded a troop of Cromwell tanks in the King's Hussars.  He later commanded a M-24 Chaffee.

Debt:  The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber--what is debt and why it has nothing to do with barter and very little to do with money.

The Invaders:  How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction by Pat Shipman--a re-evaluation of prehistory with humans cast as an invasive species.

Supervolcano:  The Catastrophic Event That Changed the Course of Human History by Dr. John Savino, Ph.D. and Marie D. Jones--regarding the Toba Bottleneck Theory.

Again, all of these are library books.

Steel My Soldiers' Hearts by Neil Stewart.  It's about Canadian tanks in WW II.

Just finished this one:


The Other Battle

Holy Crap this was a good book!!!!

R. L. Dinardo's Germany's Panzer Arm in WW II.   I bought it at a discount from E. Hamilton.