Book Review - The Claws of the Bear by Brian Moynahan

The Claws of the Bear: a History of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1917 to the Present

by Brian Moynahan

London: Arrow Books, 1990 (first published 1989)        ISBN 0099682001

An interesting history not only capturing the past, but the moment in time in which it was written. Brian Moynahan has not only given us a history of the USSR through the lens of its armed forces, but also a "state of the union" of those same armed forces at the moment just prior to the collapse of the superpower.

He begins his history with World War I and the catastrophic failures of the Imperial Army, which became one of the driving forces of the Revolution. In fact during the Civil War, the Red Army was officered mostly by ex-Imperial Army men and it was they, along with the absolute ruthlessness of Trotsky, that helped the Bolsheviks claim victory over the disparate and badly organised "White" armies.

Stalin, after his rise was only too aware that whatever legitimacy his regime held, his ability to stay in power relied totally on the Army: which was one of the reasons that he purged it so heavily, not only of ex-Imperial troops, but others as well.

The Nazi attack on the USSR was initially the Red Army's greatest tragedy, but became over the course of the War its greatest triumph. By the time they had reached Berlin, the Red Army was the most powerful force in the World, backed by a huge industrial base. They had learnt from their defeats, and with Eastern Europe as a buffer, were determined that the Russian heartland would never again be invaded.

Moynahan describes the War years well, and the post-war maneuverings with a good journalistic precis, keeping the story moving with just enough detail, describing the Cuban Crisis and interventions in Russia's Eastern neighbours. The Russian's sense of being surrounded by hostile forces led to the Cuban adventure, with Russia's back-down due to both the unexpected (from the Soviet viewpoint) stiffness of spine of the US, and the lack of Soviet long-range military capability to support their transports. The back-down eventually led to the fall of Krushchev, who was the leader that more than anyone else brought forward the USSR's missile forces as the elite arm of Soviet power.

The interventions in Hungary, Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia were driven almost exclusively by Soviet strategic thinking: they could not allow any independence of thought or action to endanger the buffer and launching pad that those countries were for Soviet Russia. Dissent was dealt with in overwhelming force and much brutality. Moynahan does not cover Korea or Vietnam in much detail at all, given the limited active combat undertaken by members of the Soviet armed forces in these conflicts. The USSR's Afghanistan venture gets good treatment, and Moynahan is perceptive in deciphering what the outcomes would be from that minor (at the time) disaster.

The last section of the book covers the current (as at 1989) state of the armed forces - numbers, equipment, strategy, and the espionage undertaken to keep the Soviets in the hunt technologically. Moynahan points out that the Soviet forces were geared for an offensive war, not one of defence, and he spends some time pondering what the fall of the Berlin Wall meant for that strategy. Of course with the benefit of hindsight we can see that he was writing at the peak moment for Soviet forces, as not long after the publication of this book the whole thing fell apart, politically and militarily.

This is a book of its time, but even for the modern reader there is much in this of use, especially the sections dealing with World War II and the post-war conflicts.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The Third Reich at War by Richard J. Evans

The Third Reich at War : how the Nazis led Germany from Conquest to Disaster
by Richard J. Evans

London: Penguin, 2008 (first published 2007)     ISBN 9780141015484

There is no doubt that both the collapse of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe and the passing of the war generation has led to a revolution in the historiography of both the Third Reich and World War Two. One allowed historians access to hitherto hidden archives, and the other has allowed a less personal and more probing look at what went on during the years 1933-1945.

With these advantages, and building on the work of historians before him, Richard Evans has written a detailed, scathing and (as it says on the cover) terrifying account of the Third Reich during the period of the War (1939-1945). This book is the final of a three part account of Nazism written by Evans (the others being The Coming of the Third Reich, and The Third Reich in Power). Along with Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler and Saul Friedlander's history of the Holocaust, Evans' work gives the early twenty-first-century reader a clear and chilling insight into what was perhaps the most murderous regime in history.

What Evans makes clear in this work is that murder - annihilation of entire sections of society, entire classes and indeed entire races - was at the core of everything National Socialism stood for. Their way of "making Germany great again" consisted only of eliminating "enemies". Evans shows us how much time, effort and expense went in to eliminating not only the Jews, but anyone else that the Nazis felt needed to be got rid of.

