5 comments about The General (Great War Stories).

1. Forester's main character, Gen Curzon, is from the old school, where one does not question orders, nor does one make waves. That being said, from a military leadership perspective, if one has a method, even if it doesnt work, it will continued to be used time and time again. Curzon's character is a representation of the level of British generalship in WWI. Unyielding, unimaginative, and willing to toe the line at all costs, with the blood and treasure of England.
   The story has a humor woven throughout the narrative. It looks at Curzon's social climbing, his promotions (through no fault of his own, and his old school belief system. If it werent for the tradgedy of the hundred of thousands of lives which were expended based on the unimaginative battle techniques, it would be a very humorous story. Unfortunately, the death toll of WWI is a sobering reminder, thanks to Forester, of the repercussions of Generalship as displayed by Curzon.
   HIghly recommended. An excellent insight into the class structure of the British Army of WWI.



2. This was one of the best books that I've read in a couple of years. C.S. Forester is a superb author. This book depicts the tragedy and waste of human life through the actions and amibition of a British General, who, in his own mind, maintains he is doing the right thing for king and country. Highly recommended.



3. While most of the authors novels were set during the time of Napoleon, some were set at later times including the well known novel, "The African Queen," and this lesser known novel, "The General," both of which were set during World War I. It has often been said that generals plan tactics based on the last war. Napoleon had developed tactics based on an artillery barrage followed by an attack by infantry and cavalry. The British Army was still trying to use those tactics at the start of World War I, ignoring the change in armaments which included the introduction of machine guns.
   
   Herbert Curzon is an officer from the old school, entering World War I in command of a lancer regiment, expecting to charge the enemy on horseback. Command of machine guns had been relegated to a lieutenant "who did not sit a horse very well," and most officers did not study the tactics of their use. They did not expect to fight on foot, and did not carry entrenching tools. The machine guns quickly became the most critical part of the battle, and men had to dig in the best they could in the muddy ground.
   
   The British were slow to learn new tactics, and still adhered to the tactics developed by Napoleon well into the war. Curzon is given promotions, partly because he survives and impresses the War Office with his reputation for holding his positions, and partly because he marries the daughter of a Duke who has a position in the government. He rapidly rises to Lieutenant General and Corps commander. The novel ends when he is badly wounded trying to rally his men against a German offensive which is breaking the British lines.
   
   The novel illustrates the muddle that occurred during the war. Officers had little experience trying to handle the orders necessary for the movement of half a million men, and there was an insufficient number of experienced officers. Reserves were in the wrong place, roads became clogged preventing movement, officers had a fixation on large assaults across torn up ground that their own artillery had rendered impassible. It rained, turning land into swamps where the artillery had destroyed the drainage systems. Changes to tactics were very slow. Observations were by balloons and airplanes instead of cavalry patrols. Tanks were introduced, but too few, and not readily accepted by the generals.
   
   Hundreds of thousands of men were lost for little purpose. It is truly amazing that the government did not totally collapse, but they did not have the news media of our present day; and they had almost hysterical patriotism, with young women publicly shaming men who would not volunteer to go to the front.
   
   The novel ends halfway through the war, when Curzon is badly wounded.
   
   The novel was published in 1936. The forward indicates that it was used as a military manual in some countries.



4. This is one of C.S. Forester's first novels about war, published in 1936 and hence pre-dating Hornblower.
   
   Like almost all the novels which Forester wrote before he created the Hornblower books, this is brilliant, far less well known today than it deserves, and consequently quite rare. The author H.G. Wells described "The General" as "a magnificent piece of work."
   
   Some of Forester's other books, particularly those describing battles against opponents of whom he strongly disapproved of such as Hitler's nazis or indeed Napoleon, can come over as patriotic to the point of jingoism or chauvinism. This story does not come into that category and it would not be far from the truth to call it one of the first great anti-war novels.
   
   If you collect books about war, and you are fortunate enough to find a copy of "The General" for sale at a remotely reasonable price, buy it at once.
   
