Finally got a copy of a book that was on my 'get' list for a long time, 'Combat Command: The American Aircraft Carriers in the Pacific War' by Fred Sherman, Adm., USN, rtd., published in 1950. It is an important account by an Admiral that was heavily engaged, being the CO of Task Group 38.3 at Leyte Gulf. -- Al
What are the Forum members reading (2 Viewers)
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Terp152
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Listening to audio book "Sink 'Em All" by Admrial Charles A Lockwood, COMSUBPAC. Had the actual book for 30+ yrs and never found time to read it. Good account of Pacific War sub action by the CO but not as good at the two volume Silent Victory by Clair Blair. Probably the difference of writings by a retired military officer, who wrote something like 6 books, and a professional military historian. Some of Lockwoods books, Up Pericscope, were made into movies.
May have to pick up the Navy Log tv series.
Chris
May have to pick up the Navy Log tv series.
Chris
I also used to have Lockwood's book and never got around to reading it. I did read Blair's book and maybe that was the reason for not reading Lockwood. Felt like Blair covered all I wanted to know about the Pig Boats. I do love sub movies.:wink2: -- Al
Terp152
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Al, another Blair book you may enjoy is Ridgeway's Paratroopers. Good account of the Normandy and Holland campaigns.
Silent Victory is on the re-read list, although I'm not sure I'll ever get back to it. :redface2: Chris
Chris, the book on the paratroopers and the U-boat campaign book Blair did are books that I had but never got to. I did read his book 'Return From the River Kwai' and his one on Bradley and I have his book on Korea somewhere in my collection waiting to be read. My list of books to read is almost endless.:rolleyes2: -- Al
nospoj
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Just finished reading 'Challenge of Battle' by Adrian Gilbert. 'The Real Story of The British Army in 1914' re-evaluating the Army's leadership, organisation and tactics; with the commanders facing the realities of a modern war with outdated tactics.
BHogan
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nospoj
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I enjoyed it. Now I'll have to re-read the volume 1 official history to see what he was writing about for errors , ommissions and misleading statements. One day I've promised myself a trip round the area in depth, I've only managed Ypres up to now.
BHogan
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I'm sure that'll make for an interesting comparison and visiting the ground that the battles were fought on is always a good idea. It gives you a whole new appreciation for the time and space.
Brendan
Terp152
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SInk 'Em All by Admiral Lockwood got me in the mood to watch some USN WWII shows. Just ordered Navy Log and The Silent Service on Ebay. Al, I'm sure you will remember those '50s tv series. Chris
Intersting, Chris. I have memories of The Silent Service but not Navy Log. Will have to look it up. -- Al
Combat
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Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbothom. Pretty interesting and frightening account of the nuclear disaster. It's odd that the concerns about nuclear power plants have largely diminished over the last couple of decades. That used to be a hot topic issue. They were recently talking about closing the Three Mile Island reactor in PA. Not due to safety concerns but because of lack of probability. I always wonder what happens to these nuclear plants in those post-apocalypse shows like the Walking Dead. I imagine it wouldn't be good for them to be unattended for very long. LOL.
Combat
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This one looks interesting:
The Polar Bear Expedition
James Carl Nelson’s The Polar Bear Expedition draws on an untapped trove of firsthand accounts to deliver a vivid, soldier’s-eye view of an extraordinary lost chapter of American history—the invasion of Russia one hundred years ago during the last days of the Great War.
In the winter of 1919, 5,000 U.S. soldiers, nicknamed “The Polar Bears,” found themselves hundreds of miles north of Moscow in desperate, bloody combat against the newly formed Soviet Union’s Red Army. Temperatures plummeted to sixty below zero. Their guns and their flesh froze. The Bolsheviks, camouflaged in white, advanced in waves across the snow like ghosts.
The Polar Bears, hailing largely from Michigan, heroically waged a courageous campaign in the brutal, frigid subarctic of northern Russia for almost a year. And yet they are all but unknown today. Indeed, during the Cold War, two U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, would assert that the American and the Russian people had never directly fought each other. They were spectacularly wrong, and so too is the nation’s collective memory.
It began in August 1918, during the last months of the First World War: the U.S. Army’s 339th Infantry Regiment crossed the Arctic Circle; instead of the Western Front, these troops were sailing en route to Archangel, Russia, on the White Sea, to intervene in the Russian Civil War. The American Expeditionary Force, North Russia, had been sent to fight the Soviet Red Army and aid anti-Bolshevik forces in hopes of reopening the Eastern Front against Germany. And yet even after the Great War officially ended in November 1918, American troops continued to battle the Red Army and another, equally formidable enemy, “General Winter,” which had destroyed Napoleon’s Grande Armée a century earlier and would do the same to Hitler’s once-invincible Wehrmacht.
More than two hundred Polar Bears perished before their withdrawal in July 1919. But their story does not end there. Ten years after they left, a contingent of veterans returned to Russia to recover the remains of more than a hundred of their fallen brothers and lay them to rest in Michigan, where a monument honoring their service still stands.