Hitler, and by extension the cronies he'd gathered around him, had a very narrow idea of what constituted a good German: anyone who didn't fit that idea, and certainly anyone who wasn't German (or "Aryan") was not considered to be human, and so fit for destruction. The warped Social Darwinism of the Nazis drove them to ever more killing, as the stock of "good Germans" was reduced by the war. The executions continued up to (and even beyond) the end of hostilities.

Evans mentions several times throughout the book that the Nazis never garnered more than about 37% of the popular vote in elections, so how did they manage to keep the whole country under control for so long? There was no doubt that Nazi Germany was a police state, which became ever more the case as the war dragged on. Fear was a big factor in the quiescence of the population. The victories early in the war were genuinely popular, and by the time the war turned against Germany, it was clear that a whirlwind of vengeance would descend, and the Nazis played on that fear to keep the country fighting. Much of the population, as Evans suggests, were by this time expending all their energy in trying to get enough food and fuel to live, and so didn't have time to foment rebellion.

Apart from the July plot, there were other small attempts at defiance of the regime, which usually ended in failure, imprisonment or worse. Evans spends some time on the ambivalent attitude of the Church - both Roman Catholic and Protestant - to Hitler and the regime, with their desire to protest compromised by their desire to not lose their position or possession in society. It's fair to state that they don't come through unscathed by shame.

Evans also spends time focusing on the political economy of the War. That Germany was destroyed by the War we know; that it was always going to be the case was probably not in doubt even early on in the conflict. The German economy was simply not big enough to equip an army for the task Hitler set, nor was the German population big enough to replace the horrendous losses entailed in fighting in Russia. Evans shows clearly that, even without US industry, the Allies were producing more weapons and food than Germany. Despite having over 400,000 foreign workers and hundreds of thousands more POW and Concentration Camp inmates working in agriculture and industry (the latter classes often being worked to death), the German economy was simply unable to provide enough material for the Army to prevail. The irony of the racial state of the Third Reich having to rely on the "lower" races (Slavs, Jews) to undertake vital work is not lost on Evans. Any fraternising between these imported workers and native Germans was forbidden, with harsh punishments for those who transgressed.

What comes through very clearly in Evans' work, and indeed through most studies of the government of the Third Reich, was how - apart from the Police apparatus - shambolic the systems and activities of government were. The personalized nature of the Nazi dictatorship meant that all "law" emanated from Hitler, and so when he did not codify activities and behaviour, his disciples made it up, according to what they thought he wanted. Combined with Hitler's inability to delegate power to one person (most areas of the economy had two or three departments attempting to run them), this led to constant bickering and power-grabs by whomever thought they might have the upper hand at the time. This extended into the military sphere as well, with Albert Speer's attempts to streamline military production constantly stymied by personal projects of other Nazi leaders.

At well over seven hundred pages this is not a short book, and given its subject matter not always easy to read, but it is a masterful overview of the final years of Nazi power, which drew the World into a War that ended up destroying not only the Third Reich, but Germany itself. Designed to be read as a stand-alone book or as the final of Evans' trilogy, it's a must-read not only for those who wish to know more about one of the darkest periods in human history, but also for serious students of World War Two.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The last year of the Luftwaffe by Alfred Price

The last year of the Luftwaffe: May 1944 to May 1945 by Alfred Price

London: Greenhill, 2001                      ISBN 1853674400

This book is a handy little history of the death throes of the once world-conquering Luftwaffe. It is a succinct chronicle of the activities, weapons and politics of the final twelve months of this fighting force.

Beginning his narrative in the build up to D-Day, Price describes how what was, in May 1944, a formidable force awaiting invasion and the resumption of the Soviet advance, became, in May 1945 a force with no bombers, no pilots and no fuel, that could barely fly a single plane into Berlin.

Price makes clear a few points that I think are worth noting: despite the Allied bombing the German aircraft factories continued to push out record numbers of 'planes, partly by severely rationalizing the models produced. Thus, there was never a shortage of fighters at any time, to the extent that by 1945 if a 'plane got damaged it wasn't repaired, as it was simpler to take a new one from an aircraft park.