   This novel describes the military career of a fictional first world war general. It begins and ends between the wars, with a sharp pen-picture of the retired general Curzon sitting in a bathchair on Bournemouth Promenade, having lost his leg during the great war and never managed to learn to walk properly with an artificial one.
   
   Then the story goes back to Curzon's first battle as a subaltern in 1899 during the Boer war, and follows him through to the climax of the book at the battle of St Quentin on March 21st 1918 when the last desperate German offensive nearly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
   
   Forester appears to have set out to do three things; to entertain, inform, and explain. He entertains with an engaging story; he informs by describing the ghastly conditions and waste of life which was the first world war in the trenches; and he tries to explain one possible answer to the question of how British commanders could possibly have given the orders which sent hundreds of thousands of young men to their deaths.
   
   One of the most memorable passages in the book describes the debate as generals and senior staff officers of an army corps prepared a report of why the attack they had just organised had failed and how to succeed next time. "In some ways it was like the debate of a group of savages as to how to extract a screw from a piece of wood. Accustomed only to nails, they had made one effort to pull out the screw by main force, and now that it had failed they were devising methods of applying more force still ... they could hardly be blamed for not guessing that by rotating the screw it would come out after the exertion of far less effort".
   
   But that does not mean that Forester is simply repeating the popular caricature of First World War generals as dangerous idiots. Although he is critical of the mistakes of the generals who wasted so many lives, his criticism is far more sophisticated than the old "Lions led by donkeys" cliche.
   
   Although Curzon, the central figure of this book, is old fashioned and conventional, he is intelligent enough to change his mind when confronted with clear evidence of the need to do so, and decisive enough to enforce that change of mind on others when many men would freeze in panic. Had he been as stupid as some reviewers make out, Curzon would not have survived the first few months of World War 1, let alone been rapidly promoted.
   
   He is intelligent enough to realise that his men need to eat and to make sure that they are fed properly, and to make use of officers who understand newfangled things like engineering, railways, or how many men it takes to carry a gas canister. He is ruthless enough to sack staff officers who are not up to the job even when one of them is his wife's cousin.
   
   Within minutes of arriving at the front and seeing what artillery and machine-guns can do, Curzon abandons his pre-war attitude of deliberately evading training on how to dig trenches, and instead orders his men to dig for their lives, demanding compliance from junior officers who are afraid that the men might get dirt on their uniforms. "God damn it, man!" he explodes, "Get your men digging, and don't ask damn fool questions."
   
   In the first round of battles in the Great War, heroic efforts from Curzon in the face of greatly superior german numbers prevent the British from being flanked and probably defeated at the First Battle of Ypres. Having fought with distinction up to this point, he is promoted to much more senior positions. But then things start to go wrong.
   
   Forester makes a great many good points about the need to use the tactics which will win the current battle rather than the last war: indeed, that even the tactics which won earlier battles of the current war should be dropped if they are out of date. But that is not the only message he is trying to put over.
   
   The main theme of "The General" is a World War One version of the Peter Principle. The very qualities which make Curzon successful on the battlefield up to and including the command of a brigade have disastrous consequences for England when he is a Lieutenant-General commanding an army corps, and when both he and all the other senior officers of the army are still displaying the characteristics which colonels and brigadiers need to hold their regiments in the line.
   
   Forester states quite explicitly in the book that the very strengths of the World War One generals, not just their weaknesses, were part of the problem. I quote - "It might have been ... more advantageous to England if the British Army had not been quite so full of men of high rank who were so ready for responsibility, so unflinchingly devoted to their duty, so unmoved in the face of difficulties, of such unfaltering courage."
   
   This book is an unforgettable classic.