In the century since, America has forgotten the Polar Bears’ harrowing campaign. Russia, notably, has not, and as Nelson reveals, the episode continues to color Russian attitudes toward the United States. At once epic and intimate, The Polar Bear Expedition masterfully recovers this remarkable tale at a time of new relevance.
The Polar Bear Expedition
James Carl Nelson’s The Polar Bear Expedition draws on an untapped trove of firsthand accounts to deliver a vivid, soldier’s-eye view of an extraordinary lost chapter of American history—the invasion of Russia one hundred years ago during the last days of the Great War.
In the winter of 1919, 5,000 U.S. soldiers, nicknamed “The Polar Bears,” found themselves hundreds of miles north of Moscow in desperate, bloody combat against the newly formed Soviet Union’s Red Army. Temperatures plummeted to sixty below zero. Their guns and their flesh froze. The Bolsheviks, camouflaged in white, advanced in waves across the snow like ghosts.
The Polar Bears, hailing largely from Michigan, heroically waged a courageous campaign in the brutal, frigid subarctic of northern Russia for almost a year. And yet they are all but unknown today. Indeed, during the Cold War, two U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, would assert that the American and the Russian people had never directly fought each other. They were spectacularly wrong, and so too is the nation’s collective memory.
It began in August 1918, during the last months of the First World War: the U.S. Army’s 339th Infantry Regiment crossed the Arctic Circle; instead of the Western Front, these troops were sailing en route to Archangel, Russia, on the White Sea, to intervene in the Russian Civil War. The American Expeditionary Force, North Russia, had been sent to fight the Soviet Red Army and aid anti-Bolshevik forces in hopes of reopening the Eastern Front against Germany. And yet even after the Great War officially ended in November 1918, American troops continued to battle the Red Army and another, equally formidable enemy, “General Winter,” which had destroyed Napoleon’s Grande Armée a century earlier and would do the same to Hitler’s once-invincible Wehrmacht.
More than two hundred Polar Bears perished before their withdrawal in July 1919. But their story does not end there. Ten years after they left, a contingent of veterans returned to Russia to recover the remains of more than a hundred of their fallen brothers and lay them to rest in Michigan, where a monument honoring their service still stands.
In the century since, America has forgotten the Polar Bears’ harrowing campaign. Russia, notably, has not, and as Nelson reveals, the episode continues to color Russian attitudes toward the United States. At once epic and intimate, The Polar Bear Expedition masterfully recovers this remarkable tale at a time of new relevance.
jazzeum
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This is a book full of detail and written with panache. It's probably the best one volume biography of Churchill ever written
This is a continuation of Quiet Flows the Don. The book was not easy to find. It's time for a new translation, not that there is anything wrong with this one, but one hadn't been done in years.
Terp152
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70 of the 200 deaths were from disease, so the battle casualties, thankfully, were not paticuarly high. Certainly they were lower than if the regiment had deployed to France as originally intended.
In 1982, yrs before the Wall came down, I visited the school house in East Berlin where the Germans signed surrender docs ending WWII. The Russinas had established a musuem there. It displayed photos of the Polar Bear Campaign. THe captions were in Russian, but I knew what they depicted. They had not forgotten our active participation in their revolution. Chris
Interesting stuff about 'Polar Bear'. The US had about 5000 troops at Archangel and the US had another 8000 troops of the 27th and 31st Regiments along with elements of the 8th ID at Vladivostok as part of the Siberian intervention. The last US troops left Siberia in 1920 and had suffered 189 deaths. Neither intervention did our relationship with the Bolsheviks any good.:rolleyes2: -- Al
Added a couple of PTO books. First one is a book I had 20 or so years ago, read, and then sold off. Bad mistake as it took me forever to fins a copy at a reasonable price to replace it. The book is 'Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy 1887-1941' by Evans & Peattie. It is a Naval Institute Press book, and is 661 pages of important information covering the aspects of what made the IJN such a formidable foe in WW2. Illustrated with portrait photos of personalities, line drawings of ships, planes, and various charts. Highly recommended. The second acquisition is a highly detailed study, 'The Battle Off Samar: Taffy III at Leyte Gulf'; A detailed account of the heroic naval battle between Rear Admiral Clifton A.F. Sprague's Task Unit 77.4.3 and Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's Imperial Japanese Navy Centre Force on Wednesday, 25 October 1944'. Written by John Cox and first published in 2010, this is a 5th edition. It is 268 pages, is heavily illustrated and has many situation charts. The author has a website, www.bosamar.com , where the book can be ordered and the history of the Battle off Samar can be read about. It is a good site. -- Al
blaster
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I'm reading the latest issue of Ancient History 20, Feb Mar 2019. I bought it at the newsstand as the issue focuses on Culture, Socety and Politics in the Achaemenid Empire. Light reading but great introduction to this Persian Empire with some nice pics.
Rgds Victor
Rgds Victor