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Class of 1957 Book Review Site. ©2007. To add a Book Review, or to comment on a book already in this listing, send your material or review to Sam Coulbourn at Persnav@shore.net. Photo at top of each page shows ENS Arleigh Burke beneath 14-inch gun aboard Battleship USS Arizona, 1923. Revised 27 March 2008. |
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WAR HISTORY The Bridge at Dong Ha
By John G. Miller, 1966.
WAR HISTORY Conduct Under Fire: Four American Doctors and Their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945
By John A Glusman, 2005.
` A true story of four American Doctors captured in the Philippines and their fight for life as prisoners of the Japanese. Although there is alot of medical jargon described in various chapters it makes for an interesting read in the plight which ultimately takes them from the Philippines by prison ship to Japanese prisons.
WAR HISTORY Roosevelt’s Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage
By Joseph E. Persico, 2002.
This is a book, now in soft copy, is about President Roosevelt and how he "managed" World War II espionage. It starts before the war and takes you right up to his death. What I personally found interesting was his reliance on non-government personnel. The story part of the book is about 430 pages, and it's extremely well documented. A very easy read for those who are interested in the subject. Taken from the back of the book is the following, which does a far better job than I could in describing the book..."By temperament and character, no American President was better suited for secret warfare than FDR. He manipulated, compartmentalized, dissembled, and misled, demonstrating a spymaster's talent for intrigue. Not only did Roosevelt create America's first central intelligence agency, the OSS, under "Wild Bill" Donovan, but he ran spy rings directly from the Oval Office, enlisting well-placed socialite friends."
WAR HISTORY The Raid: The Son Tay Prison Rescue Mission
By Benjamin F. Schemmer, 1976; Rev. ed. 2002
This is a superb account of the planning, execution, and aftermath of the joint service raid on the Son Tay prison camp west of Hanoi in November 1970. Ben Schemmer’s ability to describe and weave together the personalities, timetables, technical details, and other aspects of this great undertaking is remarkable. The exploit is so daring, and the scope of the joint service mission so vast, that the reader is drawn in from the start. The Raid is a testimony to the brains, moral and physical courage, professionalism and dedication of some of America’s finest men who were determined to do “what Americans traditionally do for Americans.” It is a book not to miss for anyone who prizes his military service and takes delight in the splendid achievements of others.
WAR HISTORY A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962
By Alistair Horne, 1957 (revised 2006) (604 pp.)
Alistair Horne’s stunning historical narrative reads like a novel, albeit one with a thousand characters. It is almost impossible to read even a couple of pages without being reminded of current events in Iraq. For example, the author notes two classic lessons of failures by the West. One is the inability to meet, or even comprehend the aspirations of the Third World. The second is the sad, repeating failures of moderates to successfully compete against extremists within revolutionary experiences. One need read no further than the Preface to come across these two observations or look no further than the daily news to find fresh backing for another moderate politician in Iraq. This, incidentally, is the book that President Bush recently noted was recommended to him by Henry Kissinger. The events of this vivid and bloody struggle took place while the young officers of the class of 1957 were earning their stripes and many will probably recall episodes from Algeria or from Paris where De Gaulle was recalled to power to rescue not just a colony but also a nation. He dominates the events from 1958, preventing revolution in the streets of France through the force of his personality while surviving literally scores of assassination attempts. This is the world of The Day of the Jackal and also of the movie “The Battle of Algiers,” which, like this book, has become required for any student of counter insurgency and should be required for anyone who thinks that torture can be productive in any manner. In that regard, Horne quotes a knowledgeable French officer who says that torture should be left to the police where it will not seriously damage the war effort. If practiced by the military, it damages the soul of a nation. There are differences, of course. For one thing, the United States is not trying to hang on to a former colony in Iraq but its reliance on having newly trained Iraqi forces assume its role is troubling in view of France’s experience where more Algerians fought for France than for the insurgents. For another, American insistence on firm civilian control of its armed forces should prevent independent dissension of the military that led to open revolt from many French units. Still, fighting insurgencies while home support wanes is a painful parallel. Histories like this develop perspective. Algeria was going to eventually gain independence just as Vietnam was and saner policies could surely have been developed to permit the ultimate results with less loss of life and lasting bitterness. Such wisdom would avoid the tragedies of ultimately abandoning native populations whom Western powers have induced to fight with them until they decide to go home. This happened with Kurds in the First Iraq war, with some loyalists in Ireland, with Vietnamese who had worked for Americans and for whom that was not room on the helicopters and will probably happen in Iraq. Zinedine Zidane, the former French football captain, is the son of harkis, the Algerians who fought for France and who faced banishment or worse. Time heals. The wisdom contained in this book can be had for less than fourteen dollars for the new paperback edition.
Review by Tony Crowell, February, 2007.
WAR HISTORY Beyond Terror—Strategy in a Changing World
By Ralph Peters, 2002.
Ralph Peters (b. 1952) is a former U.S. Army officer who rose from enlisted ranks and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1998. Beyond Terror is a collection of essays Peters wrote, from 1994 to 2001. Most of the essays were written before September 11, 2001. It provides an excellent, long-range and short-range view of terrorism, particularly that springing from the Middle East. “September 11, 2001 was, indeed, a moment of truth, but not for the United States or the West. Rather, it was a moment of truth for the Islamic world, with its various cultures and its consistent impulse to blame others for all its failures, personal or collective…Muslim states and societies are totting while their ancient competitors flourish. Because it cannot progress without fundamental and pervasive changes in virtually every public and private sphere, the Islamic world will continue to be a source of trouble for every other civilization… “A billion people, as proud as they are ill-governed and ill-prepared for modern life, have found that they cannot compete with other civilizations on a single front—not even in terror, for the West will, out of .. need, learn to terrorize the terrorists.” In one essay, “When Devils Walk the Earth” written in October, 2001, Peters examines the mentality of terrorism, comparing practical terrorists with apocalyptic ones. Practical terrorists like the Stern gang, or the IRA. The Islamic terrorists of Osama bin Laden are apocalyptic. There will be no reasoning, no threatening, no discovery that they are losing. The West is succeeding, the Islamic world is failing, and they hate us for it.
Peters offers his Rules for Fighting Terror, which include: 1. Be feared. 2. Do not be afraid to be powerful. 3. Speak bluntly. 4. Concentrate on winning the propaganda war where it is winnable. 5. Whenever legal conditions permit, kill terrorists on the spot. 6. Never listen to those who warn that ferocity on our part reduces us to the level of the terrorist. 7. Do not allow the terrorists to hide behind religion. 8. Whenever possible, humiliate your enemy in the eyes of his own people. 9. If the terrorists hide, strike what they hold dear. 10. Do not allow the terrorists sanctuary in any country, at any time, under any circumstances. Never declare victory.
Review by Sam Coulbourn, October 2006.
WAR HISTORY The English Civil War: Papists, Gentlewomen, Soldiers, and Witchfinders in the Birth of Modern Britain
By Diane Purkiss, New York: Basic Books. 2006. 627 pp.
In order to get her readers to understand the English Civil War, Diane Purkis, a fellow and tutor at Keble College, Oxford, attempts to fill in the whole canvas of life in England in 1639. The two main players in this Civil War were King Charles I, 1600-1649, and Oliver Cromwell, 1599-1658. Charles seems to have lived a pitiful childhood, with a bad case of rickets keeping him from the playful part of childhood. But he turned out to be a rather well-educated, bright man. He just couldn’t get it into his head that there was a whole nation of people out there who looked to him for leadership. The main cause of these wars (there actually were two civil wars between 1642 and 1646) was King Charles. He believed in the divine right of kings, and one day appeared in Parliament with his guards and arrested five M.P.’s who had been rather openly opposing him. Religion in the seventeenth century was huge. Religion was into everything. You could be godly, or considered by others not godly enough. King Charles married Henrietta Maria and it appears probably one of the best marriages in the history of English kings. No record of mistresses, and they seemed to have loved each other. However the Queen was a Catholic, and that drove a lot of people in England, from the Archbishop of Canterbury down to ordinary citizens—nuts. Most people in England were deathly afraid of Papists, and the war that raged across England from 1642 to 1646 was a war between Royalists, supporting the Crown, and the Rebels, supporting Parliament. There is plenty of brutality in these wars, which raged across England from 1642 until 1646. Soldiers smashed each others’ heads, and brains and blood sprayed everywhere. Even in peacetime life was not rosy for the lowest classes, and the Civil War denuded fields of their crops, and took farmers from their fields. One of the more colorful details of this book is Purkiss’ description of the menu for a typical meal of the young Prince of Wales, later Charles I: Manchet bread (made with sieved white flour); for his servants, Cheat bread, made with coarser flour. There was beer and wine, mutton bone, chicken bone, beef, veal capon, partridges, and larks. Lower servants had collops, a kind of burger made from leftovers and fatty pork. There was a tart or pie, containing meat and spices. On a fish day, all the meat would be displaced by carp, ling, pike and sometimes cod. “No wonder Charles had rickets” Purkiss observes. For the poor, the diet was perhaps bread, and or various pulse-based foods called pottage, and then there was beer, which provided a lot of quick calories. On feast days they might have a bit of meat or a sweetcake. Purkiss used a mountain of contemporary notes, diaries and newsbooks—little books which preceded newspapers, but provided the news of the day, often slanted according to whether the writer was Royalist, Papist, Presbyterian, or what. Charles could have ended the bloodshed at any time, but he finally did in 1646, and three years later a “rump parliament” voted to cut off his head. He was decapitated in 1649, and an era of King-less government followed under Oliver Cromwell, named Lord Protector of the Commonwealth.
Review by Samuel W. Coulbourn, July 2007.
WAR HISTORY The Killer Angels
By Michael Shaara, 1974
Michael Shaara describes the Battle of Gettysburg in his characterization of the principals involved and the vivid details of this great conflict. His vignettes of Lee’s disappointment in Pickett, Chamberlain’s resolve on Little Round Top, and Longstreet’s conflict over ordering the final Confederate charge bring the characters to life. His vivid descriptions — the bone-weariness of men on a forced march under a blazing sun where the atmosphere is dust and your life shrinks to an effort to put one foot in front of another — put the reader in the scene. If you can’t visit the Gettysburg battlefield, read The Killer Angels. You won’t be disappointed.
WAR HISTORY Masters of the Air
By Donald L. Miller, 2006.
A superb, comprehensive (670 pp.) history of the Eighth Air Force, its men, the B-17, its occupation of much of England and its bombing of Europe. With the true historian’s perspective of addressing events as they were viewed at the time, rather than with the hindsight of knowledge of their outcome, Miller gives the reader remarkable insights into the challenges faced when the raids began in 1942. Never had men fought at these sub-zero frigid altitudes and many died or left their flesh frozen to their guns. Oxygen supplies failed, occasionally pilots panicked but they kept coming and coming. This is not the complete story of the bombing campaign. Readers who want to follow the B-24’s based in Italy can find the earlier The Wide Blue Yonder by the popular Stephen Ambrose but this book cuts deeper and closer to the bone. Miller portrays the most nerve wracking moments, typically on the flight line as crews board for the mission, the difficulties of urinating while trying to stay alive and the joys of letting off steam in London, including the fun of being one of the lucky ones who pulled liberty with Clark Gable, who didn’t give a damn if the prettiest girls went to another sergeant. Conflicts among the brass were frequent. General “Hap” Arnold, a man of strong convictions and temper, at a staff meeting once harangued a junior officer who clutched his chest as Arnold screamed in his face, collapsed and dropped dead of a massive heart attack in front of the general’s desk. Given the rest of the day off, the surviving members thought it prudent to return to their desks. The target selection debate receives extensive treatment as bombing points went from factories to oil refineries to city centers and, finally, to railroad stations packed with homeless refugees. The effect of the bombing war on the ultimate victory remains a matter of debate. As the book points out, the Eighth Air Force eventually found the right targets although it ignored Germany’s electric power network. It bombed indestructible U-boat pens and ball bearing plants with ineffective undersize bombs. Lives were wasted in deep penetrations like Schweinfurt without adequate fighter protection. Although the commanders and their valiant crews conducting a long, demanding and critical campaign, the author argues that more effective and less costly results could have been obtained with closer civilian scrutiny.
Review by Tony Crowell, February, 2007 |