What the Allied bombing did do however, was to cripple the fuel supply to the Luftwaffe. This became one of the major impediments to continued flying by the force. In April 1944 175,000 tons of fuel was produced, but in June that figure had reduced to 55,000 tons. Later in the book Price notes - referring to the deployment of the Heinkel He 177 heavy bomber - "If the heavy bomber force mounted ten sorties per aircraft per month, and the operational training organization turns out new crews at a rate sufficient to replace moderate attrition, about 35,000 tons of aviation fuel would have been required per month [assuming a fleet of 270 bombers, which was about one-twentieth of the numbers of heavy bombers available to the USAAF and RAF]. That was nearly one-fifth of the total German aviation fuel production in May 1944, the month when production reached it's peak." This fuel crisis became the major problem for the Luftwaffe into 1945.

One shibboleth that Price convincingly demolishes is the idea that Hitler's requirement that the Me 262 be developed as a ground attack aircraft delayed the implementation of this weapon to the extent that Germany lost the air war. Price shows that the Me 262 was not delayed by the decision to turn it into a bomb-carrier, but by the unserviceability of its engines - the first squadrons were deployed with an engine life of 10 hours, which meant that they were almost impossible to keep in the field. The training of pilots to fly these difficult aircraft was also an issue, with some units being withdrawn to retrain the pilots after their first initial injection into the fight.

The reason the Me 262 was deployed before it was ready, and why other more-or-less ineffective weapons such as the Me 163, the Bachem Natter and various missiles were the subject of much work, was to try and find an effective counter to the massive Allied air raids that were flying at will over the Reich. Price recounts the telling statistics that despite the best efforts of the Germans, loss rates for the Allied bombers never climbed much about 3% per mission from all sources. The German fighter loss rate was higher, and unlike the Allies, who could easily replace both pilots and 'planes, the Luftwaffe was rapidly running out of experienced pilots.

The thinking of the Nazi hierarchy did not help either - there were several attempts at "decisive blows" such as Operation Bodenplatte. Given the overwhelming material advantage of the Allies, these large-scale operations never had a chance of having a decisive impact on the Allies war effort, and in fact usually resulted in the loss of precious pilots, while using up ever more of the dwindling stocks of fuel.

As the final few months of the War closed in, more desperate tactics began to be thought of. The strange piggy-back Mistel "flying bombs" were used in a vain attempt to slow the Russian advance, and pilots were trained for ramming attacks against the bomber formations. These schemes did nothing to halt the inevitable.

For those with an interest in this subject, this book is well worth picking up: it is well-written and contains useful charts and statistics, as well as a bibliography. The index is next-to-useless, but that is to be expected in a work published by Greenhill. One for aficionados.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Stuka Pilot by Hans Ulrich Rudel

Stuka pilot by Hans Ulrich Rudel, foreword by Douglas Bader, translated by Lyndon Hudson

Dublin Euphorion Books 1952

Hans Ulrich Rudel was the most highly decorated German soldier of World War II, being the only person to receive the Golden Oak Leaves with Swords and Diamonds to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. He earned this award for flying over 2000 missions in an obsolescent aircraft, and destroying hundreds of Russian tanks.

This memoir takes us from his very unpromising first flights through to the German defeat and his imprisonment and eventual release by the allies in 1946. It is a story that , if it was fiction, would not be believed. Rudel was posted to a Stuka squadron, and as someone who struggled in training, had to earn the respect of his squadron before being allows to go on missions. Once he earned that right, his fitness, ability and unswerving dedication earned him the respect of all Germans, up to and including the Fuhrer. Rudel served on the Eastern Front for his war, and his memoir is a story of successes followed by the long retreat into the heart of the Reich. As such it is a harrowing story of failure against huge odds and the loss of friends one after the other.

Rudel was shot down over a dozen times, and the stories of his escapes from the Russian forces almost beggar belief - which only added to his fame and notoriety on the Eastern front. The one thing Rudel wished to do above all others was fly. On more than one occasion the Reichsmarshall and even the Fuhrer forbade him to continue flying, but he disobeyed all orders to do so. By the end of the war he felt a personal responsibility to protect Germany and flew sortie after sortie, even after he had lost a leg. Eventually the end came, and he had to try to come to terms with all the death for no outcome. His time in captivity was mild - Douglas Bader tried to get him get an artificial leg, although the Americans were less friendly.