5. I know that this N&A edition is priced high but I payed the $25.95 here at Amazon and I was not disappointed. The General is one of the best war books I've ever read. It tells the tale of Herbert Curzon as he rises through the ranks to being a general in the British military. It's brilliant in revealing the world, social and political, of WWI Britain. One admires "old-school" Curzon and those like him and yet one is also shocked at the inadequacy of "old-school" tactics and their results. This book is gritty and polished, much like the British officers it illustrates. The war bits are very good though tragic. I had read The African Queen and disliked it. This is the second book of Forester's that I've read and I thought it was brilliant.

5 comments about Torpedoed: An American Businessman's True Story of Secrets, Betrayal, Imprisonment in Russia, and the Battle to.

1. This book looks like mystery but not like honest and
   serious story.Authors described everything too primitive and without
   proper proofs.



2. I read books cover-to-cover, good or bad. Good books because I can't stop, bad books because of my morbid fascination that such junk gets published. That being said, I cannot finish this book.

   If Ed Pope was not spying, the Russians should have locked him up for profound manifestation of delusions of grandeur. This guy has an extraordinary ego ... . When I get the stomach to finish this book, I want to go back and count the number of times Ed declares himself "right" when everyone else was wrong.

   Did our military really approve 126 top-secret clearances for this guy? If so, this issue raises serious questions about our national security. I suspect the navy was as sick of Ed as you will be (if you buy this book), and to pacify his passion for intrigue, declared any trivial tidbit of knowledge Ed possessed as "top secret."

   I'll bet most of Ed's 'security clearances' were bestowed in this manner: "Oh, and by the way Ed, divulge to no one the location of your parking spot or the number of pens in your pocket protector ... that's top secret information." Further, I'll bet as soon as Ed obtained these 'clearances' he showed his coworkers where his car was located, and emptied the contents of his geek-badge, just so he could admonish them to take the information to their graves.

   On second thought ... go ahead and buy this book. Misery loves company.




3. An incredibly poorly written book, chock full of inconsistencies and contradictions. I forced myself to finish it, which was not as painful as Pope's prison experience, but....

   Mr. Pope makes the point many times that he knew he was dealing on the edge of legality. Indeed, he blames some of his troubles on his associate, Kiely, for having brought into Russia "papers that I had pleaded with him to leave at home" [p 124]. Well, Pope says he knew he was being watched, he tells us he knew his hotel phone was bugged and he made that plea in a phone call from Moscow to Kiely in the US. So why the surprise??

   To illustrate his point that Putin is a bum, he accuses him of making cheap election promises [sound familiar?] to reschedule London and Paris Club debt [p. 85]. But Putin can't do that; Russia is the debtor!

   He knows some of his cellmates are government stooges and yet cites their statements to support his understandable anger at the Rusian government.

   The Pope story tells us something about Russian bureacracy and its vestigial military industrial complex. Let's hope it does not tell us much about our own bureaucracies.
   
   Sorry, Captain Ed, but having lived in Moscow for almost seven years and having read most of the books dealing with Russia since Gorbachov, I have to recommend putting yours at the bottom of anyone's reading list.




4. It is apparent from the beginning that Edmond Pope felt he was something special from being retired from the Navy and founding a company which specialized in projects related to propulsion through water. It appeared that he felt with all the Navy top secret clearances, they alone should be sufficient for obtaining information from those in Russia willing to sell. He knew about the danger of obtaining the information and how his room was bugged and, this was a risky international business he was in. It seems through his narration, nothing came as a surprise to him when whe was held over in the beginning. His ordeal in the prison showed that he had undergone suffient Navy training not to break him completely. By all accounts his wife was very instrumental in getting public attention to his captivity. The most obvious thing that came out of this writing, was that no where could he convince anyone until he was captive for nearly three months for help either from Penn State where he was wroking for or from our government representatives. It was expecially evident, our most highly impressive Pennsylvania State Senators Arlen Spector or Rick Santorum, who representated him gave no reponse to his wife when she requested their help. Only after he was well on his way of getting a pardon from the Russian president, did Spector or Santorum get on the bandwagon behind Pope. I guess it shows that they only play when things are in a positive mode. The book was very interesting and written well and held your attention throughout.



