Sea Wolves Savage Submarine Commanders of WW2

Sea Wolves Savage Submarine Commanders of WW2 written by Tony Matthews

and published by Pen & Sword Books - £25 - Hardback - Pages 272

From the heart-rending account of the sinking of the German liner Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945 — the worst maritime disaster in world history — through to a variety of other brutal actions carried out by numerous submarine commanders, including the sinking of the hospital ship Centaur in 1943, this book comes from the deep shadows of a tragic past to reveal the terrible truth of a secretive war that was responsible for the deaths of unimaginable numbers of innocent people.

Discover how merchant seamen were savagely machine-gunned in the water, callously

slaughtered with hand-grenades or simply left to the circling sharks. Elsewhere, hundreds

of doctors, nurses, ship’s crew, ambulance drivers and hospital orderlies were viciously

killed without compassion, despite being protected by the Geneva Convention.

Sea Wolves: Savage Submarine Commander of WW2 features true stories of deeply

murderous intent that lurked menacingly beneath the waves.

You could argue that this is a rather gloomy book and you could say that war is dark, but this book does look at 4 military situations in which a lot of death occurred. The four commanders were Nakagawa, Eck, Ariizumi & Marinsko and these commanders were involved in the sinking of a hospital ship, killing or torturing survivors and evacuating civilians. The stories or incidents were very well told and I suppose we have to remember the bad things that happen in the hope of never repeating them or just because everyone deserves to be remembered no matter how they killed. While this is a good book, if you want a broader telling of submariners at war, you would go for a different title. But the book does stand as a good and well-researched book and one I would be happy to recommend.

Masters of Warfare - Fifty Underrated Military Commanders from Classical Antiquity to the Cold War

Masters of Warfare - Fifty Underrated Military Commanders from Classical

Antiquity to the Cold War written by Eric G. L. Pinzelli and published by

Pen & Sword Books - £25 - Hardback - Pages 336

In Masters of Warfare, Eric G. L. Pinzelli presents a selection of fifty commanders whose

military achievements, skill or historical impact he believes to be underrated by modern

opinion. He specifically does not include the household names (the ‘Gods of War’ as he

calls them) such as Alexander, Julius Caesar, Wellington, Napoléon, Rommel or Patton

that have been covered in countless biographies.

Those chosen come from every period of recorded military history from the sixth century BC to the Vietnam War. The selection rectifies the European/US bias of many such surveys with Asian entries such as Bai Qi (Chinese), Attila (Hunnic), Subotai (Mongol), Ieyasu Tokugawa (Japanese) and Võ Nguyên Giáp (Vietnamese). Naval commanders are also represented by the likes of Khayr al-Dīn Barbarossa, Francis Drake and Michiel de Ruyter.

These 50 “Masters of War” are presented in a chronological order easy to follow, with a concise overview of their life and career. Altogether they present a fascinating survey of the developments and continuities in the art of command, but most importantly their contribution to the evolution of weaponry, tactic and strategy through the ages.

This book takes a look at military commanders throughout time, men who excelled at strategy, tactics and leadership. The author Pinzelli also openly admits that he has tried to look at the lesser leaders in war, so not your Caesar, Napoleon or Wellington. Then added to that, the book has tried not to have a western bias but concentrate more on an Asian or Eastern theme. Now my knowledge of the Eastern theatre of war isn’t the best yet, but I did enjoy learning more about various military leaders I hadn’t heard of before. So yes, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I will use this as a good reference book. I suppose my only disappointment was that I would like to see a balanced book from all battles so we could clearly see who the real top military leaders were. A really good book, one for the military enthusiasts.

Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare

Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare written by Michael E. Glynn and published by 

Frontline Books - £25.00 - Hardback - Pages 258

Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare unlocks the history and theory behind the shadowy art of how aircraft hunt for submarines. Written by a veteran US Navy submarine hunting pilot, this book will take aviators, naval enthusiasts, and military scholars behind the scenes to understand how technical breakthroughs, the evolution of weapons, and advances in sensors have shaped this high-risk game of cat and mouse.

On 15 September 1916, the French submarine Foucault was spotted and attacked by a pair of Austro-Hungarian flying boats in the Adriatic. During the bombing that followed, Foucault was so badly damaged that she was eventually abandoned by her crew – all of whom survived. This was the first time in history that a submarine had been sunk by an aircraft. It was an engagement which set in motion a constantly evolving aspect of underwater warfare.

In this book, Michael Glynn explores a journey through the history of more than 100 years of aerial sub hunting. From the Great War, through the Battle of the Atlantic in the Second World War and on to the secret confrontations of the Cold War, the reader will witness the parallel evolution of both aircraft and submarine as each side tries to gain supremacy over the other. In so doing, he distils complicated oceanography, operations analysis, and technical theory into easily digested concepts, helping the reader understand how complex weapons and sensors function. By reviewing the steps of a submarine hunting flight, the reader can quickly understand how theory and practice fit together and how aviators set out to achieve their goal of detecting their submarine targets.

Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare is a thrilling read for those seeking a glimpse into an arcane and high-stakes world.

This book takes the reader from World War One through to the present day looking at airborne anti submarine warfare, technology, tactics, sound and oceanology to name but a few. It's all very much a race between the two competitors countering submarines and intercepting and stopping submarines. The book takes us through fixed wing and rotary aircraft and looks at how radar hunting and technology have advanced for both sides.

What was good about this book is that it was written by a former pilot who has obviously experienced this type of warfare or fighting. It adds to the authenticity and expertise of the writing and very well done it is too. I should say that whilst I found the book of great interest and very informative, I would say others may not read the book due to its subject matter and technicalities.

Tiger I & Tiger II Tanks

Tiger I and Tiger II Tanks written by Dennis Oliver and published by Pen & Sword Books - £16.99 - Softcover - Pages 64

By the first weeks of 1945, the Eastern Front had been pushed back to the Carpathian mountain passes in the south and Warsaw on the Vistula River in the centre while in the north the German army was fighting in East Prussia. The Wehrmacht's armoured and mobile formations were now employed exclusively as fire brigades, rushed from one crisis to the next as the Red Army pushed inexorably westward. Critical to the German defence were the army's heavy Panzer battalions whose Tiger tanks, with their 8.8cm guns, were almost invincible on the open plains of central Europe. In his latest book in the TankCraft series Dennis Oliver uses archive photos and extensively researched colour illustrations to examine the Tiger tanks and units of the German Army and Waffen-SS heavy Panzer battalions that struggled to resist the onslaught of Soviet armour during the last days of the conflict which culminated in the battle for Berlin. A key section of his book displays available model kits and aftermarket products, complemented by a gallery of beautifully constructed and painted models in various scales. Technical details, as well as modifications introduced during production and in the field, are also examined providing everything the modeller needs to recreate an accurate representation of these historic tanks.

I do love a nice Tiger tank, personally, I think one of the more beautiful tanks, if a tank can be called that. So you can see that if I love a Tiger tank, then I must have enjoyed this book, and I did indeed. As usual with these books, they are very well written and informed, the research that goes into these books, although small is no less than a standard-sized book. You have all the tank dimensions, specifications and theatre of war camouflage, the history and the operations they are specifically well known for. Now obviously, these books are twinned with being aimed at model makers/collectors, now I’m not one of these but this particular section of the books always seems very well done. So in all, this book hits the mark in all ways, another good addition to the range.