2 comments about The Black Prince And The Sea Devils: The Story Of Valerio Borghese And The Elite Units Of The Decima Mas.

1. Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani's The Black Prince And The Sea Devils is the story of Prince Valerio Borghese and his infamous World War II Italian naval commando unit will intrigue any with a special interest in World War II history beyond the generalist topics and scope. Green has authored four previous military titles and Massignani brings with him a special focus on Italian naval history: the two draw upon official archival sources and veteran accounts on both sides to separate fact from fantasy.



2. Every major military in the world has it's special elite units. The British have their SAS. The Americans the SEALS, Rangers, and Special Forces. Strangely enough, this trend began with the Italian Navy. Their Decima MAS unit pioneered the concept of small, specially trained units that did damage to their enemies far beyond their size. Movie buffs will recognize their exploits as shown in the 1958 movie 'The Silent Enemy' where frogmen attack the HMS Valiant and the HMS Queen Elizabeth using specially modified torpedoes that they ride into the harbour.

   It is nice to see that the Italian military is portrayed here as something other than the bumbling fools so often shown in American films and books. This book treats the unit as they would any other unit, telling how it got started, their training, their failures and their successes. This book is also the basis for a new movie called 'The Sea Devils' although I understand that the project is now on hold.

5 comments about American Daughter Gone to War.

1. This book is different. This book goes where no memoir has gone before. It is a soul sharing account of former US Army nurse Winnie Smith's three years in the US Army nurse corps with the focus on Viet-Nam and its devastating personal aftermath. You follow her from her initial days in the US Army to Japan where she gets her first views of the war in Viet-Nam. She starts developing strong relationships with the "warriors." Some become extended family. This closeness takes it toll because the men she liked, and sometimes loved, were killed, lost in action, or wounded. Her testimony of life at the Third Field Hospital in Saigon and then in the head trauma unit of the next hospital were so vivid you are there. She lets it be known that the army was not set up for females by the lack of facilities available. She danced with David Nelson of Ozzie and Harriet fame with out even knowing who he was until the other nurses asked what he like was. Her fear had her turn down marriage proposal from West Pointer Peter. After the service, she had trouble with relationships. In the years ahead, she lived in Dallas then San Francisco. While she went to graduate school the years following Viet-Nam are a vivid picture of the horrors of post traumatic stress disorder. The book is a painful look at this horrific disorder. The book shows there is hope and in many ways seem to be her avenue for dealing with it. She is surprised other persons have similar difficulties coping. She is shocked to learn that her stepfather who lost a leg in World War II had been injured days into the combat zone and thus had no real experience of war as a point of common ground. The book is worth your time. It shows the human toll of any war.



2. very captivating, couldn't put it down. Tells how life was in vietnam and the aftermath of life with PTSD (before PTSD was known about). Very honest in the most detailed of emotions. Having read 'home before morning' many years ago, this is at least as good if not better. I highly recommend.
   
   Details of caring for the most critically wounded and working with not enough trained people to care for them, of having to let some die so that those with a better chance could be treated.
   
   Explains how the stupidity of the Vietnam war policies trickled into the health care of wounded and those who treated them.



3. This book is different. This book goes where no memoir has gone before. It is a soul sharing account of former US Army nurse Winnie Smith's three years in the US Army nurse corps with the focus on Viet-Nam and its devastating personal aftermath. You follow her from her initial days in the US Army to Japan where she gets her first views of the war in Viet-Nam. She starts developing strong relationships with the "warriors." Some become extended family. This closeness takes it toll as because the men she liked, and sometimes loved, were killed, lost in action, or wounded. Her testimony of life at the Third Field Hospital in Saigon and then in the head trauma unit of the next hospital were so vivid you are there. She lets it be known that the army was not set up for females by the lack of facilities available. She danced with David Nelson of Ozzie and Harriet fame with out even knowing who he was until the other nurses asked what he like was. Her fear had her turn down marriage proposal from West Pointer Peter. After the service, she had trouble with relationships. In the years ahead, she lived in Dallas then San Francisco. While she went to graduate school the years following Viet-Nam are a vivid picture of the horrors of past traumatic stress disorder. The book is a painful look at this horrific disorder. The book shows there is hope and in many ways seem to be her avenue for dealing with it. She is surprised other persons have similar difficulties coping. She is shocked to learn that her stepfather who lost a leg in World War II had been injured days into the combat zone and thus had no real experience of war as a point of common ground. The book is worth your time. It shows the human toll of any war.



4. Another thrift shop purchase that I wasn't sure I would take too but strangely enough I was compelled to read the book from cover to cover.
   
   At first the author Winnie Smith didn't strike me as all that likable, look at it from my point of view, a young white and attractive woman of the sixties, promiscuous yet strangely innocent, racist though she doesn't know it, after all racism was something that most people accepted as a kind of norm and at first filled with gung-ho patriotism to do her "bit" in Vietnam.
   
   However as I turned each page I began to see the human side of Winnie and I realised she was a woman of her time or rather she was a woman living in time of misunderstood values, and misplaced values that she just happened to be partaking a part in.
   
   Knee deep in blood, gore and guts Winnie does her "bit" sometimes seeing friends die in front of her, a particularly gruesome experience is seeing the chopper pilot she is with get the top of his head sliced off when their helicopter crashes. It is obvious from the way she writes that she is remembering every moment of that terrible incident.
   
   Despite all of this horror she seems to get used to sending young men back home minus limbs or their minds or in body bags and she gets on with her job of being a nurse.
   
   Interspersed in all of this is her innocence that is slowly but surely eroded by war and its indifferent cruelties, I laughed out loud when I read a section where she has to be told what "condom" is at the ripe old age of 22, Winnie grew up in Vietnam, came of age as did many of her counterparts but as woman she was never to be counted as one of the "survivors" of the Vietnam war.
   
   Winnie is as much a causality of the war as the men she has helped put back together or sent home in a casket. She doesn't realise this until she is sent stateside and only then does the real horror begin, she has to come to terms with what she has seen and been through.
   
   This is not a sentimental read, it is abrasive, harsh and mind numbing but it is also gives a real insight to the "other side" of war, of what it was like to be a Nurse looking after the soldiers wounded in battle.
   
   Despite having a loving family at home Winnie is never able to make them understand what it was "truly like" in Vietnam but if Winnie is anything she is a survivor and in the end she comes to terms with her being a "Vietnam Vet" and gets on with her life, scarred, battle weary but totally and utterly a survivor.



5. As a nurse of almost 25 years who graduated from high school in 1975 (just after Nixon's negotiated "peace with honor"), I have a sense that I could have done just what nurses like Winnie Smith and Lynda Devanter did. Gone to war to take care of people who would have needed me. Only time did save me...

   This is a disturbing book and ultimately convincing in one of its' pleas: Let's NOT send young people to combat anymore. I'd send a copy to our war-bent president if I thought it would make a difference.

   As an experienced ICU and ED nurse, I was horrified at the conditions these nurses worked (and lived) in.

   At the end of the book, though you feel less worried about Winnie Smith, you never get the sense that life will be "all better" for her. This pain, this scar is deep and everlasting.

   A raw and real book. I'd recommend it to anyone as I would DeVanter's book (Home Before Morning).

5 comments about Onward We Charge: The Heroic Story of Darby's Rangers in World War II.

1. Onward We Charge is a very detailed account of the battles of Darby's Rangers but it has one major failing...NO maps! As detailed as each battle and assault is described it is unbelievable to me that the author/publisher did not provide maps to allow the reader to follow along. There's not even a general Mediterrenean map. If you are not an expert in WWII history or don't have a military atlas while you read this book you will get lost pretty quickly. It finally got to the point where I almost gave up reading this book because I couldn't picture in my mind where the action was taking place. A battle book without maps shouldn't be printed.



2. During the Battle of El Guettar in World War II, members of Darby's Rangers recalled their commander's battle cry, "Onward we stagger, and if tanks come, may God help the tanks." Lifting parts of that line to use in his title, H. Paul Jeffers pays tribute with this fast-paced documentary of the contributions of General William O. Darby and his Rangers to the Allied victories in North Africa and Italy.
   
   The book begins with Darby's days as a schoolboy in Fort Smith, Arkansas and ends with Darby's death during the Battle of Po River in 1945 at the age of 34. He had gone from captain to Brigadier General in three years and eleven months, the only such promotion to star rank during the war. This was done after twice refusing promotions offered to him by General George Patton.
   
   Darby had a knack for being in the right place at the right time. At the beginning of U. S. involvement in World War II, Darby was given the task of building a commando-like unit, an idea that had no precedent in the history of the U.S. Army. Sent to Northern Ireland to train under British commandos, Darby's Rangers had their baptism of fire on the beaches of Dieppe, France in the ill-fated attempt to initiate a so-called "Second Front" in 1942. From there they were quickly sent to Northern Africa where they proved their worth conducting harassing raids and carrying out reconnaissance during battles in Algeria and Tunisia. The Rangers were so successful that their numbers were increased from one battalion to three in order to spearhead the invasion of Sicily.
   
   From the landings at Gela, through the capture of Palermo and the drive to Messina, the Rangers worked successfully in support of Patton's Third Army. It is here that Darby's Rangers gained fame as a fighting unit in the press alongside other units known by the name of their commander, such as Doolittle's Raiders, Merrill's Marauders, Chennault's Flying Tigers. In all, Darby's Rangers led the way in four invasions, and fought in twelve major battles in North Africa and Italy, including the assault on Anzio.
   
   As part of the Anzio battle strategy, the Rangers were sent to seize and control the town of Cisterna di Littoria, which sat at a strategic crossroads. It was here, in one of the lesser known side battles, that the Rangers met their unhappy end. The 1st and 3rd Battalions were ambushed by a massive force of German tanks and infantry. Of the 767 Rangers who infiltrated Cisterna, only six made it back to friendly lines. The majority were taken prisoner and paraded through the streets of Rome before eventually being incarcerated at Stalag II-B in West Prussia.
   
   In 1951, the U.S. Army Infantry School immortalized General Darby by extending Ranger training to selected combat units. Camp Darby continues to turn out U.S. Army Rangers to this day, many of whom are currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.



3. Generally not bad, but in my opinion marred by uneven treatment of details and plodding in some places. For example, I'm not sure why the author felt compelled to delve into the cost of constructing the high school Darby attended while omitting description or definition of a "sticky grenade", which would seem to be more relevant to the story. THe dust cover notes would lead a reader to believe that the book is mostly about Darby himself, but the actual content provides quite a bit of history of the Ranger units. The book benefitted from including excerpts from other author's analyses of significant events in Ranger history, including the disasterous mission at Cisterna.
   
   Good photos of the key players and locations described by the book, but some maps illustrating key battles would have been a useful supplement to the text. I was somewhat disappointed in the author's limited ability to convey the emotions of Darby and his staff. I felt I learned the military history of Darby and Rangers, but not as much as I expected about Darby as a person, or about the personal feelings of elation, frustration, dedication, or desparation as he and his soldiers must have experienced in some of those situations of great intensity.



4. ONWARD WE CHARGE is an inspiring account of one of WWII's most underrated heroes, Colonel William Darby. As with BAND OF BROTHERS, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in WWII nonfiction.



5. With all the nostalgia around WWII in the last ten years, it's hard to believe that it has taken this long for someone to tell the story of the famous Darby's Rangers. We take for granted now the incredible fighting skills and endurance of the Army Rangers, but once upon a time they were a brand new outfit, in a very uncertain war. Bill Darby was their heroic first leader, and fellow founder, and made them into what they became--the cream of the combat crop. This is an excellent telling of the Darby story, from the man's rise in the military, through his incredible leadership during the war (including combat scenes that will absolutely blow you away). I can highly recommend this compelling take on Col. Darby and the First Ranger Batallion in World War II.

5 comments about With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military.

1. Weinsteins documented how a particular Christian sect with a disturbing "end times" agenda has worked itself into every level of the U.S. military! ...gee GW..thanks!
   
   He talks about flyers at the academy...for 'LAST TEMPTATION' and is sharp enough to note that mels flavor is different...mels is catholic and gothic...while the 'endtimers' is protestant evangelical!!!!Still the academy pushes Mels movie!



2. Superbly written, with tight prose, this is a dynamic page-turner that will grab and hold your attention. At a time when the Administration of President Bush is filled with "yes men", Mikey Weinstein, graduate of the Air Force Academy, former JAG, counselor to President Reagan and attorney for Ross Perot, does not shrink from speaking truth to power. The events and truths he exposes are both deeply troubling and liberating.
   
   "With God on Our Side" reveals the transformation of Mikey Weinstein from a prominent attorney into a world-class civil rights activist - the Founder and President of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Within its pages Mikey's heart is exposed, along with his passion, his deep devotion to both his family and his Country. His love and commitment to the United States of America, its Constitution and its citizens are unsurpassed. From the moment he entered the Air Force Academy many years ago until now he has never wavered from honoring his pledge to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
   
   Having experienced first hand the tyrannical legacy of the Bush Administration's legacy of dismantling the Constitutionally-guaranteed wall of separation between Church and State, I know all too well that what Mikey exposes in the prescient volume is but the tip of the iceberg. Like Mikey's own sons, I too have experienced predatory proselyzing and blatant religious discrimination; whereas Mikey and his sons have experienced it at the Air Force Academy, my experience has been within the Department of Veterans Affairs and its medical facilities. Since Mikey founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation he has advocated not only for active duty and reserve military personnel, but also veterans. His efforts have directly and positively impacted my own life.
   
   There is not a book I would recommend more than Mikey Weinstein's "With God on Our Side." Buy the book, read it, and see for yourself the terrible consequences of the destruction of the First Amendment's guaranteed protection of religious liberty.



3. A fast paced, quick read, Weinstein's account of the troubles at the Academy raises many disturbing questions. Unfortunately, the military routinely invades privacy and stories of antisemitism are hardly new. Therein lies the problem with anecdotal evidence and the way the issue has been framed here. The separation of church and state, indeed civilian control of the military, has never been all that secure, resting, in part, on vague notions of privacy. Because Weinstein assumes the military is subject to clear, established Supreme Court principles, we are led to believe his is a reaction to an insubordinate, insurgent military. His stance does not allow us to ask whether the Court's principles are sufficient to protect everyone, including agnostics, and if it is a trustworthy agency to resist the attacks of evangelicals, particularly on those lacking religious affiliation.



4. Because a person believes in God and is a member of the Military, therefore, that individual, motivated by their belief in God, conspires to overthrow the government of the United States. Now you know what it's about, save your money for something worthwhile.



5. More than two years ago the author of this book started the Military Religious Freedom Foundation as a watchdog to make the military obey the laws of separation of Church and State. His concern started with a specific evil at his alma mater, the Air Force Academy, the chronic harassment and intimidation by evangelicals to pressure Catholics, liberal Christians, Jews, and others to assent to a right wing, primitive faith. Weinstein explains how the military has been taken over by a fundamentalist agenda. What these chaplains are doing is a blatant violation of the famous wall between Church and State.
   
   Various chaplaincy codes flatly prohibit the "proselytizing of any religion, faith or practice."(p. 74) In the command structure of superior and inferior of the military this may put government in the person of an officer in the position of commanding a soldier or cadet to convert or else. This prohibition of evangelizing the fundies reject as curtailing their freedom of religion, claiming that making converts is enjoined as an integral part of their religion. Anything less, they claim, is anti-Christian bigotry, a bias against the majority, and discrimination against their belief. Remember, in most circumstances when fundies speak of Christianity it does not include Roman Catholics and liberal or mainline denominations.
   
   Mikey Weinstein has qualification to take on this struggle few can match. A family tradition of father, son, and grandchildren graduating from the Air Force Academy, law degrees and experience of service in the White House, and a network of political allies. The book is a narrative of events at the Air Force Academy and the military in general which lead Weinstein to found the organization. The book is a quick and easy read. It seems part of a push back on the inroads made by "born again" religious fascists on the administration of the country. In the long run I do think the believers in fascist Christian authority will lose.

1 comments about Confederate Seadog: John Taylor Wood in War and Exile.

1. John Bell has written an excellent summary of the life of John Taylor Wood, commanding officer of the C.S.S. Tallahassee, one of the Confederate Navy's most successful cruisers in the War Between the States. While there have been several excellent accounts of the military action in which Wood participated this is the first full biography to give the complete story of this intrepid seaman. As Commander of the C.S.S. Tallahassee Chapter of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars I can unreservedly recommend this excellent study.---Dr. Robert G. Carroon

3 comments about When We Were One: Stories of World War II.

1. The late Bill Heinz was a great writer. I read this book straight through without stopping. He will be greatly missed.



2. This is a rough book to read if you're expecting a reasonably well-constructed narrative like Ambrose or Ryan. If you're looking for some first-hand accounts of action, this book may do the trick. I just found his over-reliance on infinitives "to be very hard to read."



3. This is a remarkable recently published book of short stories gleaned from this ETO war correspondents dispatches during WWII. The book is organized into 3 sections: Dispatches from 1944, 1945 and after the war is over.
   The "Dispatches" sections sometimes seem repetitive until you realize that they were published in a serial format, so each had to stand on it's own yet they were a continuing story. So the author had to "recap" sometimes what had happened so a new reader would be able to follow along.
   The "After the War" section is presented with current narration in regular type and the wartime writing in italics. It is a nice way to "flashback" while the author is revisiting locations that had wartime memories to him. Some of these were written for publication in national magazines in the 50's and 60's.
   I especially enjoyed the authors relating a visit to Point du Hoc in 1954 with the Commanding Officer of the Ranger Battalion that assaulted the cliffs there on D-Day, James Rudder, and Rudder's 14-year-old son. His final story ends with a sad poignancy that is suitable for a book of wartime remembrances. I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in WWII history.

5 comments about I Flew for the Fuhrer (Cassell Military Paperbacks).

1. This is a quick read. It takes the form of a diary, although it was written after the war. Knoke was a high-scoring Luftwaffe pilot. He fought briefly in the Battle of Britain, and then on the Russian front, but the majority of his victories were against bombers and escort fighters during the Allied bomber operations against the Reich in 1943 and 1944. At first he approaches this task with gusto. He comes up with a scheme to drop time-delay bombs onto the American bombers, and eagerly awaits the introduction of Me262 jet fighters. As the war continues his comrades are shot out of the sky, or crash in accidents, and he is frequently ordered to send his last half-dozen Messerschmitts against thousand-strong bomber formations, guarded by Allied fighters. He is shot down several times - there is a period in 1943 where he seems to be shot down every other page, but each time he gets back into the air, escaping from hospital if needs be. He ends the war with a smashed foot, numerous minor wounds, and a crippled right leg. This is all conveyed in punchy, precise sentences. He becomes accustomed to death early in his career, during one of his first training flights, and he does not become philosophical until the final chapters.
   
   Knoke comes across as a complicated man. He seems likeable, but there are flashes of darkness. He enjoys flying, and writes about the beauty of Norway's mountains, but he is clearly a product of his upbringing, and of a terrible regime. He describes the invasion of Poland as a liberation of the German minority from wanton massacres - perhaps he believed that in 1939, but the book was written in 1953, and is not a literal presentation of his diaries, it is a post-war adaptation. By the end of the book he is aware that the Nazis have brought nothing but death and destruction to everything he loved, but he is still puzzled that the world hates Germans. He wants the Allied forces to team up with the Germans and fight the Soviets. The book was written in 1953, and he ends by wondering when Stalin's tanks will roll across Europe. There is a postscript from 1991, in which he contemplates the fallen Berlin Wall, but he does not mention politics.
   
   It is interesting to compare the book with information that has emerged since it was published. The introduction credits him with fifty-two victories, but an appendix from 1997 notes that this is a mistake, and that he actually shot down thirty-three Allied aircraft. The 1997 appendix does not point out that Knoke died in 1993 (his wife, Lilo, who is mentioned throughout the book, died in 2000).
   
   On a tangent, there's a very informative website about Heinz Knoke's career, made by a man called Franck Ruffino. Amongst other things, it fills in some detail about Knoke's first shared kill, a Spitfire reconnaissance flight over Norway. Knoke writes that he is happy to see the pilot bale out, and later shares a brandy with him. The website identifies the RAF pilot as F/Lt Alastair Gunn. Sadly, it points out that Gunn was later executed for his part in the "great escape", something which would undoubtedly have horrified Knoke, if he had known.
   
   The website suggests that at least one of Knoke's anecdotes in the book was actually a white lie. There is an incident where he has to belly-land his 109 onto a Norwegian glacier. Knoke attributes this to a faulty fuel system, but the website makes a convincing case, based on photographs and personal testimony from a Norwegian urchin, that Knoke and two other pilots of his flight had been flying hundreds of miles off-course in order to take photographs of Norway's scenery, and they had simply run out of fuel. He could not write this down at the time, because he would have been court-martialed, and so would his friends.
   
   Knoke recounts a story in which he is shot down, and gets into a gunfight with some French resistance soldiers. It does not ring true. It seems very James Bond, complete with a witty quip from Knoke after he shoots a man in the head.
   
   If you are into fighter planes, Knoke generally does not go into detail about his aircraft, although there are little titbits here and there (he tests a 30mm cannon, and his 109 is equipped with unguided anti-bomber rockets on at least one occasion). He flies a 109 throughout his career, and seems to skip from an E to a G model, although he apparently flew an F model as well.
   
   Overall this is an interesting contrast to typical RAF pilot memoirs. Knoke seems to have been made of the same stuff - wet, soppy upbringing, followed by a brief burst of enthusiasm for the war, followed by grinding fatigue and fatalism - but at the same time his politics are laughable, and I have to wonder how much of the book is true to life, and how much is embroidered.



2. Written largely in diary form, the book will give you great insight into the mind of a German aviator in WWII. He seems sincere and straightforward, but the book was published after the war and everyone benefits from hindsight. Still, there are comparisons to be drawn with today's world. That is, how a country can be duped into starting a useless, destructive conflict.



3. "I Flew For the Fuhrer" was written by a former German interceptor pilot who was officially credited with 52 kills (planes, not airmen), and he undoubtedly bagged more.
   
   Will we ever be able to sift WWII truth from wartime propaganda? This book is a start.
   
   The author tells us both the overall picture and the situation in his own unit. For example, he informs us that the German attack on Russia was a pre-emptive strike because of an imminent Russian attack.
   
   "We soon reach Grodno. The roads are clogged with Russian armies everywhere. The reason gradually dawns on us why the sudden surprise attack was ordered by our High Command. We begin to appreciate the full extend of the Russian preparations to attack us. We have just forestalled the Russian time table for an all-out attack against Germany for the mastery of Europe...The situation is ideal for the Bolshevists to launch their attack on Europe in furtherance of their general plan for world revolution."
   
   The recounting of the aerial dogfights was thrilling. The author had a special move, a spiraling corkscrew climb that enabled him to escape many times. The author and his friend also dreamed up the idea of bombing tightly packed bomber formations. They used rockets too.
   
   The numerical superiority of the allies was 8 to 1 in fighters, so it's not surprising that the author was shot down five times. He also experienced a few crash landings during training and in non-combat circumstances.
   
   At the end of the war the odds became suicidal, and after ditching his aircraft the author had to escape from the French resistance.
   
   Ahh, but all war is not Hell. "If we should lose this campaign, the conduct of the Frenchwomen must bear a major share of the responsibility. Nights of passion and debauchery..."
   
   I've heard of being swallowed up by the Russian winter, but swallowed up by the French ... oh, never mind.



4. If Heinz had been an RAF pilot he would have been out of the cockpit more than in it. An absorbing account of the never ending and punishing grind of the German combat pilot. His accounts of aerial bombing of US B17's and B24's is made all the more remarkable in the way the tactic came about. His regard for his enemy and his comrade admirable. Not to be missed.



5. just a beautiful true not hyped up story of a fighter pilots everyday life with clean well writen storys.How wounderful and full of energy knoke was in the early 40,s to the total destruction of his fighter wing in 45.

3 comments about ADVENTURES IN MY YOUTH: A German Soldier on the Eastern Front 1941-45.

1. What a great read. This is a superbly done memoir that I found to be interresting, informative, humbling and fascinating. It ranks among the best I have read (in my personal opinion) about the German soldier in WW2. I do agree with a previous reader that a lack of photos and maps keeps me from giving it a 5. However, compared to SS Panzergrenadier (a bunch of crap), Adventures in my Youth is absoutely worth the time. Thank you, Armin, for leaving us this narrative.



2. Excellent account of a young platoon leader and company commander's experiences fighting the Russians in WWII. Explains in detail elements of WWII German officer training; one of the reasons the German Army remainded a deadly opponent to the end of the war was the overall high quality of its company grade officers and NCOs. Describes in detail how it felt to be on the receiving end of a massive Soviet artillery barrage and to defend against tank-supported massed infantry assaults. Points out things this officer did right and wrong in combat, and how a young men deal with death in combat. One of the handful of books written from a company grade infantry officer's perspective; most accounts deal with panzer and panzer grenadier units, but this one does not. It focuses on the combat actions of an infantry regiment equipped with horse-drawn waggons for supply and occasionally transportation. Rock solid history of small unit to regimental combat on the Eastern Front in WWII.



3. This was a well written and detailed autobiography of a young Austrian's experience in the German Army as an infantry officer on the Eastern Front. He covers his officer training in 1941/42 when the army was still interested in turning out gentlemen as well as competent leaders of men. Armin saw his first action in Russia in 1942 and his last as a badly wounded hospital patient in Danzig in 1945 where he began two years of Soviet captivity.

   This book deserved 5-stars, but the publisher did not include any maps! How a reader is suppost to follow a military campaign of movement without maps is beyond me and is the only real flaw of this book. Be warned that the print is small (paperback size), and some photos would have been nice too(there were none). Despite its flaws, it is still a good read.

5 comments about Kill-Cavalry: The Life of Union General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick.

1. The earlier critical comments about "Kill-Cavalry" are generally accurate. Here are some of the main points.
   
   1. Author Samual J. Martin is neither a trained writer nor a trained historian. He is a retired businessman in South Carolina whose post-retirement hobby is doing Civil War research. The lengthy bibliography attests to his detailed research, much of which is semi-original (manuscripts, official documents, correspondence, newspapers, etc.). His writing itself is dreadful, not in the sense of poor grammar or sentence structure but in its straightforward and completely uninvolving style.
   
   2. Although Kilpatrick led an extremely colorful (if brief) life, he is a difficult subject for historical research. His daughter burned his personal papers after his death, his contemporaries are long dead, and his tendency to exaggerate his successes and disguise his mistakes make most surviving accounts suspect. Factor in the difficulty of tracking the activities of any individual cavalry unit during the Civil War and you have a very difficult task making any definitive claims about Kilpatrick.
   
   3. Martin has an obvious ax to grind concerning his subject. While Kilpatrick was a self-promoting scoundrel, an objective examination of most of his contemporaries would reveal that these qualities were almost a prerequisite for ascendancy within either army. Martin's anti-Kilpatrick agenda sidetracks him from the two best biographical styles for a subject such as Kilpatrick. The most entertaining would be a light-hearted examination of his escapades (Kilpatrick was a Civil War version of actor Errol Flynn-both of Irish descent) and a fun look at his exploits would be quite entertaining. Another alternative would have been to draw parallels with contemporaries like Dan Sickles, Phil Sheridan, and George Custer. Unfortunately Martin's pious disapproval does not allow him to explore either avenue.
   
   4. Because of Martin's prejudices about his subject and his lack of good source material he seems compelled to editorialize throughout the book. Bad enough, but his narrative often contradicts his conclusions. For example, Martin is convinced that Kilpatrick was a cowardly soldier and points to many examples of Kilpatrick losing his nerve in combat situations. Yet at the same time he details Kilpatrick's drive for recognition and tendency to recklessly commit his command to action. Like all but the most senior cavalry officers, Kilpatrick was up in a saddle with his troopers on all their raids and maneuvers, and remained this style of cavalryman for almost the entire war. He was not an armchair general but a field officer in a serious pursuit of advancement and fame. There were far easier and safer commands for West Point trained officers. Had he been lazy or cowardly he would have sought a desk job but he believed the cavalry offered him the best prospects for advancement and recognition.
   
   5. Martin is highly critical of both Kilpatrick's command performance and his refusal to expose himself to danger at Brandy Station in 1863. He does not even mention Kilpatrick's saber fight with a hated West Point classmate during that engagement. But Eric Wittenberg goes into detail about this incident in "The Union Cavalry Comes of Age" (2003): Kilpatrick squared off with a Confederate officer he had known and disliked at West Point...the Southerner gave Kilpatrick a slight cut on the arm...receiving a vicious slash the Confederate officer reeled in his saddle. Seeing an opportunity Kilpatrick killed his injured foe with a slashing cut of his saber. The victorious colonel rejoined his brigade, proclaiming, "That rights a wrong. I have wanted to meet him ever since the war commenced".
   
   6. Rather than bring Kilpatrick to life, Martin fills many pages of the book with general Civil War history. For a book of only 268 pages, there is simply too much detail about the battles and movements of the two armies, without regard to whether Kilpatrick himself was involved.
   
   7. Martin sensationalizes the cavalry charge Kilpatrick and Merritt ordered during the 3rd day of Gettysburg. He goes into great detail about a somewhat dubious account of Kilpatrick's interaction with a subordinate commander, yet fails to examine the very real tactical opportunity that he and Merritt had recognized and were trying to exploit. One of Merritt regiments had tied up the two brigades of Confederate cavalry in Fairfield; leaving the right flank of Lee's army open to attack. Had Law's (formerly Hood's) division been positioned to support Longstreet's assault on the Union center, the cavalry charge would most likely have been a significant success.
   
   Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.



2. There are some figures of the Civil War that it is very easy to hate. Even today, very few Civil War buffs have anything good to say about Braxton Bragg or Henry Halleck for example. While not as well known as Bragg or Halleck, there is much to distain in the life of Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, a Union cavalry commander from New Jersey. Samuel J. Martin provides more than enough dirt on Kilpatrick's rather sordid personal life and less than honorable character. Kilpatrick was a selfish and vain man whose ambition for power and glory led him to act rashly and often foolishly while covering his mistakes in the press and reports to his superiors. Furthermore, Kilpatrick was a womanizer who had no qualms about cheating on his wife and discarding mistresses, even those who he impregnated. Martin certainly proves that General Kilpatrick was a scoundrel.
   
   Martin leads the reader through Kilpatrick's rather checkered Civil War career. Graduating from West Point in 1861, Kilpatrick served with the New York volunteers and became known for his rash charges and his willingness to fight. Martin seems to accept this reputation but seems to argue that Kilpatrick was a physical coward, a rather odd statement considering the general's willingness to fight on the battlefield or off (even calling out Southern cadets at West Point to fist fights). Kilpatrick won some fame for driving his men to within 2 miles of Richmond as part of the Stoneman Raid during the Chancelorsville campaign and became a general in the summer of 1863. While part of his division won laurels at Gettysburg (Custer's brigade), the Kilpatrick ordered charge on July 3 proved to be an error, costing the lives of many men of Farnwsorth's brigade including Farnsworth himself. Kilpatrick would lead another raid on Richmond in early 1864, hoping to free a number of Union prisoners, pass out Lincoln's amnesty proclomation and capture and perhaps kill key Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. Martin agrees with the Stephen Sears that Kilpatrick was in charge of the raid though a recent article by David Long (which he is turning into a book) argues that Dahlgren planned to kill Davis and that Kilpatrick, a notorious leaker to the press, was out of the loop. After the failure of the raid, Kilpatrick was sent west and led Union cavalry for Sherman's march to the sea and Carolina campaigns.
   
   After the war, Kilpatrick, who in the war expressed presidential ambitions, made two failed efforts to get the Republican gubenatorial nomination in New Jersey, ran unsuccessfully for the House of Represenatives in 1880 and twice served as ambasador to Chile. He passed way in 1881 in Chile at the age of 45. While a Republican, he was recalled from Chile by Grant which led to his supporting Horace Greely in 1872. Kilpatrick returned to the GOP and supported Hayes in 1876 and Garfield in 1880.
   
   Martin certainly reveals Kilpatrick's dismal character and offers a solid, if often overly critical, account of his military career. In all fairness Martin had little to work with as Kilpatrick's papers were destroyed. Still, Kilpatrick's political career could have been examined in greater detail. For all his faults, Kilpatrick had an energy and ambition to him which made him a fairly represenative figure for his times. One is left wondering, after reading Martin's book, why Kilpatrick simply was not shelved. Kilpatrick, again with all his baggage, was a fighter and those were few and far between in the Union ranks. His ambition forced him to the battlefield and took him into politics. While Martin reveals the dark side to this ambition, Kilpatrick rose out of youthful obscurity to win a solid reputation. He could not have been merely the talentless scoundrel that Martin depicts. While Martin seems to rely a great deal on secondary sources, he really had no other choice. Despite that, one suspects that Martin went into writing the book with his thesis already formulated and that is what proves frustrating about this book. Martin should have given the reader a portrait of Kilpatrick in full as opposed to bashing us over the head with how much of a jerk the man was.



3. 
   To say Hugh Kilpatrick was a controversial figure would be an understatement. Small in stature, it's my opinion he suffered from the "little man" complex: he attempted to over-compensate for his slight physical size by his recklessness and bravado. This would explain his rashness regarding his plan to attack Richmond and free the prisoners there, which was repulsed decidedly by the Confederates (though Sheridan attempted the same thing 10 weeks later with the same results). Disparaged by many of his fellow officers (Sherman called him a "damned fool"), it's also reported that his men respected him. Martin is highly critical.
   
   Kilpatrick was born in New Jersey in 1836 and graduated from West Point the year the Civil War broke out. He commanded a number of New York Cavalry brigades during the first two years of the war, receiving a serious wound at Big Bethel and then seeing much action in Virginia. After participating in the largest cavalry engagement of the war at Brandy Station in June 1863, he was promoted to brigadier general. He was conspicuous at Gettysburg, where his orders to E.J. Farnsworth to attack Hood, who was well-positioned behind stone walls, on the third day caused much slaughter to Farnsworth's men and Farnsworth's own death from five separate wounds. In the winter of 1864 he made his ill-fated attack on Richmond which resulted in failure. In the spring of that year he served in the Atlanta campaign and was wounded seriously for the second time at Resaca, GA. Recuperating by August, he performed well as commander of cavalry during the Carolina campaign and was a major factor in the capture of Fayetteville, NC, in March 1865. After the war he was appointed U.S. Minister to Chile, where he died in 1881.
   
   Martin's dislike for his subject is quite clear. In this he joins a long list of historians, most of whom regard Kilpatrick as showing poor judgment and costly wantonness. He finds his failure at Richmond to be his worst mistake. Despite this, however, I thought the book was interesting and well written, and made an honest attempt to capture the life of the man for the reader. The book also contained excellent maps and clear elucidation of military affairs. Not the definitive work on Kilpatrick, but not one for the waste heap, either.



4. This book smacks of a work done by someone who had a thesis and then did everything he could to prove it, rather than letting the research bring him to a conclusion.

   Fortunately, I did get the feeling that the basic history of Killpatrick was decent and reasonably fair-minded. At the end of each chapter, however, Martin adds his commentaty about how the foregoing information shows that Kilpatrick was a horrible leader, womanizer, thief, etc. At one point, Martin suggests that the attempt on Jefferson Davis' life introduced the idea of assination, even to the point of possibly leading to Lincoln's murder. Right.

   Killpatrick's womanizing, thievery, etc comes out, for sure, but were his casualities really highter than comparable commanders? That's not clear. He won some battles and lost others--like most Civil War leaders.




5. This author falls into the same trap that's been laid for researchers for the past 135 years. The most glaring example is the standard portrayal of Kilpatrick at Gettysburg, all of which is based on one source who admitted years later he was never a witness to what actually happened or was said on the field that day. Like researchers before him, the author missed this glaring truth.

   Here are two hints of Kilpatrick's character and performance: (1) His men held him in such high esteem that they petitioned Lincoln to have him promoted to general (a rare occurrence in the CW); and (2) after the battle of Gettysburg his men presented their commander with a Damascus sword in appreciation for his leadership on July 3.

   In short, an author who doesn't dig deeper than his predecessors is dancing to the worn-out tune of incredulity.

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