5. I met this man in person. The ordeals he went thru, its just insane. But he made the best of his time in purgatory.
   This is another example of burachcy.
   For those of you who dont have a clue how the world really is
   please read this book.

5 comments about Honorable Warrior: General Harold K. Johnson and the Ethics of Command (Modern War Studies).

1. I had the honor to know General Harold K. Johnson while he was a Commanding General, and then to serve two years as his personal aide while he was Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. Sorley has done a magnificient job of research and reporting on the life of the most dedicated American military leader in recent history. General Johnson was a unique man, humbled by his roots, molded by his experience as a POW, and a man whose personal moral standards never waivered. I think the author has portrayed General Johnson as the man I knew. My only difference with the portrayal is the implication of "resignation in protest" on a number of occasions. General Johnson held the view that his function was to advise the President, and that the President had no obligation to accept that advice. I would accept the "resignation" theory only if it portrayed General Johnson as considering resignation because he felt his advice was inadequate or that his articulation ! of that advice was inadequate. The idea of resignation would have been because he felt someone else could perhaps do it better. He was such a private man that I also doubt he would have shared that thought with others, particularly junior to him. But, a really excellent biography and Sorley has done himself proud.



2. I'm four-fifths done with "Honorable Warrior", and about the same amount done with "A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam" by Neil Sheehan, and I'm terribly afraid, in fact, I'm pretty sure (I looked at the ending) that Mr. Sorley will duck the question that his subject could not duck..quite. That question was whether the military effort was going to work. General Johnson was averse to Phoenix-style assassination programs and to unrestrained bombardment. He thought local policing and interdiction of infiltration would answer things. This assumes (on his part) that the South Vietnamese regime would use this breathing space to flourish in democracy, rectitude, and mercy. Why did he assume this? His cherished analytical principle, Mr. Sorley informs us, was "challenge the assertion". For instance, the General tore to shreds, anaylytically, one of McNamara's "Systems Anaylysis" monster-reports on Vietnam by pointing out that it had been cobbled together out of twenty-eight other analyses, each of which had different assumptions. As my history professor would say, "scissors and paste" or "daisy-chaining" does not good history make. My question is whether the General was rigorous enough in evaluating his own thought, his own assertions. The question is directed to Mr. Sorley, who says in his conclusion that the war was actually against mere "surrogates" of China and the Soviet Union. By that logic, we would have been morally authorized to kill every Vietnamese, since they were only inert instruments of the source of the belligerency. Trying to look through Mr. Sorley's somewhat blood-misted eyes, I take seriously his suggestion that the General was often tempted to quit and that he had paralyzing doubts about the war, which he justified to himself as bringing freedom to the people of Vietnam. Did the General end up believing, in the words of the U.S. officer so often quoted, that in order to save the nation of Vietnam it was necessary to destroy it? No, I hear his fans shouting, he was too moral! But was he moral enough to realize that it was immoral to police and interdict a viable political regime (sponsored by Ho) to death in the hope that another regime would spring up from the morally toxic swamps of Saigon? (This concept of viability of regime is the standard upheld by so-called international law in determining which of competing regimes deserves recognition). Could he make that leap of faith in good conscience? Or did he in fact drape his moral doubt in words like "anti-communism" and "security", and leave it to someone else to decide if the whole thing was going to work? My suggestion for a moral lesson is that if you're called on to do something by someone who is farther from the action than you are to the extent that you're confident that you know more about the moral questions raised than your "superior" does, so much so that your sense of obligation to this superior evaporates, you cannot dress up your feeling of emptiness with some slogans, much less with the claim that you're only following orders, but must do something to rectify the malfeasance of your own superiors. In the words of Matthew Ridgeway, words that the Army put on a leadership poster ten years ago, "If you are confident that your orders are mistaken, you are obliged to attempt to fix things." Not his exact words. I don't think he just said to bring it to the attention of your superiors. I suppose that leaves disobedience, resignation, and forceful advocacy. It is the lack of forceful advocacy by the General, and lack of concern by Mr. Sorley over the General's lack of forceful advocacy, that makes the life of the General, as Mr. Sorley tells it, only worth four stars out of five. I mean, you can't just blame everything on General Westmoreland, especially when he worked for General Johnson, traditions of lattitude for field commanders notwithstanding. Alright, how do I know the General wasn't forceful enough since I haven't finished the book? He could have ordered Westmoreland to fix things: whatever, invade Laos, install U.S. commanders in all ARVN units, take over the administration of the South Vietnamese civil population, which is the same as taking over the Saigon regime, whatever it would have taken in his mind to win ("the freedom of the South Vietnamese people", remember) and then suffered the consequences. The President could have fired him. The fact that the President didn't fire him is proof to me that he didn't advocate forcefully enough. That is crude of me. Romantic. Duel at Diablo. End of story. Soul intact. It is so easy in a bureaucracy to adopt the attitude of "garbage in, garbage out", but they pay you and respect you for doing hard things. In the words of the New Testament parable, we are worthless servants when we only do what we are told. If the General had no doubt that his conduct of the war -- he was plumb in the middle of the road of the chain of command, it was on his watch -- was ethical, we cannot second-guess God's judgment of him. To quote the previous reviewer, however, it seems that he thought that his job was to follow orders. That is not ethical. That is, in the final analysis, stupid. We don't creates lines of authority to multiply our stupidity, but to diminish it. If, when you give somebody an order, there is no implicit "or am I being stupid" which they feel free to confirm or deny, you are not getting the best out of that subordinate and the people are not getting its best out of you. This applies the more so, the higher up you go. Hey?



3. Sorley had become the preeminent biographer of military leaders. His first book, Thunderbolt, was a joy to read. Honorable Warrior is the story of man who fought, the Japanese, survived the Battan Death march and many years of unspeakable horror in Japanese prison camps. He also fought with great bravery in Korea. However, I t was his time as Chief of Staff when General Johnson faced his most difficult professional agonies. Anyone interested in leadership, the military or American history should read this book.



4. Harold K. Johnson was a soldier's soldier who had the misfortune to have his career bookended by a pair of tragedies. As a young officer at the beginning of World War II, he was captured by the Japanese on Bataan and his sense of duty forced him to abandon thoughts of escape in order to look after his men. Then, as Chief of Staff of the Army, he was forced to watch the civilian leadership ignore his advice and make a hash of a winnable war. Again, his sense of duty to his men forced him to swallow his anger and abandon plans of resigning and going public with his criticisms.
   
   Lest one think that something other than duty led him to these painful decisions, the core of his career reveals a brilliant, courageous soldier for whom duty was his watchword. Sorley writes with objectivity and sensitivity about Johnson's career and this book becomes a virtual primer on duty. Selflessness marked all of Johnson's actions and while one would have preferred seeing a happier conclusion to the career of this fine man, Honorable Warrior shows you why the best people in America are sometimes forced to live with the consequences of someone else's muddled decisions.
   
   Sorley's book succeeds as top notch military history, a thoughtful biography of a good man and a philosophical meditation on the nature of duty.



5. Well-researched and written. A Bataan death march survivor and prisoner of the Japanese for several years, Johnson rose to the top of his profession, Chief of Staff of the Army. Truly a great man but largely unknown. An exciting story.

2 comments about To Gettysburg And Beyond: The Parallel Lives of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and Edward Porter Alexander.

1. Michael Golay is a master story-teller. Thus he instantly enthralls his audience by inter-weaving the lives of one of America's greatest heroes: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and an American traitor: Edward Porter Alexander, into one, seamless story. Golay takes dry, dead history and makes it live, so that the seemingly formidable task of reading 345 pages passes quickly and enjoyably.

   This is a great book to read if you are looking for a little fun, or if you wish to share information with a friend or family member unfamiliar with the details of America's 19th century, intramural tragedy.

   However, a double biography is an artificial construct, at best. Golay's choice to tie together the lives of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and Edward Porter Alexander emphasizes just how artificial that structure can be.

   Chamberlain was a genuine American hero: a civilian academic, past the age when he would have been expected to serve, he rushed to his country's defense at the beginning of the Civil War. Serving brilliantly, at great personal cost, Chamberlain is creditted by many with turning the Battle of Gettysburg, contributing significantly during the Battle of Five Forks, and beginning the process of national healing with his chivalrous gesture at the Surrender Triangle of Appomattox Court House.

   Alexander, on the other hand, was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a regular Army officer. Like all regular Army officers, he had sworn "to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic." In order to participate in the insurrection, he violated his sacred oath: he lied. The nation expected better of the man, and should have had its expectations fulfilled.

   In an age when values are, again, viewed as important, we must clearly state that, ultimately, despite the shared battles, hardships, and adventures, the lives of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and Edward Porter Alexander were not parallel. Chamberlain's life is to be emulated, and Alexander's rejected.

   This book works. It is simply flawed by its structure.




2. 
   Golay writes a double biography: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's and Edward Porter Alexander's. Chamberlain has long been credited with fighting the most significant action at Gettysburg; Alexander rises through the ranks to become Longstreet's Chief of Artillery. Both men are present at Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
   
   This is an interesting approach to Civil War literature as the work simultaneously provides both the Union and Confederate participation in various major battles. Along the way, Golay, a gifted writer, is able to impart a better, more personal understanding of the engagements these two warriors participated in.
   
   This is a very worthwhile read.

2 comments about A Piece of My Heart.

1. Two hundred Vietnam vets (women and men both) ranked this book among the top five "oral histories" from the war, and those five oral histories among the top fifteen books from the Vietnam War period. The other four? EVERYTHING WE HAD (Santoli), NAM (Baker), CASUALTIES (Brandon) and BLOODS (Terry). All offer women-vet voices as moving as Walker's collection. (Comments by the author of DREAM BABY.)



2. This book is on the "Recommended Reading List" of Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 295, Indianapolis, Indiana

No comments about Drowning in the Desert: A JAG's Search for Justice in Iraq.

5 comments about Günther Rall: A Memoir.

1. Gunther Rall, a man who had risen to command the Luftwaffe in the 1970s having become the third highest-scoring ace during World War II (275 enemy aircraft destroyed), had decided to leave it until over half a century after the end of the war in 1945 before permitting his biography to be written on account that he felt that the days of Nazism had poisoned forever the reputation of his country, which he was proud (if misguidedly) to fight for, yet he came to hate the Nazi regime for which he was fighting.
   
   Like many of his generation, the young Rall was fired by the idealism generated by Hitler while he was growing up during the 1930s, and so he could not wait to join the armed forces, the army initially, before being fired by the idea of flying when a friend came to see to him and extolled the virtues of being as free as a bird in the skies.
   
   This led to him a career in the Luftwaffe, which encompassed the war years and also the 20 years between the re-establishment of the air force in 1955 and his retirement (under somewhat painful and controversial circumstances) as a lieutenant general in 1975. He fought against the French, British, Russians and Americans during the war, and he describes in detail some of the air battles that he took part in, including the one where a cannon shell from an American P-51 ripped off the top of the thumb of his left hand (although the glove still remains!). Yet it was on the Eastern Front that most of the action takes place, and, indeed, all the dangers he experienced as a front-line fighter pilot are described, especially during the retreat to Germany when the Soviets were breathing down their necks.
   
   The book, written by Jill Amadio, opens with the words, "You'll never fly again - never." This introduces a kind of Douglas Bader-type scenario whereby he was told by a doctor that his flying career was over after a crash (at the end of a combat mission) which left him all but paralyzed. "Doctor - I will fly again," he says matter-of-factly. Amadio certainly gives the impression of a man who is determined to triumph over adversity, and Rall's story is one that deals with the experiences and emotions of someone whose loyalty to the Nazi regime he himself began to question during the latter stages of the war.
   
   For example, he was summoned to Berlin to receive his Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, a very high decoration for any combatant in the Third Reich. He dared to be brazen enough to ask Hitler to his face when the war would end, and Rall (as well as the other pilots present) was shocked to hear the Fuhrer reply, "I don't know." His sense of despair and anger was heightened when he was invited to a party to celebrate the 50th birthday of the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering. The opulence and extravagance of the occasion intensely annoyed him since he and others were living in danger and misery on the Eastern Front, sharing rations, huddling themselves around makeshift fires in winter, short of supplies and aircraft spares, and constantly in fear of death or, worse, capture. All the while, top Nazis like Goering were living in luxury and regaling their ever-skeptical audiences with calls for all-out efforts to win a war, which, it was clear to all and sundry by then, Germany was going to lose.
   
   Rall nevertheless never shirked in his duty, even if he no longer believed that Germany could win the war, and, in May 1945, once they heard that Hitler was dead, he and what remained of his personnel tried as best they could to get back to their home towns on foot. Their effort was, of course, doomed to failure as they were "informed" by U.S. Army troops that they were to become prisoners-of-war. Rall and fellow "ace" pilots wound up in a POW camp in France where the hatred of the French was all too evident. However, Rall had a respite when he met Bader himself. In return for (possibly) not being handed over to the Soviets, Rall agreed to co-operate with the Allies as regards technical information (jet aircraft like the Me 262 were a hot topic) since, in his mind, there was no reason not to. After all, Germany was beaten, so resisting was both useless and absurd.
   
   Always enthused by flying, Rall did not hesitate to rejoin the postwar Federal German Air Force in 1955, eventually commanding it, and he gained the respect of many in the aviation community, especially in the USA. After retirement, he toured many countries, including the former USSR, as a consultant. He has always been conscious of the impact of Nazi policies of aggression against other countries, and he has always considered it his personal mission to let people know that Germany was never meant to be an "evil" country and that it should work for the maintenance of peace, not the conduct of war.
   
   This book is not meant to be a general history of the air war as fought by the Germans in World War II, and it has been written by an author who is not a dedicated military aviation writer. Some military aviation enthusiasts might take issue with the latter fact and thus criticize heavily Amadio's style of writing which gives away her relative lack of experience in writing about military aviation topics. For one thing, she uses English rank titles instead of the German ones like Oberleutnant for First Lieutenant. One might also believe that, although Rall says that he is telling his own story through his eyes, Amadio is the one doing the telling in her particular style. Just as one has to let a movie director direct a movie in his or own way, however, Rall had consented to Amadio telling his story in her own way. In a way, this can be thought of as "thinking outside the box".
   
   It would have been easy for Rall to have chosen a dedicated military aviation writer to tell his story. However, he did not. As a result, the book is written in a style that may not have the hard nuts-and-bolts description of the life of a military officer, yet it is readable nonetheless. It may not be the "perfect" biography after half a century of waiting (by many aviation aficionados, anyway), but it is one that should be respected for what it is.



2. This book is awful, just plain awful.
   
   The reviewer above has hit the nail on the head when stating this is like a high school book report. The writing is childish but more so the actual life of this amazing pilot is poorly portraid here.
   
   Sad that it should fall to such a bad writer.



3. Ms Amadio has produced the only available biography of the renowned Luftwaffe ace Gunther Rall and she has used many memories from the great pilot in her text. The book has many fine black and white photographs and the text is easy to read but there are some serious drawbacks. Ms Amadio has obviously a limited background on World War II because albeit she gives most of the times a comprehensive synopsis of the war situation she repeats some annoying mistakes, like calling Paulus army "6th Panzer Army", or mistaking 1943 for 1942 in page 195, stating that in September 1943 the Afrikakorps was about to collapse (!), or that Hitler was about to fire General Franz Halder (!), things that happened many months before. Despite its shortcomings the book remains the best source on Rall and his wartime carreer is covered in satisfying depth as well as his post war activities.



4. I must say I treasure this book. It is a great story about a great man. Many people criticized the book for being "simple", but the reality is that General Rall did not want to write out his memoirs, rather he wanted them to be written by someone else. He has approved of the book, which is quite an interesting story. I would have liked there to be more details and expansions on certain topics, but I am was satisfied overall with the book.



5. This is rather a good book. It may not have a lot of content about his combat experience, but it looks at more of what he felt about the war, from the beginning to the end. If this book had more content about how he fought in the air, it would be much more exciting to read.

2 comments about General Robert F. Hoke: Lee's Modest Warrior.

1. I have a collection of over 500 books on the Civil War. The best one by far is Gen R.F. Hoke. Daniel Barefoot puts his heart and soul into his work. Daniel has the same qualities as Gen. Hoke and I guess that's why the book is so great. This book takes you through the life of R.F. Hoke from cradle to death. After reading this biography you will understand why Gen. Lee chose Gen. Hoke to assume his command should something terrible befall Lee. A must for every student of the Civil War.



2. Robert F. Hoke led an interesting life. He was a young man when the Civil War broke out (mid-twenties) and enlisted as a lieutenant in the 1st North Carolina Volunteers, seeing combat at the Battle of Big Bethel in Virginia in 1861. Four years later, a Major General, he was one of the principle players at the Battle of Bentonville, one of the last battles of the Civil War. In between he missed few battles (though Gettysburg was one; he'd been severely wounded), rose quickly through the ranks to prominence, and was roundly and pretty universally praised, at least according to the author. All of these things are summarized relatively competently in 14 of the 17 chapters of this book; the remaining chapters cover his pre- and post-war life, and summarize his achievments. What then is my gripe? Well, I have several.

   First, the author is a bit more pro-Confederate than you would expect in this day and age. Granted both author and subject are from the same part of North Carolina, but is that any excuse for the use of the word "Negro?" I haven't seen that in a book published since the '50s, perhaps early '60s. And no, it's not part of a quotation. Captured North Carolina soldiers who enlist in the Union army are traitors, while Union soldiers who wind up in Confederate ranks are "trators" (note the quote, implying the author disagrees with the judgement of treason). It's all a bit much.

   Second, the author imparts a great deal of wisdom and skill to Hoke. I have no problem with some of it, but the idea that he was so skilful that General Lee would want himself replaced by Hoke should Lee be incapacitated or killed seems to stretch the bounds of believability a bit too much.

   Third, the author is handicapped by the characteristic that he imparts to Hoke in the subtitle; modesty. Hoke never wrote much of anything about his war service, kept no diary during the war, wrote few letters discussing it (at least that have survived), and never gave speeches or anything. He never attended veterans' reunions (very unusual for a Civil War general from either side) saying that the war was over, and it was time to look forward. Consequently, the book is very much Hoke as others saw him, not as he saw things himself. This last point, I will grant you, is not the author's fault, but it does hamper the book somewhat in that the picture of Hoke is almost exclusively external; we have no idea what he's thinking most of the time.

   Lastly, there are no maps. In a book of Civil War biography like this where the author is trying to tell you that Hagood's brigade was deployed to the east of the swamp, facing a creek, with Hill's division on his left, you need to be able to look at the map to see which creek or river, etc. No one has the capability to look at all this stuff and visualize where everyone is on the battlefield.

1 comments about Sub Chaser.

1. I have never felt the urge to write a review before, but this is so badly written I threw it out after struggling through about 90 pages It reads like it was written in Japanese and translated to English by a Japanese speaker. Story is probably ok, but the endless history, geography and hydrology lessons are tiresome and almost indeciferable.

1 comments about Forgotten Voices of the Falklands: The Real Story of the Falklands War in the Words of Those Who Were There (Forgotten Voices).

1. The book consists of quotes and excerpts from interviews only, I found it difficult to follow as there is very little commentary linking the various quotes.