There are other points of interest in this book. The Russian fighter forces, even to the end of the war are rated as substandard by Rudel, apart from a very few pilots. Its clear to Rudel that, from 1944 on, the standard and level of command in the German army fell away. Like many German memoirs of war from the eastern front, the reader gets a sense of the long, bloody and inevitable retreat that took years and millions of lives - it is almost unbearable to read, so to live through it must have been like being in hell.

While Rudel is not overtly Nazi or political in the book, he has a strange naivety about the aggressiveness of Germany, continually failing to understand why there is such enmity to their country. In fact I wonder if indeed there isn't a hidden message in the book - the final paragraph: "I dedicate this book to the dead in this war and to youth. This new generation now lives in the frightful chaos of the post-war period. May it, nevertheless, keep alive its faith in the fatherland and its hope in the future; for only he is lost who gives himself up for lost!" - seems to almost deny the evil criminality of what had occurred during the war. Added to this Rudel's post war stints in Argentina and Stroessner's Uruguay where he spent time with Mengele, and there is some not to pleasant speculation the reader can make about Rudel.

A point of bibliographic interest is the publication of this book in Ireland. Apparently 1952 was still too soon for a book such as this to be published in England itself, although the printing was done there.

As wartime pilot memoirs go, this is a good one. if you can find this I highly recommend it.


Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The Red Air Force at war : air combat over the Eastern Front and Korea : a Soviet figher pilot remembers

Red Air Force at war : air combat over the Eastern Front and Korea : a Soviet fighter pilot remembers by Sergei Kramarenko

(Translators: Vladimir Krupnik and John Armstrong. Editor: Sergei Anisimov. English text: Chirstopher Summerville)

Barnsley, Sth. Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, 2008                  ISBN 9781844157358


Sergei Kramarenko was the first "ace" of the jet era, downing 15 US and Australian jets in the Korean War, to add to his two victories in World War II. This short book is his story. Sent into combat in World War II, the first section of the book describes Segei's underdone training - sent to an operational unit not long after his first solo flight, he was flying against FW190s when all he'd done is fly a circuit around the airfield. He was shot down, and was a POW of the Germans for a short period before he was liberated by the Red Army, and taken to hospital for a long and painful recovery from burns and broken bones.

The action quickly moves on to the final years of the war, when Kramarenko has become a veteran pilot, covering the advance to Berlin. After his triumphant return, Kramarenko and his colleagues are moved to Moscow to start training on the new jet aircraft, moving quickly to pilot the MiG15, which was one of the most advanced jet fighters in the World at the time.

At the beginning of the Korean War, his whole squadron "volunteered" to go and fight for the DPRK, and the second half of the book describes his time flying over "MiG Alley" and tackling the USAF and the RAAF.

This book is inherently interesting, as there are not too many books available to English-language readers that look at Korea from the "other side". Unfortunately, unlike other pilot's memoirs from the likes of Pierre Clostermann or Adolf Galland, this book lacks background, is written in a very bald style, and is too episodic to be considered a good example of this genre of writing.

The book is also hindered by the publisher - I've read a few of Pen & Sword's books, and they are always so much less than they could be. I assume they are a relatively small outfit, and can't afford to expend much time or money in the editing of their books, which is a shame, as every Pen & Sword title I've read has been let down by poor editing.

This title is no different - items that should be footnotes are inserted into the text in square brackets - Russian words are not translated and then explained by square brackets; again, footnote either the translation or the Russian word. The translation is far too literal "list" used where the appropriate English term is "bank". These problems are scattered throughout the text. What is evident from these sorts of problems is that the translator has not thought about the reader of the text in a coherent way, and unfortunately there seems to have been no editor to fix up this problem. It's a real shame as the book seems more amateurish than it should. The index, as is becoming far too common, looks like it was automatically generated by a computer program; i.e. many entries, most of which are useless for navigating the book.

So, I would only recommend this title if you were a serious student of the air war in Korea, and don't mind ploughing through some painful intrusions into what is a poorly executed book.



Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell