Book Review - Slim the Standardbearer by Ronald Lewin

 Slim the Standardbearer: a biography of Field-Marshall The Viscount Slim by Ronald Lewin

Ware, Herts.: Wordsworth Editions, 1999 (first published 1976)  ISBN 184022214X

This is a workmanlike biography of an interesting man. The major part of the book focusses on Slims' Burma Campaign, which in a sense is right and proper, but I when I finished the book I felt a little short-changed, as Slim has written so well about that himself. I was hoping for a little more insight into the man than this book delivered, but it was still worth reading to remind oneself of what an extraordinary life he led.

The son of a failed businessman, Slim dreamed of an early age of joining the army, but funds (lack of) seemed to scupper that wish, until the advent of war in 1914. Despite the myth that Slim became a Field-Marshall from the ranks, he was actually commissioned immediately as a second lieutenant owing to his time spend before the war in the Birmingham University OTC (despite not being a student at the University - the first example of "Slim's luck"). He was sent to Gallipoli, where he was wounded: after his recovery he was sent to Mesopotamia to assist in the relief of Kut, where he was wounded a second time. 

After the war he was transferred to the Indian Army where he served with Gurkhas. It seems that this was one of the happiest times of his life - there was much low-level action against rebellious tribes, he met and married his wife, and slowly made his way through the ranks, impressing at Staff College in Delhi and at the Imperial Defence College.

Interestingly he also spent these years writing short stories for money (even though Lewin's book is only just short of a hagiography, Slim's nose for cash runs through the book, from ensuring expense accounts were suitably large, to augmenting his pension in any way he thought he could), which I think is a fascinating insight, although one that Lewin doesn't ponder too much.

Although he is famous for his campaigning in Burma in World War Two, he also served in Ethiopia against the Italians (where he was wounded yet again), and in Iraq, before being sent East. There, in Burma, he famously led the retreat back to India, and then the advance back to Rangoon, through a series of excellent strategic and tactical manoeuvres, and (with the close support of Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Commander of the South East Asian Theatre) working his way through the politics of logistics, supply and recalcitrant commanders (Wingate, Stilwell).

This is the major part of Lewin's work, and he describes well what is required of someone commanding an Army, and how the fighting is just one part. It was in Burma that Slim's ability to get people to follow him, his ability to listen, to plan on the run, and to connect with the average soldier were so much on display. Burma in many ways was (and is) a forgotten campaign, and so Slim's capability has been lost in time as the European and Pacific Campaigns have garnered most of the glory. He was probably the best British field commander of the War.

After the War Slim finally got the job for which he had been destined for a long time - Chief of General Staff. It was a difficult time to undertake the role, with the Army moving from a wartime footing to understanding what it's role would be during the Cold War. Slim instituted many reforms during this time.

Then seemingly out of the blue he was asked to be Governor-General of Australia. He took on the role with gusto, and was again a trailblazer, being the first of the "modern" G-Gs, touring the country and being a force for unification, while trying to stay outside of politics.

His final years as Constable of Windsor Castle were ones of enjoyment and social activities, before his decline and death in 1970.

Lewin's book covers this all in appropriate detail, but with little verve or insight - there is a later biography by Robert Lyman which may be better than this one.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Hitler's Army by Omer Bartov

 Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich by Omer Bartov

New York: Oxford University Press, 1991                        ISBN 0195068793

This book was written at a hinge-point in our modern history: published in 1991 when the certainties of Cold-War Europe were disappearing and a new united Germany was allowed to come to be. This change in the political scene led to a wellspring of historical effort and post-revisionism about Germany's recent history. It had suited Cold-War confrontation to paint the horrors of the Third Reich as the result of an appalling dictatorship imposed on an unwilling populace - the Germans were all "victims" of the Nazis. This view posited that the soldiers that served in Hitler's army were not Nazis or Nazi sympathisers, did not willingly partake in the horrors of the regime, and were in many respects dupes of the hierarchy, such was the revisionist history of the mid Cold-War era.

In Hitler's Army Bartov sets out to question this idea, positing that - especially on the Eastern Front - the Wehrmacht was indeed more than willing to engage in criminal acts, spurred by an internalization by the troops of the tropes of Nazi propaganda and ideology.

Bartov's first steps in setting out this argument require him to dispel the idea that the Wehrmacht was merely an army rather than an instrument of Hitler's will. He demolishes the idea that Germany fought for so long because a) they were highly mechanized, and b) the army was organized around a "primary group" of soldiers drawn from the same area, and that these two things helped make them better fighters.

Through the use of simple statistics Bartov successfully demolishes both positions. Even in June 1941 when Germany invaded Russia, it was the Soviets who were the more mechanized army. This gap widened dramatically as the Germans failed to replace lost materiel and the Russians (and Americans via Lend-Lease) massively increased their production.

The staggering losses of men during the war in Russia (losses which rapidly rose from the very beginning of Operation Barbarossa) very quickly made the idea of a "primary group" impossible to maintain. In fact even by 1943 many groups were already ad-hoc, with whole regiments disappearing and joining with other remnants into "battle-groups".

So, if the revisionist historians were wrong: that it was not technical prowess and group cohesion that kept the Wehrmacht in the field, what was it that did? This is the major focus of Hitler's Army. Bartov contends that far from being duped by the Nazis, many (most?) soldiers duped themselves, by twisting reality to the point where they almost saw the War backwards. Soldiers saw Russian brutality and squalor at the Front as confirming what their propaganda had told them, without reflecting that what they were seeing was the brutality and squalor inflicted on the Russians by Germany.

They even came to believe in a sense that they were engaged in a preventative war, stopping the invasion of Europe by the Untermensch. The soldiers came to believe that they had a civilizing mission (even while destroying villages, massacring Jews and "Partisans") and so became increasingly frustrated when Russians continued to fight. 

This combined with an almost religious belief in the rightness of Hitler became in the end a fatal self-delusion: for example the thought that Hitler would sacrifice his soldiers pointlessly (in Stalingrad for example) was too absurd to be believed, so it wasn't.

Some of this thinking - this self-delusion - has an internal rationality when looked at from the viewpoint of an individual soldier. No soldier can find it easy to admit that their sacrifice will be in vain, or is in pursuit of an evil cause. Irrational belief in a final victory when all the evidence suggests the opposite must be maintained to avoid despair. These are in some ways natural responses.

As is the attempt after the defeat to try and deflect any responsibility for their actions, or indeed responsibility for believing in the cause. When your victors in pursuit of their own ends allow that deflection to stand, and indeed re-use some of the same men in rebuilding German armed forces, then alternatives to the truth easily become the accepted version of events.

A lot of the above is now well known and accepted by the serious student of Nazism and World War Two, but in 1991 Bartov was one of those scholars (like Goldhagen and Evans) who brought a new unprejudiced light to bear on the evidence. His arguments are mostly sound.

This is one for the serious student of World War Two.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Hitler as Military Commander by John Strawson

 Hitler as Military Commander by John Strawson

London: Sphere Books Limited, 1973 (first published 1971)    ISBN 0722182090

John Strawson was a retired British General by the time he came to write this book, which looks specifically at Hitler's ability as a commander of armed forces, which he was over every battleground during World War Two.

Strawson divides his book into two sections; the period of the War when Hitler was making the geopolitical and military running and other countries were reacting to his moves, and the latter period of the War when he was reduced to himself reacting to the decisions and actions of the Allied powers.

Over the course of his narrative, Strawson makes a case that while Hitler had a strong geopolitical sense, and grasped how modern weaponry and combined-arms operations could change the way war could be fought, he had no real grasp of how individual armies should be manoeuvred and used tactically or even strategically.

It was the Battle of France that, despite the German success, is the first illustration of these fundamental flaws within Hitler. He quickly grasped the way that a combined arms attack could quickly dislocate and destroy the French position and lead to disarray, with a bolder vision than that held by his General Staff. The absolute success of the attack on France fed Hitler's massive ego, and led him to believe that not only was he a better strategist than his Generals, but also superior when it came to tactics.

However, it was precisely at the level of army tactics that Hitler let down his armed forces. As Strawson writes "...in spite of being a gambler [Hitler] was unwilling to stake all on a winning number." As evidence of this view Strawson puts forward several examples, including Hitler's failure at Dunkirk, and his failure to adequately support the Afrika Korps until it was too late to make a decisive difference.

The most interesting part of the book for me was Strawson's writing on the Mediterranean Theatre, explaining that far from being a sideshow, if Hitler had fully understood Grand Strategy he would have grasped that: a) it was important to keep the Allies out of the basin as that secured his Southern flank (the Balkans, Italy, Greece, Türkiye) and b) that by pushing the British out of Egypt (eminently possible if Rommel had been supported in an adequate and timely manner) he could have threatened Ukraine and the Caucuses oil fields far more effectively and changed his Russian campaign.

That he didn't do these things comes down fundamentally to the fact that Hitler lacked the imagination to create dynamic strategy. All he could see is the dreams of his youth, and was unable to change as the situation of the War developed. He was unable to see the openings that his gambles had created, and unable to take advantage of them.

His lack of experience in tactics of deploying armies (as opposed to Companies or Platoons, which he also did) and his refusal to listen to those that did have experience led to the suicidal attacks and last-man defences that did so much to destroy the Wehrmacht as a fighting force as the War progressed.

Strawson's book is well-argued, but written in a somewhat pedestrian manner. There is a lot of explicatory material that - while it might be necessary for those unschooled in this subject - can bog down the reader. Of interest to arm-chair strategists only methinks.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The Dark Labyrinth by Lawrence Durrell

 The Dark Labyrinth: a novel by Lawrence Durrell

London: Faber and Faber, 1964 (First published under the title of Cefalu in 1947)

I feel like I'm circling the work of Lawrence Durrell, slowly spiralling into the core - The Alexandria Quartet which I have been meaning to read ever since I received a copy as a gift many years ago. For some reason I have never been able to get started on it - the time never seemed right. When the TV series The Durrells came out I went on a little second-hand bookshop binge of Durrellania, and read the first two books in Gerald's Corfu Trilogy, and the two books (Tunc and Nunquam) which form Lawrence's Revolt of Aphrodite, written after The Alexandria Quartet.

And now to the novel under review, written before the Quartet, Durrell's fourth published novel and the first to be written after the War. It is a philosophical novel that is full of allusion. I' m not sure I understand everything that Durrell intended me to, but I enjoyed reading it very much (certainly more than Tunc or Nunquam).

In short, the book centres around a group of characters that find themselves together in an underground labyrinth in Crete, where they have gone to look at ancient statues and inscriptions. They have arrived there on the ship Europa, which they all boarded for differing reasons. The novel gives us the background story of nearly all the characters, who are all dealing with unresolved issues in their lives.

Baird cannot shake the guilt he feels over killing a German soldier in cold blood while he was serving on Crete, Graecen is dealing with a terminal diagnosis and looking back on what he has achieved in his life, Fearmax is dealing with the loss of his gift, while Campion is trying to escape life altogether, or at least the life that is thrust upon us by convention and habit.

When these and the other characters (the Trumans, Miss Dale and Miss Dombey) arrive in Crete, their individual fates are set in motion. Baird leaves the party to deal with his personal demons by re-burying the body of the German he shot: he has no need to go into the Labyrinth as he had been there before during the War, when he led a band of Partisans who were based there. The others are all led in by a local guide.

When a rockfall occurs, it both cuts off those in the Labyrinth from the outside world (except Graecen, who finds himself on the other side of the blocked tunnel and quickly escapes to the surface) and from the each other. We then follow their individual journeys to death or rescue. Each journey is particular to the person, and in some way reflects their character and life.

Miss Dombey, the religious bigot, denies her faith and quickly commits suicide. Campion and Miss Dale are faced with an unenviable choice on a rock ledge - a hundred-foot jump into the ocean is the only way they can save themselves - later in the book we hear that Miss Dale survives, but we find out incidentally that Campion can't swim. Fearmax is drawn further and further into the Labyrinth, drawn by the thought of the spirit with which he once communed, only to be in some way devoured by the Labyrinth (by the Minotaur?).

The Trumans exit the Labyrinth to the "roof of the world", a small enclosed valley between mountain-peaks with no way out once the Labyrinth was closed. There they met Ruth Adams, who has created a life up there, initially with others who had since left or died, but now alone. The valley is a kind of paradise, where the Trumans begin to slow down and reconnect with their inner selves guided by Adams, who has reached some sort of enlightenment through "repose" ("I had never been still enough before. Here I got as still as a needle").

There is a lot going on in this book. At base it's a fairly gripping adventure story (the story of the Labyrinth, the backstories of Baird's war in Crete and Fearmax's dabblings in the occult are all gripping in their own way). It is also a commentary on post-war life, and on (middle-class) mores and values. Durrell uses the characters to map out differing views: Graecen who accepts how things are and looks with bemusement at those that don't; he has a flirtation with Miss Dale, but realises that it would be absurd for an aristocrat to marry a Cockney. Campion the artist, rails against conformity and society in general, and hates that he has to participate in it. Miss Dombey, who has closed herself off from the World via her religious mania, and Fearmax, who's early life closed him off from the World and led him to live in the world of spirits.

Durrell, as did many young novelists of his time, packs a lot of social commentary into the thoughts, words, and actions of his characters, generally scathing of received wisdom and current fashions of thought. The figure of the psychiatrist Hogarth, university friend of Graecen and clinician to both Baird and Fearmax, looms early in the novel as some sort of eminence grise over the lives of the characters (it is on his suggestion that those three characters board the Europa) and has very little time for the 'normal' in relationships - when Graecen tells him he is dying, instead of the sympathy he wants (and needs) from Hogarth, he gets short shrift. Likewise Baird gets told in no uncertain terms to deal with his problem in a practical way, rather than merely talk about it.

Through Baird and Campion's conversations we get a thorough critique of the War and mankind's obsession to dominate each other and the World. This is juxtaposed with Abbot John - a Partisan leader during the War but now a monk who is, in Durrell's eyes, a quintessential Greek - half mystic and half man of action, who is happy merely to provide for his flock and living a happy life.

Which brings us to the mystery of this book - what does the Labyrinth mean to these people, why has it happened to them and what are they telling us the reader about life? It's clear that Durrell is not writing merely to tell a thrilling tale.

There is certainly a moral tone in the work, and indeed an obvious moral reckoning for some of the characters: Miss Dombey's lack of belief revealing itself at the critical moment, and Campion's disgust at life put to the test by his predicament. There is also a philosophical point being made... that one doesn't have to engage with ' modern life' to be engaged with life, and that seeking alternatives to Christianity such as Eastern Religions or the occult don't help unless an individual makes an internal commitment to change.

Durrell apparently described this book to his good friend Henry Miller as "a rotten book but with some small lucid moments and one or two good lines." I think he was selling himself a little short. It's by no means a great novel, but it is a good one.  

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The Markham and Ramu Valleys 1943-1944 (Australians in the Pacific War)

 The Markham and Ramu Valleys 1943-1944 (Australians in the Pacific War)

Researched and written by Dr. Mark Johnston, Text and photo editing by Courtney Page-Allen

Canberra: Department of Veteran's Affairs, 2005       ISBN 9781920720490

This little book is part of a wonderful series printed by the Australian Department of Veteran's Affairs on the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War Two. They consist of a short section of text and a carefully curated collection of photographs which illustrate a particular piece of Australian activity in the Pacific War. The books were distributed freely to libraries and schools to help to keep memory alive.

This particular volume describes the actions that led to the taking of Lae and the campaign up the Markham Valley through Nadzab, Kaiapit, and on to Shaggy Ridge, a name that rings through the history of Australia in World War Two. Battalions of the Seventh Division fought their way up into the Finisterre Ranges and along the ridge (which was often only wide enough for one man to walk along), fighting hand-to-hand battles to take features such as Johnson's Knoll and the famous Pimple.

The text, while very brief is crisp and accurate, and is wonderfully complemented by the photographs, which show the difficulty and danger of this campaign which lasted from September 1943 through to February 1944. The photos are especially poignant for me, as one of my Great Uncles with whom I used to spend my Summer holidays, fought in that campaign.

We will remember them.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Pictorial History of the Royal Australian Air Force by George Odgers

 Pictorial History of the Royal Australian Air Force by George Odgers

Sydney: Ure Smith, 1977 (first edition 1965)         ISBN: 0725403942

An interesting little book. George Odgers was a Group Captain in the RAAF and a respected historian of the service, responsible for one of the volumes of the official history of the RAAF in World War 2. This book is a very potted history, beginning at the beginning and taking the reader into the 1970s, when the airforce was still running the Mirage III as our main fighter, the F111 as our strike 'plane, and Neptunes for maritime patrol.

The Army was interested in aviation soon after the advent of the airplane, but it was 1912 before the first flight, with four officers, was formed. Soon after, World War One began. The Australian air effort began in Mesopotamia, where a small contingent of Australians fought the Ottomans alongside Lawrence of Arabia amongst others, and developed supply from the air during the siege of Kut. Soon more were fighting in Europe, with Australian squadrons formed initially within the RFC.

It was not until 1921 that the RAAF was formed, and the first years as an independent service were hard, with a lack of funding affecting every aspect of work. Soon enough war clouds were forming in Europe again, and with the outbreak of World War Two came the most rapid expansion in the history of the Australian Military forces. After World War One, the service was hoping to have 3,300 personnel - during World War Two over 200,000 men and women were enlisted, thousands of aircraft were taken into service, and Australian aircrew flew bombers over Germany, fighters in Italy, as well as the more commonly known theatres of war in the Middle East and the Pacific.

While the Australian effort was a big one for our capacity, it was a small part of a much bigger Allied effort. Soon enough the RAAF were employed in a small way in the Korean War, Malaya, the Indonesian Confrontation, and Vietnam. The crews and 'planes employed punched above their weight, and Odgers describes the individual exploits as well as the tactical and strategic outlook.

Being a pictorial history, the illustrations are as important as the text. The colour plates are magnificent, and the liberal sprinkling of black and white photos are perhaps not what one would expect - many of them I haven't seen in other works, and there are as many pictures of men and women at work as there are of aircraft.

Not a bad little book.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Blood, Class and Nostalgia by Christopher Hitchens

 Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies by Christopher Hitchens

London: Vintage, 1991 (first published 1990)       ISBN 0099878003

This is a fascinating book of inter-connected essays about the "special relationship" between the United States and Britain. It's a highly personal view and written as a polemic, but when that view belongs to, and the polemic is written by, Christopher Hitchens, you know it's going to be well worth reading.

While we might (up until Trump's second coming anyway) take for granted the very close geo-political ties between Britain and America, there was never a guarantee that those ties would ever form or be enduring. One look at American history shows us why - America threw off the British yoke in the 1770s, and fought them again in the early 1800s; and through most of the 19th century England did what it could to thwart American expansion across the continent. Britain also supported, for its own reasons, the Confederacy in the Civil War.  Given that history, it was not given that both America and Britain would forge such close ties in the 20th century.

The theme that runs through the essays, which roam from Rudyard Kipling to nuclear warfare, is the idea expressed by Harold Macmillan, and noted at the beginning of this book, that Britain, on losing their status as a first rank power would play Greece to America's Rome ("We...are Greeks in this American Empire. You will find the Americans much as the Greeks found the Romans - great big, vulgar, bustling people, more vigorous than we are and also more idle, with more unspoiled virtues but also more corrupt. We must run Allied Forces Headquarters as the Greek slaves ran the operations of the Emperor Claudius."). Hitchens goes on to explain that in his view this is not an entirely correct explanation of what was happening.

There was actually something much more subtle going on. Britain, clinging on the the vestiges of its empire, was coming to the realisation that it would have to let go, and formed the view that America was the obvious successor, and so if it could guide and direct them in how to have, hold and run an empire, they could be an indispensable partner - providing intellectual heft and skill to ensure that America's power and treasure could be spent wisely. So rather than Britain's Greece to the Rome of the USA, what was envisaged was the Roman centre moving across the Atlantic, but with Britain still very much part of the infrastructure.  

Unfortunately, as Hitchens points out, what sounds good in theory doesn't always work out in practice. There were many in Britain who didn't like this idea, and tried to cling on to bits of the Empire, until they couldn't, and then essentially ran to the US cap in hand to get help. This put America in a stronger position, and also reinforced the idea that was held by some in power that they were being used in a way that they didn't like or want. 

While we are bombarded at the moment with news about Trump cutting ties with Europe and other places with his trade policy, he is in some ways merely the latest iteration of American exceptionalism and isolationism. Hitchens explains that, between the wars, there was a significant part of the American polity that didn't like Britain (for example those of Irish descent), and certainly didn't want America to "take up the white man's burden", or begin its own empire building.

World War Two changed the dynamic of the relationship between Britain and the USA. Britain during the war did assist the USA greatly in the spheres of atomic weaponry, and in spycraft and intelligence gathering in general. These lessons were gratefully received, and while America was later on grudging in the way it shared nuclear information, the genuine camaraderie between intelligence services was often a major fixative in the "special relationship" during the Cold War years.

So from enemies, to a connection that led to semi-serious discussions of a political merger between the two states, Hitchens chronicles the demise of the "special relationship" to something that doesn't really have much power anymore, beyond nostalgia and what he calls kitsch. While Britain still feels the bond, America it seems sees Britain as one among many powers that they deal with, just easier to talk to because they speak the same language.

Blood, Class and Nostalgia is well worth reading not only for Hitchens insight into the relationship between Britain and the US, but also for the interesting bits of information he imparts. From Kipling's correspondence with Teddy Roosevelt, to Churchill's conversation with Mark Twain, there are many fascinating insights into how major figures have crossed paths during the last century or so, and what they thought of the "special relationship".

A good read. 

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

 

Book Review - HMAS Sydney by Tom Frame

 HMAS Sydney by Tom Frame

Sydney: Hachette Australia, 2018 (originally published 1993)       ISBN 9780733640179

"The Sydney-Kormoran action should have been a one-sided contest. Sydney should have sunk Kormoran without any risk of damage to herself. This made the loss of Sydney inexplicable." These lines, appearing about half-way through this excellent book about the sinking of the Sydney, sum up why there has been so much ink spilled on what is the Royal Australian Navy's greatest disaster.

HMAS Sydney was probably the most famous RAN ship of World War II at the time of her loss, owing to her sterling service in the Mediterranean, where she played a major part in the sinking of the Bartolomeo Colleoni, an Italian cruiser. Sydney was herself a cruiser, sister-ship to the other RAN vessels Perth  and Hobart, with only the latter surviving the War. Her loss in a battle with the German auxiliary cruiser and mercantile raider was a huge disaster - the loss of 645 lives, as well as the ship in what should have been an unequal battle was, and is, hard to understand.

Australia has been blessed over the years with some excellent military historians, beginning with Bean, through Long, to the current generation of fine writers, of which Frame is a leading light. He has written the authoritative book on the Voyager disaster as well as other interesting books on Australia's naval history. The book under review is in reality the third edition of his book about the Sydney, having been updated several times owing to new evidence being found, although Frame's conclusion has not changed from the first publication in 1993.

Frame was initially drawn to write about the sinking of the Sydney owing to the publication of two books 50 years after the sinking, one that claimed a Japanese submarine assisted in the sinking, and another which accepted the German version of what happened and in the process heaped some calumny on the commander of the Sydney, Captain Joseph Burnett.

Frame, through a patient sifting and analysis of the available evidence, shoots down the Japanese sub theory (they are all accounted for in Japanese naval records, and none were in the area at the time of the encounter. Frame also points out that there was no real co-operation between the German and Japanese navies at that time). He also shows, through evidence, that Captain Burnett was by all accounts a prudent and cautious sailor.

Which brings us to the mystery of what happened on that November day in 1941. It's clear that Burnett closed to within 2000 yards of the Kormoran, far too close for safety, and in fact almost ensuring if not destruction, very heavy damage to the Sydney. Why did he do that? Frame has his theory, which is that Burnett may have thought that the Kormoran was actually the Kulmerland, the supply ship, and so was reluctant to engage at long range, partly so that he could capture the ship and learn of the movements of the raider, but also because he may have thought there were Allied prisoners on board. 

That still doesn't explain why the Sydney came so close to the Kormoran, but Frame has an explanation for that as well. He feels sure that the Captain of the Kormoran, Theodor Detmers, lured the Sydney in by feigning surrender. While he has no definite proof that this occurred, the evidence that he does present (Burnett's usual caution, Detmers' strange obsession with potentially being court-martialled by the Australians, several Kormoran survivors mentioning that Sydney was potentially lowering a boat), could be construed as supporting Frame's supposition.

Frame's theory delivers an answer to the mystery, and is something that certainly could have happened. We will never know: those members of the crew of the Kormoran who knew the truth certainly made no admissions (why would they), and of course there were no survivors from the Sydney to tell their side of the story.

This updated edition covers the discovery of the wrecks of the Kormoran and Sydney. This final piece of the puzzle closed the mouths of many of the conspiracy theorists that have buzzed around the incident for the last thirty years or so. The Kormoran was found where the crew said it would be, the Sydney where they said they last saw it, and the damage to both vessels confirmed the general outline of the battle that was given to the Australian authorities by the survivors of the Kormoran.

If you want the closest you'll ever get to a comprehensive guide to the build-up, battle, aftermath and controversies that surround the loss of the Sydney, I can highly recommend this book.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - France on Trial: the Case of Marshal Petain by Julian Jackson

 France on Trial: the Case of Marshal Petain by Julian Jackson

[NC]: Penguin Books, 2024 (first published 2023)       ISBN 9780141993096

This is a magnificent book. Lucid, well-written and informative, this blow-by-blow account of the trial of Philippe Petain is also an in-depth look at the pain that armistice, collaboration and Vichy caused the body politic of France from 1940-1944.

Petain's trial, which occurred in the period between VE day and VJ day in 1945, was for treason but the specific charges were rather convoluted. The prosecution tried to suggest that Petain was part of a pre-war conspiracy, which was fairly conclusively disproved. However, the trial struggled with the question of whether Vichy France was the legitimate government of France, and what part of Petain's actions constituted the treason with which he was charged - was it treason to sign the Armistice? was it treason to not move to Africa and continue the struggle from there? Was it treason to encourage French in Syria to fight the Allies? Was it treason to fire on Americans in Tunisia after they landed? Various people, including De Gaulle who would have preferred the trial to have occurred with Petain in absentia, had differing views on this question.

In the end, it seems to this reader, Petain's biggest crimes came to be meeting Hitler, and the encouragement he gave to Nazi power. However, his actual complicity in these words and meetings is in some doubt. In his late eighties, the trial revealed that often it was the  prime minister  Laval who was really pulling the levers, leaving Petain to be a figurehead. Of course the fact is that by remaining as figurehead, Petain gave these actions a legitimacy that came from his fame in World War One, which is possibly hard for a 21st century reader to gauge.

Another surprising aspect of the case is that very little time was spent discussing the mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of French to Germany to work in factories under appalling conditions, and almost no time spent discussing the fate of the Jewish people under Petain's government. These painful facts came out much later, in the long tail of Petainism, which Jackson describes well.

And what of Petain himself? He had returned from Germany (where he was taken when the war was being lost) to face the justice of the court, but famously said practically nothing during the trial. Whether this was due to his advanced age, or whether it was a tactic by the defence, or whether it was simply that the courtroom was so hot that he found it hard to stay awake (he wasn't alone there), it is hard to say.

Of course he was found guilty by the combined jury of parliamentarians and resisters, and was sentenced to death. De Gaulle instead put him in a prison on the Ile D'Yeu, where he died and was buried. The contested history of Petain, Vichy, and the actions of the French during World War Two are still being played out to this day. Petain has been the darling of the French right, but officially his memory is a political football - widely seen as the saviour of the French in the First World War, his actions in the Second are widely seen as shameful. Jackson explains this well.

Petain famously said in 1940 that he would give his body for France. In some ways he did so in the trial as well, as he absorbed the confusion and hatred that the French had about the previous years, and took it all on his head. He allowed De Gaulle to build a narrative of the French as a nation of resisters betrayed by Petain and his clique, a narrative which allowed the French to park the painful past and move forward free of guilt (of course, as always happens, this confected story fell apart in later years). Jackson's choice of title is apt.

From my reading of Alister Horne's book The Price of Glory it's clear that Petain was haunted by the terrible loss of life at Verdun, and it seems simple (too simple?) to posit that he did what he did in 1940 to stop it happening again. France had been traumatised by the First War, and were ready for someone to tell them it wouldn't happen again - they were pleased that Petain did that. They soon realised they had done a deal with a devil, and their regret and rage needed a focus, and Petain became that focus.

The Petain that comes out in Jackson's book is a person who wanted to do the right thing by his country, but beyond the armistice he didn't know what that was. He was hijacked and hoodwinked by those such as Laval who were more than happy to collaborate with the Germans for their ideological needs and, let's face it, for power and cupidity.

The France that comes out in Jackson's book is one that is divided, confused, and self-hating. Yet to come to terms with what had happened during the War, it gave Petain a trial that was divided and confused, with many of the participants hating the fact that they were involved in it.

Jackson has weaved all these threads into a wonderfully readable history, which is illuminating and enjoyable. A deserved winner of the Duff Cooper history prize, I can highly recommend it.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Scenes from the End by Frank E. Manuel

 Scenes from the End: the Last Days of World War II in Europe by Frank E. Manuel

London: Profile Books, 2000                                        ISBN 1861972415

This is a short but interesting book. Frank Manuel was a journalist, and in World War Two became an intelligence officer. Scenes from the End is a reflection on his time in Germany as the war was ending based on notes written at the time, the letters he sent home to his wife, and "[c]onversations reported here [that] have passed through the smoke screen of memory, recollections of the spirit, rather than the precise detail, of events; sometimes they echo the voices of other observers."

And what does Manuel record? The justifications of Germans, the thoughts of those enslaved by the Germans, the feelings of the surviving Jews, and the explanations of German generals, interspersed with his attempts to make sense of what he was hearing and experiencing as an American of Jewish descent. 

There is a tone of contempt for those Germans who claim that they didn't know of Nazi crimes, and for those who engage in retribution against enemies (dobbing in a "Nazi", whether they were one or not), and for those who are feeling sorry for themselves and their country.

There are descriptions of the various nationalities that find themselves in Germany at the end, forced labourers that are suddenly free and who take their vengeance, former concentration camp inmates who tear their former guards apart limb-from-limb, former concentration camp guards or members of the SS who try to melt away, and of German officers who still maintain their valets, cars and copious luggage as they move into captivity. 

There is talk of "Werwolves", who never actually seem to appear, there is a story about a fanatical sergeant's attempt at sabotage, who needs a direct order from Sperrle before talking to Manuel about his mission, which contrasts with the willing cooperation he received from Sperrle and the other Nazi General Staff that he interviewed.

The last part of the book describes Manuel's time in Leipzig, where he is involved in ensuring those German scientists who wish to avoid Russian captivity can move to the American Zone. By this time he is sick of his job, sick of Europe and its entangled histories, and wanting to go home.

Scenes from the End is a well written memoir, and left this reader wanting more.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Ordinary Men by Christopher R. Browning

 Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning

New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992                                       ISBN 0060190132

"In mid-March 1942 some 75 to 80 percent of all victims of the Holocaust were still alive, while 20 to 25 percent had perished. A mere eleven months later, in mid-February 1943, the percentages were exactly the reverse." With this stark statement Christopher Browning begins his study of one part of that whirlwind of murder, the work of Reserve Police Battalion 101 in Poland between July 1942 and November 1943.

That Browning is able to undertake this study is due to the fact that in the 1960s prosecutors interviewed 210 members of the Battalion in their investigations of war crimes from the period. Delving through the obfuscation and downright lies that are contained in some of the testimony, Browning lists a catalogue of horrors undertaken by this unit, and speculates how the "ordinary men" of Battalion 101 could do such things to their fellow human beings.

Unlike the Einsatzgruppen or the members of the SS assigned to run the death-camps, the Reserve Police received no special training or ideological reinforcement before being assigned to murder Jews. The Battalion was a mixture of career policemen, recruits too old to serve in the regular army, or who had joined the Reserve Police to avoid conscription. By no means were all members card-carrying Nazis, although there was a small core of party members among the group. When they were shipped to Poland, they were under the impression that they were being sent to ensure order in the civilian population behind the front lines.

However, not long after they got to Poland, they were assigned to clear the town of Jozefow of Jews, which meant sending the fit Jews away, and massacring the rest of the population. The Battalion had no idea how to go about such a task, and the resulting slaughter was a horrible mess. An extraordinary detail which the prosecutor's interviews reveal, is that the commander of the Battalion, Major Trapp, allowed members to be excused from the killing if they felt they couldn't participate. That only a few took up this offer is at the core of Browning's history....why so few?

Many others, while not "officially" standing apart from the killing, found other ways to not pull the trigger, by making themselves scarce, or participating in other tasks during that time. Browning's take on the evidence is that there was a very small number of willing killers, a majority that would kill when told to do so, a small number who tried to avoid killing when they could, and the very few who objected from the beginning, and took no part in the killing (although they did participate in other tasks such as clearing ghettos, loading Jews into trains for shipment to the death-camps, and so on).

Browning, in the last chapter of his book, goes into some detail about the theories as to why people such as the members of this battalion did the things that they did. He focuses mainly on the results of the Milgram experiment which showed that people will follow authority and do things that they wouldn't otherwise do if it is normalized in some way. The members of Battalion 101 not only had the formal structure of being ordered to do things, but also the over-arching mentality, ideology and thought-patterns of the Nazi world pushing the idea that exterminating the "Jewish threat" was for the good of their Fatherland. Most importantly, in Browning's view, is the pressure to conform with other members of their unit, which is indeed a powerful force in group dynamics. The final words in the book state the problem succinctly - "Within virtually every social collective, the peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets moral norms. If the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men cannot?"

I am not someone who feels themselves extremely well-informed about the Holocaust, so a source of fascination for me was the apparent disorganized way in which much of the killing took place. From a general understanding of World War Two and Germany, the impression is of the Holocaust as a well-oiled killing machine, trains running to timetables, and bureaucrats ticking Jewish populations off as they were transported to their deaths. The truth, it seems, was sometimes far from that. We have the example of Reserve Police Battalion 101 itself, being thrust into the maelstrom without any preparation, and having to almost make up the procedure of killing as they gained experience. Browning, in the beginning of this work, explains how the work of the Einsatzgruppen in Russia was expanded to include firstly the Jews in Poland and then the rest of Europe, but no extra manpower was assigned to those that Himmler instructed to complete the task. And so not only the Reserve Police, but groups of ethnic Germans, Latvians and others were brought together to assist, as did at times Waffen SS and even Wehrmacht troops.

Ordinary Men is a fascinating and horrible journey into the heart of one of the most terrifying events in human history. What makes it terrifying is that Browning shows clearly that such horrors can be committed by people just like you and I. For an insight into the inner workings of the Holocaust, I can highly recommend this book.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Poland 1939 by Roger Moorhouse

 Poland 1939: the Outbreak of World War II by Roger Moorhouse

New York: Basic Books, 2020 (originally published as First to fight: The Polish War 1939 in 2019)

ISBN 9780465095384

We all know that World War II started when Germany invaded Poland on the first of September 1939. We also know that Poland was overrun in a matter of a month, and we may have heard stories of Polish cavalry charging at Panzers with horse and lance. Beyond that, what is known in the West of the Polish campaign? Moorhouse argues in the preface to this book that the attack on Poland that precipitated a World War needs to be given more than the couple of paragraphs and the well-worn clichés that many English-language histories of World War II give it. It's hard to argue against that.

In this well-written book, Moorhouse covers not only the fighting in detail, but also the machinations of the Nazi attack, the Russian intervention, and the atrocities committed mostly by the Germans (but also Soviets and civilians). The plight of the civilians is not overlooked by this book, but is more an underlying theme rather than a specific highlight.

While the German campaign against Poland was successfully completed in only 35 days, that doesn't mean that the Poles did not fight, and fight hard, or that the Germans didn't have setbacks and failures. As is usually the case in warfare, the protagonist with the greatest economic heft wins in any protracted campaign. Moorhouse states a "rather telling statistic...is that the entire Polish defense budget for the five years to 1939 amounted to only 10 percent of the Luftwaffe's budget for 1939 alone." That is probably all that needs to be said about the equipment disparity between Poland and Germany.

Another truism is that warfare is an extension of politics. No political or diplomatic manoeuvres by Poland would have forestalled Hitler's invasion, but politics did cruel Poland's chances of victory over and above their economic (in)capabilities. The pact with Britain and France was meant to be a deterrent: Britain and France thought that the threat of their intervention would be enough to stop Hitler, and never developed any serious plans to attack Germany if an invasion of Poland took place. Poland on the other hand thought that they needed to show Britain and France that they were serious and so placed most of their armies on the borders with Germany and Slovakia. This made political sense, but it didn't make military sense especially knowing that if war came they would need to hold on for as long as possible to allow their allies time to assist. Setting up at the borders meant that Poland's armies were on ideal campaigning territory, ideally suited for quick moving mechanized troops to drive through any holes in the front and encircle their enemies. Poland's army was not highly mechanized, so this was no advantage to them. Add to that the obsessive secrecy of the Polish armed forces, not sharing plans and not even allowing neighbouring armies to communicate with each other directly, and defeat was almost assured.

Moorhouse covers the military aspect well. Despite being out-gunned, the Polish forces gave the Wehrmacht some severe checks during the campaign. When they were able to be entrenched well with artillery, or when they had the element of surprise, the Polish army could inflict localized defeats on the Germans (and, later on, the Soviets). The cavalry too could be effective in dispersing infantry and allowing freedom of movement for Polish troops, until German or Soviet armour could arrive on the scene. Moorhouse points out that the famous image we have in our heads of Lancers charging tanks was a fiction created by an Italian correspondent, but they did on several occasions charge groups of infantry with success.

The military story is one of soldiers grimly holding on until their ammunition and food ran low, or of fighting retreats to try and join comrades, and at the end a fight to reach the borders. There were some occasions when the troops were routed, mostly it seems due to the bombing from the Luftwaffe rather than infantry attack. The Luftwaffe was also responsible for destroying many Polish cities and towns, in particular Warsaw, which was bombed incessantly throughout the campaign for terror more than for military reasons. 

The Nazi ideology of racial superiority was well-entrenched within the German military, and this meant from the first that atrocities were committed on both Polish military and civilian victims. Mass shootings were common, the shooting of hostages was policy, and when the SS and Einsatzgruppen arrived in numbers, Jews and Polish "intelligentsia" were in mortal danger.

While the Nazis were imposing their racial war on Poland, the Soviets, once they arrived to "liberate" the "suppressed" Ukrainians and Byelorussians (Stalin's cover for his land-grab) began their class war. Quite often in the early days of their occupation of Eastern Poland, just having soft hands was enough to see a person sent to a prison camp, or worse. While the Katyn massacres are outside the scope of this book, Moorhouse lets the reader know where most of the Polish officers captured by the Soviets ended up and sets the scene for the about-to-unfold tragedy that was Poland's fate until (and after) 1945.

In his conclusion, Moorhouse notes that the invasion of Poland by Germany and the USSR was far from a minor event in human terms - 60,000 Polish troops, 20,000 German and perhaps 18,000 Soviets died in those 35 days, and about 100,000 Polish civilians, which includes 16,000 "falling victim to extrajudicial killing by German military and security forces during the period of the military campaign." That's about five and a half thousand deaths per day during the fighting.

Moorhouse in this history doesn't really go into the question of whether this tragedy was avoidable (probably not in my opinion), but does give the reader a good insight into both the immediate background to, and the progress of, this tragic month of history. If you want to flesh out those few paragraphs in any omnibus history of World War II that you might have read, I can recommend this book (apparatus is a mixed bag - good bibliography and notes, OK index, poor maps).

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Monty His Part in my Victory by Spike Milligan

 Monty: his Part in my Victory: War Biography Vol. 3 by Spike Milligan, edited by Jack Hobbs

Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978 (first published 1976)          ISBN 0140045031

It is arguable, but it's quite possible that Spike Milligan was the funniest human being in history. I have grown up with him, listening to The Goon Show in my early years, the Q shows, and buying into his absurdist humour, which is slowly fading from herd memory (the amount of people in a crowded room that "get" a Milliganism when it's dropped is getting fewer and fewer and time marches on).

For some reason I never got around to reading his biographies of his time spent in the army in World War Two - formative years for him in a creative sense, but also very traumatic. I read the first part  which covered his entry into the forces and training, and now for some reason am reading the third part, which deals with his time in Africa after the defeat of the Axis in Tunis (I think Spike would approve of reading his four-part trilogy out-of-order).

This book - highly and funnily illustrated - is a collection of vignettes of an army at rest after victory, enjoying the spoils of war (i.e. getting drunk as much as possible), and of Milligan's membership of the Battery Concert party, the beginnings of the surrealist mayhem that became The Goon Show.

This volume did not make me laugh out loud as much as volume one, but was still well worth an hour or so's time.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The Tokyo Trial by Higurashi Yoshinobu

 The Tokyo Trial: War Criminals and Japan's Postwar International Relations by Higurashi Yoshinobu

Tokyo: Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, 2022   (First Japanese edition 2008)

                                                                                                                   ISBN 9784866582306 

Those of us with an interest in World War Two history, it would be fair to say, have some sort of understanding of the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi Leaders that took place after the War - who was tried, what the charges were, and the sentences handed out. Knowledge of the Tokyo Trial of "Class A" war criminals is much less common - people might know that it happened, and that Tojo was executed, but that might be the limit of what people know.

Higurashi has written a comprehensive history of not only the Tokyo Trial, but the strategic and political factors that weighed on its staging, who was charged, and what happened to the prisoners after the Trial finished. A Professor in the Faculty of Law at Tokyo University; Higurashi cannot himself be charged with being a great stylist (the translation by the Japan Institute of International Affairs may not have helped his cause here), with the text being quite dry and legalistic, and the book sometimes back-tracking on itself. These issues can lead the reader to get lost occasionally, but are minor impediments to working through the text.

The book is comprehensive: in eight chapters, Higurashi covers viewpoints on the Trial, the framework of the Trial, what charges were brought, the Japanese response, how the Judgement was written, why there were no further trials, and how and why the surviving Class A prisoners were released. He describes how the Trial became problematic almost from the start. The Allies had already begun the process of developing charges in Nuremberg, and tried to translate that process to the Japanese sphere, which didn't really work. There was no all-governing party such as the Nazis, and no SS, so the charges for the "Class A" criminals were confined more to waging aggressive war and conspiracy (war crimes such as atrocities and murder of prisoners etc. were "Class B" and "Class C" trials, and so are not covered by Higurashi).

Conspiracy was not a concept in Japanese law, and there was much discussion about ex-post-facto law. However, the trial moved forward, with general approval of the Japanese populace, who were looking for someone to blame for their predicament. How the Emperor escaped getting any of the blame for the War is well-explained in this book - a combination of politics and loyalty meant that he was never brought to trial, despite many of the nations participating in the proceedings wishing to do so. In this case, as in many others, the wishes of the United States were granted, as they felt that lenient treatment of the Emperor was key to controlling Japan during the Occupation.

Higurashi describes in great detail the progress of the Trial, the conflicts between the various Allied powers, how the verdicts were reached, and the dissenting judgement of Judge Pal from India. He notes that by the time the Trial was nearing its end, not only the Japanese population, but also the peoples of the Allied nations were less interested in the outcome (the full transcript of the Trial has never been published, according to Higurashi). The Allied populations were more interested in the trial and conviction of the "Class B" and "Class C" criminals.

At the end of the Occupation, Japan began lobbying for the surviving "Class A" criminals to be released. The onset of the Cold War meant that Japan was a vital strategic asset to the Western Powers, and so quickly and quietly, about ten years after conviction, the surviving prisoners were paroled - many went on to careers in politics in the New Japan.

Higurashi briefly describes the development of the idea in Japan that the trial was merely "Victor's Justice", and how it came to be that war criminals were inducted at the Yakasuni Shrine, but that is not the focus of this work.

This is not really a book for sitting down and reading in front of the fire: it is however a highly detailed and solid reference work on the Trials. While the translation may be workmanlike, the apparatus is very good - a good index, and useful bibliography.

If you are at all interested in the Tokyo Trial, this is worth hunting out.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Backfire: a History of Friendly Fire from Ancient Warfare to the Present Day by Geoffrey Regan

 Backfire: a History of Friendly Fire from Ancient Warfare to the Present Day by Geoffrey Regan

London: Robson Books, 2002 (First published 1995)               ISBN 1861055013

This is a somewhat disappointing book about a fascinating subject. Many years ago (before the internet) I was doing some family research on my Great-Grandfather and his brothers, all of whom served in World War One. My Great-Grandfather was killed in action on 20 September 1917, during the Battle of Menin Road. Trying to find out more, I headed naturally to C.E.W. Bean's Official History where it is mentioned that during the course of forming up for the battle the Australians suffered considerable losses due to the artillery barrage falling short. I hadn't considered the concept of "friendly fire" before that time, but since then have found it peeping through the curtains of many a memoir or history of wartime events.

So, when I found this book, I took it up with some interest. Regan has skimmed the surface of the concept of friendly fire, and expanded the concept beyond what I think most people would think it to mean. He skips between generalizations and "how it must have been" to specific details of other incidents. One gets the feeling that he was trying to write this book with limited time to research and think about the project.   

It seems to me from the Introduction that Regan was moved to write this book after the friendly fire incident that killed six British soldiers during the first Gulf War, but he begins the book proper with a description of Ancient Greek warfare, and a discussion of how there must have been much "friendly fire" in the phalanx, purely through the way the formation was structured. He continues the theme into Medieval warfare, noting along the way that the lack of uniforms caused much confusion as well. The problem with this section of the book is that Regan provides little actual evidence for the theories that he puts forward.

Moving to the early modern period, Regan begins to draw more on written accounts of friendly fire incidents during the Napoleonic Wars, and start to elaborate on the main cause of friendly fire - confusion. The development of tightly drilled infantry (squares etc.) was an effort to try and reduce confusion, but of course war is confusion, so much of the drill went out the window after a couple of volleys, or if officers were early casualties of the action. Confusion was often the cause of incidents in the armies opposing the French - allies often engaged other allies owing to lack of knowledge of their whereabouts, or even what their uniforms looked like.

These observations set the scene for the major part of Regan's book, concerning World War One and Two, and later conflicts. It's these sections of the book that I found most disappointing. In all probability, and as Regan suggests, mis-directed artillery fire was the cause of most friendly-fire casualties during World War One. Regan in my opinion skates over the reasons why such fire might be mis-directed, and focuses instead on the outcomes of the few incidents which he writes about.

There are two reasons for this, in my opinion. Firstly, Regan has chosen to write a journalistic style of book rather than a more academically focused one. And the second, which comes from the first, Regan has used mostly secondary sources for his information (and to be fair he admits this).

In World War Two it was aircraft that were at the centre of the main friendly fire incidents that he discusses. Aircraft dealt out a lot of friendly fire (Operation Cobra), and also received a lot (Invasion of Sicily). Regan, in describing both World Wars, uses mostly material about the Entente and Allied forces - I assume because he was tied to English language material. The result is that we know a lot about the inadequacies of the USAF in particular, but not so much about the Axis forces (although he does mention Operation Bodenplatte).

I remember reading or hearing the following phrase, about bombing in World War Two "When the Luftwaffe flies over the battlefield, the Allies take cover, when the RAF flies over, the Germans take cover, when the USAF flies over everybody takes cover!" Regan doesn't use that quote, but he does imply in his book that is was the US that seemed to be the worst offender...even bombing Switzerland several times.

Again, sometimes, confusion and lack of information led to tragedy. Often vehicles on the ground were showing appropriate identification symbols, but the fliers were not told about them. Often, aircraft were flying fixed routes at fixed heights at fixed times, but the Flak gunners were not notified. As Regan points out, often these problems could have been and should have been fixed.

My main problem with this work is the patchy nature of it - the lack of detail on the why, the intense focus on a few events, the lack of an overview. However, there are another few annoyances.....the chapter on execution of troops for various offences gets quite a few pages in this book, but I really don't think this issue comes under most commonly thought of definitions of friendly fire: there are other books that cover this much better. There is an interesting chapter on "fragging", but again, not enough detail, evidence or statistical information to be more than frustrating for the reader.

The final bone I have to pick is with language, specifically Regan's use of the term "amicide" as a synonym for friendly fire. While friendly fire is in itself an ungainly term for what is being described, amicide, to me, is completely misleading. Genocide, suicide all imply the deliberate taking of life, whereas ("fragging" aside), friendly fire incidents are not deliberate - they are tragic errors. This book is the first time I have come across the term - I hope it is the last, although with the way the English language is increasingly mauled as the years go on, I fear it won't be.

So, for me, not a lot to recommend here.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Stalin: a Biography by Robert Service

 Stalin: a Biography by Robert Service

London: Pan, 2005 (first published 2004)                        ISBN 9780330419130

For various reasons, I feel like I've been reading this book forever. Which is probably how people who lived under Stalin's rule felt for much of the time: a long-running nightmare without an end.

Robert Service has in this book given us a sweeping overview of the life and politics of one of the most influential and bloody leaders of the Twentieth Century, shooting down some myths while confirming others. It is a monumental book that covers so many great events, over an era where developments in politics and science were huge - at Stalin's birth the car and 'plane had yet to be invented, and much of Eastern Europe lived under the rule of one or other emperor. By the time of his death world influence was shared between the USSR and the USA, there were no empires left, and jet 'planes could fly halfway around the world to deliver nuclear weapons.

The most interesting part of the book for me was the description of Stalin's early years. Growing up in Georgia with a brutal father had a huge effect on the character of Stalin. He inherited the cultural tradition to hold a grudge, and to see conspiracy in everything - his reaction was in most cases to destroy those who (in reality or only in his mind) were against him. These tendencies were reinforced during his early activities as a revolutionary. While some of these characteristics were kept in check during his earlier years in Communism, as his power grew so did his paranoia, and his ability to act on it.

Service shows us that the myth that Stalin was not a major player in the Revolution or the years immediately following is incorrect. Stalin was a doer that did a lot, and was actually indispensable to Lenin as he tried to implement Bolshevik power. He was a forceful organizer, but uncaring of the casualties that he left in the wake of his activities. While the Civil War years were brutal, once Stalin took over the reigns of leadership the brutality increased. Stalin's paranoia led him to try to wipe out  people, classes and nationalities that he perceived to be against his plan to bring about communism in one country.

While the Soviet Union was a country of bureaucracy, Stalin was the undisputed ruler, and whatever he thought was law. He would let his underlings debate policy, to draw out their thoughts, and then pronounce his view: this led quite often to policy paralysis, as people were afraid to state opinions when the consequences of being on the wrong side of the argument was the Gulag or a bullet in the back of the neck. The result of this sort of rule were never more evident than at the time of his death, when his underlings were too scared to check on him when he didn't appear for his usual morning cup of tea.

Stalin's cruelty and ruthlessness was appalling - he ruled more like a medieval Russian Czar than a modern socialist. As he aged, he became less and less in contact with the real world, and only understood what was happening through his bureaucrats and their reports. Knowing the consequences of displeasing the great leader, Stalin only got to hear good news. The one major exception to this was the Russian general Zhukov, who on more than one occasion clashed with Stalin. Zhukov survived, but after the War he was very much pushed into the background.

 It was the War that was the making of the USSR: their victory legitimized Stalin and his government, and made the country a huge industrial power, but ossified the structure of rule as Stalin aged and became if possible even more paranoid, led to Eastern Europe becoming vassals of the USSR, and the final purges and pogroms before Stalin's death.

Service has written a good workmanlike biography. If you don't know much Russian history you are well serviced (forgive the pun), and he has covered Stalin the man, Stalin the politician, Stalin the tyrant, and Stalin the legend. Well worth reading.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - War at the end of the World by James P. Duffy

 War at the end of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight for New Guinea, 1942-1945

by James P. Duffy

New York: NAL Caliber, 2016                                                                          ISBN 9780451418302

This is a well-written and well-balanced account of the New Guinea campaign of World War II. James Duffy has not broken any new ground with this book, but what he has done is tell - side-by-side - the American, Australian and Japanese stories of this arduous campaign, in a simple narrative of the battles and decision making involved in winning (and losing) them.

The New Guinea campaign lasted from almost the beginning of the Pacific War to almost the end, and traversed the entire island from East to West. From early 1942 to late 1944 the Allied forces, through a strategy of targeted battles and bypassing large enemy bases, comprehensively defeated the Japanese forces. One stark statistic - in New Guinea the American forces lost 7,000 men, and the Australians a similar number. The Japanese lost over 200,000 men killed in the campaign.

The stark difference in deaths can be sheeted home to a few reasons: the overwhelming technological and materiel advantage of the Allies, the flawed battle tactics of the Japanese, and the inability of Japan to supply its troops with enough materiel (particularly food and medicine). As Duffy points out, MacArthur was also frugal with his troops, reluctant to attack large Japanese bases if he could avoid it. 

Rabaul was the first instance of where this tactic was used. Initially, from necessity owing to lack of troops, MacArthur constantly tried to avoid set-piece battles with large Japanese forces. What MacArthur wanted was hard ground for airfields. Although he was an Army man, MacArthur fully understood the crucial nature of air power, especially in a war that was fought over water and islands.

So, MacArthur's first thought when looking at the next Japanese conglomeration was "does it have an airfield suitable for my bombers, and is that airfield in the right strategic spot?" If the answer was no, the Allies moved on to the next area. Sometimes, if the Japanese force around a suitable airfield was too large, MacArthur sometimes found a suitable place where the Japanese weren't, and built his own airfields. In some cases an airfield could be up and running a couple of days after construction started. The construction companies, both the Australian and the American Seabees, were the unsung heroes in this forgotten war.

I imagine some Australian readers might quibble about the phrase "forgotten war" being applied to the New Guinea campaign, but I think that Duffy's term is apt. Certainly Australians generally know about the Kokoda campaign, and maybe Buna and Gona, but how many of us know much about the early campaigns in New Britain and New Ireland, the Markham Valley, Kalopit, Finschhafen, Manus Island and Los Negros, Hollandia and Aitape, Biak and Morotai?  

War at the end of the World is a great resource to understand these lesser-known battles, and at the same time to understand the Japanese viewpoint, which quite often gets lost in histories such as these. That the Japanese high command let so many troops wither on the vine is hard to understand, even with the difficulties that they had in moving troops as the war tipped in favour of the Allies. So many times Duffy writes of Japanese formations that were frittered away in piecemeal attacks, or suicidal defences of areas of little strategic value.

What I liked about this book was Duffy's even-handedness in describing the Australian and American contributions to victory. While we Australians might think we did it all, the reality is that the Americans did most of the heavy lifting. Duffy gets the balance right in my opinion - clearly pointing out the holding operations of the Australians at Kokoda, and how their preponderance of skill and battle experience led the way through the early battles at Buna and Gona, and then giving way to the greater numbers of Americans as they arrived in the theatre. 

As the subtitle of this book suggests, Duffy also has a focus on MacArthur throughout this book. He makes us aware that his one aim was to get back to the Philippines, and writes well on his constant battle with the Navy and Chiefs of Staff to get the men and material he required to prosecute the war. Duffy alludes to the politics surrounding his command, and how astute MacArthur was in managing the men around him, above him and below him as well.

With one caveat, I can recommend this book as a very good and detailed overview of what in many ways has become a forgotten part of the Pacific War.

The caveat is that the maps are appalling - too few, too lacking in detail, and too poorly printed to be of any use. This is inexcusable in a book describing a campaign that covers one of the World's largest islands. The blame for this can't be laid at the feet of the author, but it really lets the book down. The bibliography and index are serviceable.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked this book up, but found it a readable and relatively comprehensive narrative of this long and complex campaign.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell